Cortana makes animal impressions, try these out!

Cortana is being updated regularly by Microsoft, obviously, thanks to the cloud technology that Cortana works online and Microsoft can update her easily without users involvement. Today, I've something funny for you, try asking Cortana:

What does the _____ say? (fill the gap with dog/cat/frog etc)

Here are the responses you may get but remember, its always more fun to hear that in her real voice!


Fox: Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding
Frog: Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit
Cat: Meeooooow
Dog: Arf arf arf
Bird: Tweet, tweet.Tweet, tweet. (Shes loves twitter :P)
Pig: Oink, oink, oink, oink, oink.
Horse: Whinny!
Cow: Mooooooooooo
Sheep: Baaaaaaaaaaah
Duck: Quack quack quaaaack (that last quaaaaack though!)
Turkey: Gobble, gobble, gobble.
Rooster: Cockadoodledoo!

Turn on your PC with Cortana

Just after Cortana was released for the Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview program, we're seeing more and more ways to get the most out of her ability. Not just users but also developers are taking more interest building apps that integrate and uplift Cortana to a new level. One of those apps I'm talking about is the VoiceWake app for Windows Phone 8.1 users that can help you turn on your PC at home right after you leave from office and proceed for home.

Using the app isn't that difficult either. Just download the app from the given link at the bottom of the article, configure it with your PC's MAC address, Internet Protocol (IP) information and some other settings. Most importantly, you need to have a Wake-on-LAN enabled PC which you can find in the BIOS settings of your computer.

After you finish configuring it, you're ready to give Cortana command in your phone which goes like "Cortana wake up [Computer Name]". While it does a small job, you can save yourself plenty of time that you spend turning on your PC after coming back in home and can be a life saver in many situations.

Download VoiceWake from store

Does waking up Cortana with your voice sound good?

You may want Cortana being more human-friendly while interacting with her in coming days. You might as well expect her to make out a conversation with you. Even though she is still in her beta stages of development, yet you get most of your questions answered by her pretty quickly and perfectly; unless you're trying out some really tricky ones. But, the way you wake her up isn't quiet that convenient in some situations like when you're driving or doing your official work. What if you could pop her up just by your voice? Without having you press the search key or tap the Cortana tile?

Well, to your desire, it's coming soon enough. Microsoft is currently working on passive voice activation algorithm for Cortana that'll enable you to call her up with your own voice. And here is what Marcus Ash, Group Program Manager for Cortana tweeted:

"Something to think about as we design voice activation for #Cortana. Don't want Jesse sending texts on your behalf."

You may be aware that Google based personal voice assistant, Google Now already has a similar feature where the user has to say "Ok Google Now......" or just "Ok Google....."  and continue his command to make her do something. While you can't assure if the command to wake up Cortana would be a strict word as with Google Now or not, you can however expect Microsoft to implement this amazing feature without taking much long.

Why Microsoft considering Cortana for iOS and Android

The group program manager of the Microsoft's virtual assistant, Marcus Ash, was weighing the pros and cons of having Cortana on other platforms namely, iOS and Android. While most of the Windows Phone fans will disagree for the idea, here's what Marcus said:

"If I'm a Windows PC user and I have a Kindle tablet and an Android phone, how good is the Windows Cortana experience going to be if it doesn't know anything about what I'm doing with those devices? It's really a difficult question that we're spending a lot of time trying to figure out."

"Clearly we want people to buy Windows, we have a bunch of Windows customers, hundreds of millions that have Windows PCs and would love for them to have a great Cortana experience because once they have that they will probably consider other devices and say 'Well, I want to match them up.' But how do we get Android users or these other iOS users that use Windows to have a great experience?"

Well, his statements appeared focusing more on profits of Microsoft and that he wanted to extend Cortana's reach to everywhere not just Windows Phone, that's obvious when viewing from a Company's prospective. But again, its too early to tell what Microsoft will do next. They sometimes change their decisions depending on what users like you actually want them to do. For instance, they dumped the idea of having Android apps on Windows Phones, Change in name of "Cortana" and many others.

Check out this video and watch what Marcus talked about

How to make Cortana call by my name?

There's no doubt Microsoft is trying hard to deliver you the best mobile virtual personal assistance experience ever made. When talking of experience, we want to adore her when she's more human-friendly. That's why Microsoft recently updated the cloud based assistance and to your surprise, she can now speak your name if you ask her "What's my name?". Yes, its that simple.

However, you might as well want her to call you by your name more frequently, and without having you asking the name in the first place. Considering she's still in BETA, that's what Microsoft still has on their list to do.

Make Cortana read messages for you

Ever wanted Cortana read incoming messages for you? Well, then today's your lucky day. She can read incoming text messages for you, clear and loud.

Here's what you need to do:

Head over to settings > speech, and under "Read aloud incoming text messages", select "always on" and you're done!

Now whenever Cortana is on, she'll read the messages for you irrespective of your default speech installed in your phone.