SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
To the shock of no one, Windows 10 users who upgrade to the Anniversary Update (scheduled for release next week), will not be able to disable Cortana using the settings.
If you compare the start menu settings of Cortana of the current version of Windows (version 1511) with those of the Anniversary Update (version 1607) you will notice that Cortana's off switch is no longer available (thanks Ian Paul @PC World for spotting that)
Cortana, the digital assistant that Microsoft touts as one of the major features of Windows 10 supports interaction via touch, typing, ink and voice.
Microsoft integrated Cortana deeply with the native search functionality of Windows 10. While linked to search, Windows 10 users may turn off Cortana currently to use search without it. While you might have to turn off web searches on Windows 10 as well, doing so ensured that you got search functionality that matched those of previous versions of Windows.
Windows users who turned off Cortana had two main reasons for it: either they did not need Cortana functionality, or they did not want it because of privacy implications.
[...] It is still possible to turn off Cortana, but not by using the preferences. The policy to disable Cortana is still available and you may use it to turn off Cortana on the device.
Please note that the Group Policy Editor is only available in professional versions of Windows 10. Most notably, it is not available in Windows 10 Home.
The linked article goes into detail on how to disable Cortana using the Registry in Windows 10 Home, and Group Policy Editor in Windows 10 Pro. However, Microsoft no longer makes disabling Cortana anywhere near as easy as it was.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 27 2016, @12:15PM
Does anyone actually use Cortana, or Siri, or any of these anthropomorphic assistants?
The 20 year old intern did at work a couple weeks ago. He had a nice minute or so long conversation with siri about moving one specific appointment from 3pm to 4pm or something. Personally I'd have done it using keyboard and mouse on my desktop in maybe 5 seconds, or using my phone to make it fair it might have taken 10 seconds, but he had a nice long talk.
All the other employees kinda looked at him, shook their heads, looked at each other... its socially unacceptable to talk to phones with the crowd I work with and hang out with and live with. Maybe the kid is a new generation and everyone under 20 talks to their phones all the time, or maybe he's just antisocial, hard to say. My tween-teen-ish kids only talk to their devices in one situation, my daughter uses her music app and yells out song titles or band names rather then typing them in or otherwise searching, its a thing among the girls to sit in a group and they take turns yelling out song titles, it seems to mostly be a girl thing, probably due to formulaic top40 music mostly being a teen girl thing.
Among adults, at least where I live, talking to your phone is about as much of a social mistake as whipping out the e-cig at your desk, or microwaving kimchi, or discussing medical test results with your doctor in public on the phone. Its not as bad as taking a dump on the sidewalk like the homeless do, or talking to an imaginary friend, but its getting there. Kind of like the only thing more insulting than ignoring other people to talk to distant people on the phone is ignoring other people to swipe and type on a phone and the only thing worse than that is ignoring other people to talk to an imaginary person on a phone.
Also BTW "anthropomorphic assistants" are not very anthropomorphic. Tend to be pretty vanilla ethnic and androgynous and souless. I might be convinced to talk to "Rommie" especially with a high def video interface, but siri voice isn't going to do it for me. AFAIK all the assistant companies are aiming for an uncanny valley level of humanity thats precisely calibrated to maximize repellancy and minimize attractiveness.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday July 27 2016, @02:19PM
Among adults, at least where I live, talking to your phone is about as much of a social mistake as whipping out the e-cig at your desk, or microwaving kimchi, or discussing medical test results with your doctor in public on the phone. Its not as bad as taking a dump on the sidewalk like the homeless do, or talking to an imaginary friend, but its getting there. Kind of like the only thing more insulting than ignoring other people to talk to distant people on the phone is ignoring other people to swipe and type on a phone and the only thing worse than that is ignoring other people to talk to an imaginary person on a phone.
Another thing I don't get is the people I keep running into in public who put their phones on speakerphone and hold them in front of their face to do a call. Or do people use their phones to do video calls? I don't understand why video calls either.
I might be convinced to talk to "Rommie" especially with a high def video interface
Hell yeah Lexa Doig :)
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Wednesday July 27 2016, @02:33PM
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 27 2016, @02:46PM
Honestly I think it was some kind of intentional punishment. I really don't know how to top that one. He wins. Maybe if I turned a stinky cheese into a cheese soup and then boiled it for awhile while microwaving it. It would take extraordinary effort. I wonder what skunk spray tastes like as a condiment? They add mercaptans to the natgas supply to detect leaks, surely I could buy it in bulk somewhere and it to a chili for a spicy kick.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday July 27 2016, @06:49PM
Two words: Stinking Tofu.
When walking down the street in Taiwan, steamed or BBQed stinking tofu will cause most foreigners to feel like vomiting, with an effective downwind area of effect of 50 m or more.
I've eaten some, when I had a bad cold. If you have a good nose, it's more efficient than anything I've heard described in the CIA/Gitmo reports.
You can find it in the US (not quite as good, obviously). A minute in the microwave would clear any non-Chinese out of the building.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Friday July 29 2016, @10:01PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @03:31PM
If you'd been reading the news you'd be aware that Microsoft are already world-leading in adding Genuine People Personalities (GPP) to their new brand of AI's. Tay, for example, was their new "Trump Supporter" GPP.
(Score: 1) by driven on Wednesday July 27 2016, @06:20PM
Where does Google Glass fit in your continuum of social mistakes? :)
Computer "AI" is nowhere near artificially intelligent. It's all just "big data" which doesn't _understand_ what you want, it just tried to interpret what you want in an extremely objective way and without any real understanding of context or intention. Until I can mutter something once to a computer and it understands exactly what I want like a normal human being would and can act on it, it'll be faster to do things on my own without the "help" of something like Siri or Cortana.
(Score: 1) by TheLink on Thursday July 28 2016, @08:01AM
I don't talk to my left hand to ask it to help me drink from a glass of water, I use it. I don't talk to my feet to walk, I just walk and I don't have to think too much about it.
Sure I don't mind some AI stuff - maybe even self driving cars. But if I'm going to have an Iron Man suit with a built-in AI, I would want to have a fair bit of control over the suit.