Microsoft has announced that it has started rolling out Cortana, its personal assistant software, in four new countries: France, Spain, Italy and Germany, TechCrunch reports. The digital assistant was rolled out in an “alpha” version as a part of Microsoft’s Windows Phone Developer Preview Program.
Alpha means that Cortana is new to these countries and languages, Microsoft’s announcement reads. Most of the features users can find in the beta version of the digital assistant are included into this release, but some of them are missing (these will be added soon, as Microsoft’s announcement blog post promises). The transit data included with the release is currently limited to the countries’ larger cities, but this will also be gradually expanded. Reference data is also not available (for example, asking “How tall is Mount Everest” will not return a result), but this will also be enabled in a short time. One important thing was included in the release, though – European football league data, including Bundesliga (Germany), Serie A (Italy) and La Liga (Spain).
Microsoft has been working hard for Cortana to “fit in” in these new countries. The blog post shows how the software is asking a French user about their name, and try to make sure it pronounces it properly. The images show the assistant at work, reminding a user about the peaches he wants to buy and helping another one get ready for the day.
Microsoft has previously launched Cortana in China and the United Kingdom, after an initial roll-out in the US. The company has big plans for its digital assistant, aiming to transform it from a “mobile play”, as many consider such apps at this moment, into a useful thing that fits into Microsoft’s vision about being productive. The software is currently in need of more user input to improve its conversational understanding and intelligence, to help it (or “her”, as they refer to it) become a really useful companion in the end.