Your parents love you, Cortana. That's why we bought you an upgrade

Microsoft's decided its Cortana speech assistant needs a bit of buffing to survive in a world where Google AI can book restaurants and a parrot can turn the lights off with Alexa*, so the company has acquired a conversational-AI startup called Semantic Machines. The company announced the purchase by saying its goal is …

[Anonymous Coward]

Your Parents Love You.

Everyone else thinks you're shite!

[Anonymous Coward]

The bastard child of Clippy and the bloody irritating Microsoft puppy

Still dont want it

Thanks

[Waseem Alkurdi]

Re: The bastard child of Clippy and the bloody irritating Microsoft puppy

But with the upgrade, you surely will like it ...

[Sheepykins]

I'd rather have my run box back

[Waseem Alkurdi]

It's there ... now with AI, telemetry, and more, and is no longer called Run, but Cortana (We thought you wouldn't notice that we stuck it in the place where Start search used to be)

(No seriously, it is there: WinLogo+R)

[Paul 129]

Re: wanting the run box back

One of the last vestiges of windows3. You can STILL drop files into the run box, and their filename appears. Dammed handy to find file locations at times.

Byzantine is the result of so many layers of hack, and band aid patches over the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft's decided its Cortana speech assistant needs a bit of buffing"

You can't polish a turd and I thought Cortana was born out of wedlock.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the name Cortana was used to appeal to the Halo fanboys.

SatNad's Microsoft must be cool and hip and appeal the the millennials... oh look we have Minecraft too!

[Steve Davies 3]

You have to hand it to MS

They really do love to flog a dead horse don't they...

OTOH, they shoot horses don't they?

Perhaps (like Siri) Cortana needs to be taken out the back and put out of its misery.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only time I deal with cortana is as part of the many things I disable when installing a new system for someone.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Disabling Cortana

If you refrain from using a Microsoft account, Cortana is by default 'disabled'.

It also helps to prevent the various Microsoft cloud hooks e.g. Onedrive from tethering onto the system.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Disabling Cortana

But the sleaze is still there.

Even without an account, you still get nagged by it, pop-up ads, onedrive installed (and nags), and bing advert covering 25% of your taskbar... not to mention every keystroke on the start menu gets sent back.

So many hoops to jump through to disable it all, and even then you can't be certain... then the slate it wiped clean on the next enforced upgrade.

[joed]

Re: Disabling Cortana

It is not disabled. And it's pita to disable websearch from the search box and all he nagging/"suggestions" that show in there even on enterprise sku can only be explained by MS' greed, stupidity, malice or all of the above.

[johnnyblaze]

Die bitch

These days, if you've already suffered through the awful Cortana assistend Win10 installer that just drives you nuts, you probably already want to kill her by the time the installation has finished - it is THAT annoying.

It does make you wonder how many more billions MS will throw at Cortana before conceding defeat though - she deserves to die a death by a thousand cuts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Die bitch

Well, Microsoft has plenty of cash to burn. It needs its 'me too' moments to stay relevant.

Remember Silverlight? Microsoft always wants to come up with its own proprietary stuff, couldn't even leave Adobe Flash alone.

I'm utterly cynical of Microsoft's acquisitions. Case in point: Linkedin is terrible now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Die bitch

I'm utterly cynical of Microsoft's acquisitions

Right.

They destroy everything they touch... Skype, Nokia, Hotmail.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Die bitch

They destroy everything they touch... Skype, Nokia, Hotmail.

aQuantive, Yammer, Navision,. Presumably the planning is well under way to ensure the failure of Minecraft.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Die bitch

Nokia was HUMILIATED by Microsoft during the reign of Mad Elop.

Microsoft had actually forced Nokia to make a Windows RT tablet, because since Lumia-Windows Nokia phones were not selling well, let's double down and get Nokia (which had never made a tablet before) to produce something that was selling even worse!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Lumia_2520

[Inventor of the Marmite Laser]

Re: Die bitch

Linked in is terrible. Period

[Anonymous Coward]

RIP Semantic Machines

No Microsoft acquisition has ever fared well. But of course, the cash payout is nice.

[Teiwaz]

Future appointment with a long drop

its goal is conversational AI

I think that was the goal of Talkie Toaster too.

[Robert Helpmann??]

Bird just parrots what it's heard...

We mean Petra the parrot in Orlando, Florida, whose YouTube channel shows off her ability to control Alexa.

...I guess this makes the animal a rock star in the world of AI.

[Anonymous South African Coward]

Ai ja, Cortana.

Probably spawn of Clippy.

>self-censored ruminations follow<

[Richard 81]

Ah Cortana

Or, as I like to call her: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Policies > Microsoft > Windows > Windows Search > AllowCortana = 0"

Maybe not as catchy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rejoice, rejoice!

A new week, a new 2-minute hate on MSFT.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Rejoice, rejoice!

Just 2 minutes? Try using their shit all week, smug bastard.

[David 132]

Re: Rejoice, rejoice!

@AC - don't be mean to "JJ Carter", who is after all just another AI experiment from Microsoft:

IF ($article-text.contains("Microsoft"))

{

post_reply ("thank you for this two-minutes hate")

/* TODO: can't get this next line to work properly, right now it segfaults every time */

/* post_reply ($well-reasoned-argument-carefully-and-eloquently-rebutting-the-article) */

}

Apparently, we're supposed to see Microsoft as the Emmanuel Goldstein de nos jours.

JJC is less annoying than Cortana, but only just.

[JohnFen]

Thanks, Google

Now that you've demonstrated this horrible, horrible use of the tech, Microsoft is compelled to follow suit.

It's as if Google is consciously trying to bring about a total dystopia.

[Ken Moorhouse]

Annabelle the Sheep

Had more personality.

[David 132]

Re: Annabelle the Sheep

If you want a sheep with personality, it has to be Flossie - just ask Lord Melchett.