Microsoft and Lenovo demonstrate Cortana voice search from Windows 10

Windows 10 s just round the corner. Whilst we don’t have an exact date yet (its in the “summer”), we have been seeing some sneak previews of various features that should brace our desktops and laptops soon.

The one feature that I am excited about is the new search feature.

We have so much information stored on our computer, and on  our cloud storage. The problem is that when we want to find something specific we start to search the logical places where we think we might have saved it  until we stumble on our target. Ultimately this mans searching through lots of files and folders.

The new search feature on Windows 10 is known as Cortana and it allows you to speak to your computer and ask “her” to find any document, information, image, email or anything else that you might be looking for. The cool thing about Cortana is that it uses natural speech and not robotic search-engine type of query.

You might say: “Cortana, find me the document I sent Michael two weeks ago”. Cortana will break up that sentence looking for keywords that it understands. In this case, it needs to know today’s date and work out what was 14 days ago’s date. It then need to find Michael in you r address book to find the email and then go to the sent items looking a file that you mailed.

Can you really speak to your computer so it understands ?

At Lenovo Tech World held in Beijing China, I got to see first hand how Microsoft and Lenovo have collaborated to bring a better “searching for content” experience as Riley held his breath under the watchful eyes of none other than Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella and Lenovo’s CEO Yang Yuanqing as he demonstrated Cortana and REACHit:

Search beyond just your PC

Lenovo’s REACHit’s application has the ability to search for information across any connected Lenovo PC or tablet device running Windows 10 as well as many major cloud services  such as OneDrive, Google Drive, DropBox and BOX and even search for information inside Emails too and Calendar too.

This ability to combine extensive search and plain simple voice search is exciting, frightening and powerful.

For more information on this check out the Lenovo Cortana Page

*I was hosted by Lenovo during the conference.