Page 337 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

Tip

Cortana uses Microsoft’s Bing search service to perform its web searches. If you prefer Google,
clever code writers have your back.

What you need is Chrometana, a free extension (add-on) for Google’s Chrome browser. It requires
that you install Chrome and make it your preferred web browser instead of Microsoft’s own Edge
(Chapter 9)—but most people would consider that a wise move anyway.

You can get Chrometana from this book’s “Missing CD” page at missingmanuals.com.

Result: Cortana opens your browser and displays the results of a Bing
search.

When Things Go Wrong

If Cortana doesn’t have a good enough internet connection to do her thing,

she’ll tell you so.

If she’s working properly but misrecognizes your instructions, you’ll know
it, because you can see her interpretation of what you said.

What happens a lot is that Cortana recognizes what you said, but it isn’t
within her world of comprehension. In those cases, she automatically opens
your web browser and does a Bing search. If Cortana doesn’t know it, the

internet surely does.

Skills: Fitbit, Domino’s, Nest…

Microsoft has opened up Cortana to other companies, so they can add
commands, called Skills, to Cortana’s vocabulary, specific to their products

or companies. Once you’ve got things set up, you can say, “Ask Fitbit how
many steps I got yesterday,” or “Make it 2 degrees warmer downstairs” (on
a Nest or Honeywell thermostat), or “Ask Domino’s to reorder my last

pizza.”

There aren’t many great ones—in fact, there aren’t many Skills at all (about
300 so far)—but you may find a couple of useful ones, especially in the