Windows 10

Microsoft gets its Windows mojo back

Life
( Image: Microsoft)

22 January 2015

Microsoft showed off more of its still-under-construction consumer-centric features for Windows 10 yesterday, focusing on features like the voice-activated Cortana digital assistant and its universal app model that aims to put the same apps on PCs, tablets, smartphones and hybrid 2-in-1s.

The company also announced that upgrades to Windows 10 will be free to all devices currently running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 on PCs or tablets, or Windows 8.1 on Windows smartphones.

The two hour-and-a-half-hour keynote – which kicked off a day-long, invite-only press and analyst event on the firm’s Redmond, Washington campus – both summarised earlier revelations about Windows 10 and then offered up more information about what is coming in impending previews.

“This is the second of several conversations we’ll be having with you [about] Windows 10,” said Terry Myerson, the Microsoft executive who leads its operating systems group, implying that the company will be doing more than just a developer-centric presentation in April at Build conference before it releases the OS into the wild.

Myerson claimed that Microsoft had accumulated about 1.7 million participants in its Windows 10 preview programme, and that the sneak peek had been installed more than 3 million times.

“They showed that they’re interested in what the Insiders [developer programme participants] are saying and taking that feedback and responding to that feedback,” said Dawson, using the label for the those registered with the Windows 10 Technical Preview programme.

Cortana on the desktop
Most of the presentation was dedicated to trumpeting additions to Windows 10, notably Cortana, the now-on-phones-only voice-activated service that Microsoft bills as its answer to Apple’s Siri on iOS. Cortana will be baked into the desktop version of Windows 10, and will accept commands, transcribe e-mails, search for documents and more.

If Cortana is as useful on PCs as Microsoft showed today, Apple may be pressed to add Siri to OS X, a long-rumoured move it has not yet made.

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