Tag Archives: windows

Heart Watch

Windows-Smartwatch1

Smartwatches are slowly becoming a standby on the tech world stage, even if my autocorrect doesn’t recognize “smartwatch” as a word. Although, to be fair, it doesn’t recognize “autocorrect” either.

Microsoft’s planned contribution to this quickly expanding gadget world is an item that will be compatible with the three major mobile operating systems: Apple iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile. Additionally, the watch is supposed to constantly monitor the users heart rate over its two-day battery life.

Of course, this is all speculation until the announcement is actually made. Forbes is making these assumptions via internal sources that state the watch will use Xbox Kinect technology, and recently granted patents currently support this theory. However, Microsoft has been decidedly close-mouthed about this project, which has purportedly been in development for two years.

What Sparks Our Fire: A smartwatch compatible across operating systems is a huge leap forward in making wearables a usable technology.

Do these features make the Windows Smartwatch appealing to you?

Cortana

Microsoft-Cortana-UI

In response to the inescapable iOS voice command agent Siri, Microsoft has created its own female-voiced assistant. Named Cortana for a character from the popular Halo game series, The Verge has reported how the virtual assistant looks and operates. This software will replace the native Bing search function, with many of the same features that Siri operates, including a personality, internet search, and other normal functions. An important new feature is the ability for Cortana to save data to the Notebook system, which will allow it to access information such as  location data, behaviors, personal information, reminders, and contact information, as well as tracking email mentions to create notification reminders.

cortana-windows-phone-xbox-one-microsoft-8

Microsoft is expected to release the software at the Build conference later this year.

What Sparks Our Fire: Healthy competition leads only to improvement.

What are some features you’d like to see on Cortana?