While we have been pondering the possibilities of how Microsoft’s new digital assistant, Cortana, might operate in an iOS or Android environment, Microsoft Program Manager, Marcus Ash made a point to let his Twitter followers know that Cortana would soon be expanding her reach.
Cortana will be available in the United Kingdom and in China “very soon,” which Ash translated to mean a matter of weeks, not months.
While a welcome development, it will probably not change Cortana’s “beta” status, rather, simply widening native reach so more developers and enthusiasts can take advantage of everything Windows Phone 8.1 has to offer.
When the developer preview of Windows Phone 8.1 was launched, Cortana was restricted to the US market only. There are workarounds to that situation, but there is obviously no support yet for Cortana to start understanding other languages or accents.
Certainly the move in the coming weeks is a precursor to a global launch, and it is apt to expand English language comprehension as well as Chinese, with both being dominant in developed as well as developing markets. Microsoft would also score a feather in its cap for growing the digital assistant in ways we have yet to see in Google Now.
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We have no official time line for how many weeks Ash means, we can always hope for something before the end of June, or early July.
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Maxwell Ramsey has made significant contributions to PhoneArena through his detailed reporting on technology policy and advancements, such as wireless charging standards and FCC regulations, helping demystify complex topics for a broad readership.
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