New 2016 Microsoft Cortana Features Remind Users of Email Promises

Summary: Two new 2016 Microsoft Cortana features remind users of email promises and gives alerts concerning conflicting, late or last-minute appointment times.

Microsoft Cortana, an intelligent digital personal assistant: iphonedigital, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Two new 2016 Microsoft Cortana features remind Windows customers of their email promises and spotlight conflicting, last-minute and unusual appointment times, according to a post Monday, Jan. 25, 2016, on the Windows Experience Blog by Marcus Ash, Cortana group program manager.

The two new 2016 Microsoft Cortana features refine Microsoft’s vision of an effective, indispensable digital assistant that relevantly eases home and work lives for their Windows customers.

“We’re excited to announce two new features that help us further that vision,” explains Marcus Ash in a Windows’ YouTube video published Jan. 25. “The first is the ability for Cortana to suggest reminders based on your email, similar to what we do with tracking flights and packages.”

Cortana reminders help Windows customers keep business and personal promises that are made via email and then are forgotten easily in the email overload generated by life’s daily busyness.

“Here’s an example,” suggests Ash in his informative video. “My wife and I are exchanging a bunch of emails trying to figure out what we’re going to do for date night. I say: ‘I’ll buy the movie tickets.’ I go on about my day. I forget about that. When I open up Cortana, Cortana is right there with a suggestion saying: ‘Hey, Marcus, you said you’d buy these movie tickets’ and gives me the option to set a reminder so I don’t forget again.”

The second new 2016 Microsoft Cortana feature ups the level of proactive schedule management for Windows customers. Cortana detects appointments that cause a schedule conflict, fall outside of a customer’s normal schedule or occur at the last minute.

“The second feature we’re announcing is the ability for Cortana to help you manage your calendar by giving you insights,” explains Ash in the YouTube video. “Things like: ‘This is a very early meeting’; ‘This is a very late meeting’; ‘This meeting has conflicts’; ‘This meeting happens over your normal commute time.’ And many other insights so that you can take the next appropriate action.”

The two new 2016 Microsoft Cortana features first are being rolled out as experimental, prerelease software to participants in the Windows Insider Program. Eventually they will become available to all Windows 10 users.

In his Jan. 26 post to the Windows Experience Blog, Ash shares that the challenge of unkept promises, buried and easily forgotten in email pileups, drove Microsoft Corporation’s research division, Microsoft Research (MSR), to expand Cortana reminders to encompass automatic recognition of emailed commitments. As Group Program Manager of Microsoft’s Cortana team, Ash and his team worked closely with Microsoft Research in making reminders of emailed promises a reality.

Cortana is an intelligent personal assistant created first for Windows Phone customers and now available across all Windows 10 devices. Cortana’s namesake is a synthetic intelligence (SI) character in Microsoft Studios’ Halo military science fiction first-person shooter video game franchise.

“Like a real personal assistant, Cortana’s going to keep learning, evolving. We’re going to keep delivering new features, and she’s going to get better over time,” notes Ash in his YouTube video.

screenshot of Cortana's display of the day's meetings: Windows @Windows, via Twitter Jan. 25, 2016

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Microsoft Cortana, an intelligent digital personal assistant: iphoneditial, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/iphonedigital/23675710435/

screenshot of Cortana's display of the day's meetings: Windows‏ @Windows, via Twitter Jan. 25, 2016, @ https://twitter.com/Windows/status/691770272484057093

For further information:

Ash, Marcus. "Cortana Gets Better at Helping You Manage Your Busy Schedule." Windows Experience Blog. Jan. 25, 2016.
Available @ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/01/25/cortana-gets-better-at-helping-you-manage-your-busy-schedule/

Bell, Karissa. "Microsoft's Cortana can now remind you to follow through on email promises." Mashable > Tech. Jan. 25, 2016.
Available @ http://mashable.com/2016/01/25/microsoft-cortana-email-reminders/#nUvfooLV4PqL

Windows. "Cortana: Now Doing More To Help You Get Things Done." YouTube. Jan. 25, 2016.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mo3Db-iGmg

Windows‏ @Windows. "Cortana Gets Better at Helping You Manage Your Busy Schedule." Twitter tweet of Jan. 25, 2016.
Available @ https://twitter.com/Windows/status/691770272484057093