One of Windows 10’s standout features is Cortana, a synthetic intelligence developed for the Spartan program personal assistant built into the operating system. She can listen to what you say, look up important information, and even keep track of your appointments — but at what cost? With the added functionality in today’s update, Cortana will only search using Bing in the Edge browser, no matter your default settings.
To be fair, there are a number of benefits to limiting this functionality, according to Microsoft’s Windows Experience blog. For example, the blog indicates that if you “search for “Pizza Hut” in the Cortana box, once you’re on the Pizza Hut website in Microsoft Edge, Cortana can show you your closest locations.”
Most modern browsers offer location awareness, so it doesn’t seem like Bing is bringing anything to the table here. When I type “Pizza Hut” into Cortana and hit enter, it currently takes me to the Windows Store page for the Pizza Hut app. Opening it in any browser seems like a decent alternative.
Some of the additional features actually seem pretty enticing. Cortana will now find coupon codes for shopping sites if you go through her search first, or pull up specially made rich videos for support questions. Right click on an image in Edge, and Cortana will hunt for more information about whatever is in the image, similar to the best guess in Chrome’s “Search for this image” feature.
This doesn’t affect a user’s choice to select a default browser and search engine, which is still located in the centralized settings menu. The changes to Cortana only affect searches made by talking to her vocally, or by using the search box on the Start Menu. There’s more on the way, too, so don’t start thinking Cortana’s functionality will be limited to ordering pizza and helping you pair a Bluetooth speaker.
After five years with Apple silicon, from the original M1 MacBook Air to the M5 MacBook Air released earlier this year, I've watched these chips mature not just on the spec sheet, but in real-world workflows and overall efficiency.
The new M6 chip might sound like a routine generational upgrade, but it's the company's first chip built on a 2nm manufacturing process, which brings meaningful improvements over previous Apple chips.
Gemini Notebook’s mobile app now has a built-in recorder for capturing lectures and meetings as sources. You can record directly where you’ll use the material, skipping the separate recording app and the file upload afterward.
Google announced the feature on X, highlighting classroom lectures and team meetings as potential uses. It also works for capturing your own thoughts, so you can talk through an idea and bring that explanation into your notebook while it’s still fresh.
In 1950, Alan Turing asked whether machines can think. Rather than argue over definitions, he turned the question into a party game, where an interrogator trades typed messages with hidden players and tries to work out who is who. Since then, chatbots have gotten so good that they have already fooled humans in modern versions of the test.
So, four researchers from Paris Cité University asked the obvious follow-up question in a new study published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports: can AI at least catch its own kind?