14 DAY TRIAL // Cortana, the digital personal assistant included in Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8.1 operating system, is now expected to become available in China as soon as the next week.
According to a recent article on Zol.com.cn, Microsoft has already started sending out invitations to a Chinese event where Cortana is expected to go official in the country.
Said event will take place on July 30, and the invitations to it feature Cortana’s logo on a phone, clearly pointing at an announcement related to the digital personal assistant.
However, since no official confirmation on the matter has been provided as of now, we’ll have to wait and see whether this will indeed pan out.
According to the aforementioned news site, Cortana could be released in China under the name of “Huna,” yet this hasn’t been confirmed either.
Previously, Microsoft revealed planned to make Cortana available on more markets out there, including the UK and China, but the latter was expected to receive it at a later date.
According to some of the latest reports on this, users in the UK might actually get a taste of the feature very soon, maybe before the end of this month.
At the moment, Cortana is available only for Windows Phone 8.1 devices in the United States, though users in other markets are able to get it on their devices too, as long as they change their location to the US, and the system’s language to English.
However, when released in the UK, China, and on other markets out there, Cortana will be able to deliver a localized experience, which means that it will understand and speak a country’s language and dialects. In the UK, for example, it is expected to feature a local accent.
As it turns out, owners of Windows Phone 8.1 devices won’t need to perform some specific action in order to get Cortana up and running on their phones.
All the changes needed to make the digital assistant available on a market will be made server-side, which means that it will simply start to work when available in your area.
Basically, this means that, in less than two weeks, users in the UK and China might see Cortana popping up on their Windows Phone 8.1 devices’ screens when hitting the search button, instead of Bing search.
As mentioned above, Microsoft has yet to provide specific details on the availability of Cortana on new markets out there, so keep an eye on this space for more info on the matter.