14 DAY TRIAL // The Windows 10 Creators Update brought plenty of improvements for consumers and enterprises, but there are lots of new features for developers as well. And one of them is support for Cortana on the Raspberry Pi 3.
Starting with this new version of Windows 10 IoT Core, the popular developer board can serve as the foundation for more advanced devices that work with voice commands via Cortana, Redmond’s personal assistant that has until now been available on PCs and smartphones.
On the Raspberry Pi, Cortana comes with almost the same feature set and it supports commands to provide you with the weather, time, traffic, dictionary, sports, and information in many other domains.
Microsoft provides full instructions on how to configure Cortana on Windows 10 IoT Core, but certain accessories need to be connected to the board, including microphones and speakers to be able to interact with Cortana.
English is the only supported language (for now)
For the moment, only English is supported, but just like it happened on PC and smartphones, there’s no doubt that Microsoft is already working on adding more languages.
“Cortana on IoT Core offers reactive experiences in the Windows 10 Creators Update. A reactive experience occurs when the user initiates commands to cut through multiple steps to complete a task. Reactive information is provided in response to a query,” Microsoft explains.
“Cortana is extensible. In addition to the native skills supported by the Cortana application, developers can create their own skills to allow Cortana to do more.”
The Creators Update is rolling out today for Windows 10 users via Windows Update, while those who want to perform the upgrade manually can already do it with the Update Assistant. The rollout also includes mobile devices, which are projected to begin receiving the new OS on April 25, though availability depends on a series of factors, like carrier and region.