Microsoft's building a smarter and more responsive Cortana with "Project Evo"

Microsoft unveiled at its annual WinHEC event Project Evo — a new collaboration with Intel — to advance the hardware and AI that powers Windows 10. Executive Vice President Terry Myserson says this new partnership will allow new devices to showcase improvements to features for Cortana, Windows Hello and more.

From the official blog post:

One of our most important partners in making this possible is Intel and today, I'm thrilled to announce our latest collaboration, codenamed "Project Evo." With Project Evo, Microsoft and Intel will deliver all-new ways for devices to light up with the latest in artificial intelligence and Cortana, including far-field speech communications so you can ask Cortana a question or play a song from across the room; the latest advancements in biometric authentication with Windows Hello; mixed reality experiences for everyone; and gaming innovation like spatial audio and HDR support.

If improvements to Cortana, such as bringing "far-field speech communications" to Windows 10 sounds familiar, that's because we recently mentioned it in our Home Hub article that explained how Microsoft is turning to OEMs to build unique, stylish family-devices with Windows 10 built in. Far-field Cortana will allow devices to be used across much larger rooms, similar to the Amazon Echo and Google Home.

There's a wealth of new device features and optimizations on the way from OEMs with Project Evo, and we can't wait for them to start showing up in early 2017 with the Windows 10 Creators Update. Let us know what you think in the comments!