Apart from announcing Windows Phone 8.1 update, Microsoft also revealed that they are expanding Cortana to new regions around thr world. From today, Cortana will be made available to the people in China and the UK with this update as a “beta” and in Canada, India, and Australia as an “alpha”.
In China, the digital assistant is nicknamed “Xiao Na”, customized to meet the unique needs of users in China. It will work the same way as Cortana does for the U.S., but it will have an alternative form which has a different visual appearance, animations, and sounds. It supports Chinese (Mandarin) in voice, text, and speech.
Microsoft also revealed improvements for Cortana in the UK and US. Read about it after the break.
In UK, Microsoft has customized Cortana to support UK spellings and pronunciations and Bing-provided local data. The voice and accent is, of course, local, and Cortana’s personality in the UK has also been tweaked to be more locally relevant. In the U.S., Microsoft has updated Cortana to include new natural language scenarios, snooze times for reminders, and the ability to invoke Cortana hands-free in your car for phones connected to the car Bluetooth kits.
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