(Image source: Microsoft.)
In case you missed it, Windows 10 launches next Wednesday, July 29. And one of the tentpole features is Cortana, an intelligent digital personal assistant designed to help you quickly manage your life and get things done. That said, know that Cortana won’t be officially available in all markets. More specifically, on July 29, it’ll be on Windows 10 in these seven countries: the U.S., the U.K., China, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain.
According to Microsoft, “over the coming months”, Cortana is also heading to Japan, Australia, Canada, and India, and will be available to testers enrolled in the Windows Insider Program. For Canada and India, it’ll be available in English first.
Then “later this year”, Cortana will be available to Insiders in Brazil, Mexico, and Canada (in French).
Obviously, localizing Cortana is hard and takes time. Microsoft has to consider things like voice talent, as well as the local language, idioms, and speech patterns of each country. Cortana’s personality is also locally tuned. For example, in the U.K., “dryness and irony” are part of Cortana’s personality; in Italy, she’s proud; and in Japan, she’s polite and her ring symbol will bow by default.
In other words, our wait for Cortana in Singapore continues. (Or, you can also try workarounds like changing region and language settings to those of a supported country.)
Source: Microsoft.
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