Gadgetory

Microsoft is betting big on the future of box I'm Bridget Carey this is your C net update having a separate smartphone app for every task is so yesterday the next time you need to book a trip or order a pizza you could just ask Cortana inside of Skype Microsoft is working on a future where we can have a conversation with the Windows 10 assistant Cortana to take care of complex tasks and make suggestions and the artificial intelligence would be smart enough to understand our context clues but for this to work Microsoft needs companies to start building BOTS so Cortana can be the middleman or is that middle woman to handle the requests Microsoft showed off some of the possibilities at its annual build Developers Conference Cortana could talk to a bot for a hotel chain to book a hotel after seeing that a trip is on your calendar and a Domino's bot can be used to order a pizza but when I say but I don't mean one of these a bot is a program that can converse with us like a chat bot and a few are available to try now on skype Microsoft has been working on artificial intelligence with the chat BOTS a-and well tell you still work in progress as you may already know Microsoft took Kay offline temporarily and you could say she's still in sensitivity training from repeating the terrible things people were teaching her to say on Twitter but BOTS can do more than just tweet or order pizza BOTS can also interpret images we saw an example of how a blind person could be told what's happening in front of him by wearing glasses that took photos and played audio descriptions of what's happening or of people's facial expressions the same tech can be used by a smartphone camera so it could read off a restaurant menu but there's more new stuff from Microsoft to talk about besides BOTS instead of coming out with a Windows 11 or a 10-point something Microsoft is pushing out new features to the operating system called anniversary updates and the next one is coming as a free download this summer among the new features will be new ways to use biometrics like your face or your fingerprint as a password you could log into a website with biometrics through the edge browser drawing on the touchscreen with the stylus is also improved with new tools like a digital ruler and if you draw on a big map it knows it is a 3d image and it'll stick to the curves of the landscape the Xbox is also getting some love with Windows 10 Cortana it's coming to Xbox one to become a personal gaming assistant offering tips and tricks and there wasn't much new to say about the hololens but the first units are now being shipped to developers to create experiences with the mixed reality headset those are the big takeaways from Microsoft's event but if you want more details on BOTS and everything new in Windows 10 Heide cnet.com from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey