23 January 2015
That is the last date Windows Insiders, the nearly 2.8 million people testing Windows 10, received a new build of the upcoming operating system.
40 days; 5 weeks and 5 days; 960 hours; 57,600 minutes, 3,456,000 seconds
All represent the number of days since that last public build was made available.
I know for me I am ready for a new build about 7 to 10 days after the last. In that time frame I have usually poked around enough to see what has changed and compared it to the previous build.
That means I am watching Twitter closely to catch any screenshots from leaked builds that might slip out of Redmond and occasionally a solid video will surface showing of features in one of those leaked builds.
Well, our friends over at WinBeta have one of those videos and this one shows off the integration between Project Spartan and Cortana.
Project Spartan is the code name for Microsoft’s new web browser that we are expected to see in the next public build of the Windows 10 Technical Preview and of course, Cortana is the digital assistant we first met on Windows Phone. More recently, in build 9926, Cortana was added to Windows 10 but not fully integrated with all areas of the technical preview.
This video shows how Cortana will specifically enhance our web browsing experience on Project Spartan and provide additional data to make searching for things easier and much more natural. Plus you get to do it all from one browser screen/window.
Now just take what you have seen above and translate that to other areas of Windows 10 such as file searches, app interaction and how-to assistance. The possibilities are huge for what Cortana will be able to do.
Imagine an everyday computer user, someone who does not know the difference between RAM and a flash drive, and they need to learn how to properly setup Windows Update. Cortana could provide step by step prompts in a sidebar, including images, to walk the user through the process.
What other ways do you think could Cortana help the everyday computer user?
