Day one of Build = done. While I loved many things that Satya talked about in his keynote including the joining of Kinect and Azure to take advantage of the amazing technology that is in the Kinect, there are two things that I found particularly exciting for consumers.
First, we have the first friendship of digital assistants. As demonstrated at Build today, Alexa and Cortana are about to join forces. Now, I do not mean to say that they will be joined with some mega-merger between Amazon and Microsoft. Instead, the two assistants will be able to summon each other to take advantage of each other's strengths.
To utilize this ability, simply ask for one another. For instance, on a Windows PC, you can simply ask Cortana to speak with Alexa. From there, you can ask to do tasks that Alexa can handle but Cortana cannot such as order online; she even tells a pretty good joke about Cortana. On the other hand, you can ask Alexa on an Echo to have Cortana send an email which is something that Cortana can handle but Alexa cannot.
While this feature is still in beta, it does present tremendous potential for both digital assistants and would instantly make the two much more powerful.
Now, as I am not a huge Alexa user, the most exciting thing for me that came from Build today was the introduction of the Your Phone app coming to the Microsoft store. This app, soon available, will essentially mirror your phone screen on to the computer screen; according to Microsoft, you will not have to pick up your phone while you are at your computer.
While this has been attempted several times before, the idea is that this will be integrated directly in to the PC; it will be infinitely more useable than the Continue to PC feature as it seems to not require Microsoft Launcher or Cortana. In addition, it is slated to work with iOS as well.
Currently, the details of how the technology will work (WiFi, Bluetooth, etc) are hazy, the initial offering will work for features such as SMS, contacts, browsers, and other basic uses with more features to come. For me, I have been waiting for the Messages on Web from Google to come for months, and if this feature comes in the meantime, it will make it much easier to message from my PC. When I had my Windows Phone, this was one of the marquee features for me. This screen mirroring will also offer tremendous usage for those that work from home and prevent the pull of focus from checking a phone.
With day two keynote tomorrow as well as the Google I/O keynote coming tomorrow, there will be plenty more tech buzz to come, but for now, just enjoy the beginning news from a newsworthy week.
P.S. Typed on my Pixel in a parking lot so I apologized for any formatting inconsistency.
First, we have the first friendship of digital assistants. As demonstrated at Build today, Alexa and Cortana are about to join forces. Now, I do not mean to say that they will be joined with some mega-merger between Amazon and Microsoft. Instead, the two assistants will be able to summon each other to take advantage of each other's strengths.
To utilize this ability, simply ask for one another. For instance, on a Windows PC, you can simply ask Cortana to speak with Alexa. From there, you can ask to do tasks that Alexa can handle but Cortana cannot such as order online; she even tells a pretty good joke about Cortana. On the other hand, you can ask Alexa on an Echo to have Cortana send an email which is something that Cortana can handle but Alexa cannot.
While this feature is still in beta, it does present tremendous potential for both digital assistants and would instantly make the two much more powerful.
Now, as I am not a huge Alexa user, the most exciting thing for me that came from Build today was the introduction of the Your Phone app coming to the Microsoft store. This app, soon available, will essentially mirror your phone screen on to the computer screen; according to Microsoft, you will not have to pick up your phone while you are at your computer.
While this has been attempted several times before, the idea is that this will be integrated directly in to the PC; it will be infinitely more useable than the Continue to PC feature as it seems to not require Microsoft Launcher or Cortana. In addition, it is slated to work with iOS as well.
Currently, the details of how the technology will work (WiFi, Bluetooth, etc) are hazy, the initial offering will work for features such as SMS, contacts, browsers, and other basic uses with more features to come. For me, I have been waiting for the Messages on Web from Google to come for months, and if this feature comes in the meantime, it will make it much easier to message from my PC. When I had my Windows Phone, this was one of the marquee features for me. This screen mirroring will also offer tremendous usage for those that work from home and prevent the pull of focus from checking a phone.
With day two keynote tomorrow as well as the Google I/O keynote coming tomorrow, there will be plenty more tech buzz to come, but for now, just enjoy the beginning news from a newsworthy week.
P.S. Typed on my Pixel in a parking lot so I apologized for any formatting inconsistency.
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