HomeWinBuzzer NewsMicrosoft Makes Cortana Widely Available to Third-Party Developers and Manufacturers

Microsoft Makes Cortana Widely Available to Third-Party Developers and Manufacturers

The company announces Cortana Skills Kit and Cortana Devices SDK, two software packages designed to help developers and device manufacturers easily incorporate the AI assistant into their products.

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The latest announcement is another step forward in 's vision to have as an all-present interface. The company sees its personal digital assistant as an extension of the user.

As a result, it has made available Cortana Skills Kit and Cortana Devices SDK to a wide range of users.

The Cortana Skills Kit is intended for developers to help them seamlessly integrate Cortana skills on multiple platforms. These include Windows, Android, iOS and Xbox, as well as new Cortana-powered devices.

As Microsoft states, developers can also “leverage bots created with the Microsoft Bot Framework and publish them to Cortana as a new skill, to integrate their web services as skills and to repurpose code from their existing Alexa skills to create Cortana skills.”

In order to incorporate Cortana on a number of different devices, Microsoft presents Cortana Devices SDK for device manufacturers. This makes the AI assistant available to all OEMs and ODMs for building smarter devices on all platforms.

Thanks to its design, the Cortana Devices SDK supports cross platforms such as Windows IoT, Linux, and Android. As such, the package offers effortless delivery of real-time, two-way audio communication with Cortana.

Early device partners

Microsoft is partnering with various manufacturers to bring its personal assistant to different devices and services. The company calls them “early device partners”, citing Harman Kardon as an example.

The manufacturer of premium audio devices made a Cortana-based speaker, reminiscent of Amazon Echo. Microsoft presented the new device in a short teaser video with very little information, apart from saying the device is “coming in 2017”.

Both software packages are currently in private preview. The Cortana Skill Kit will receive a broader availability in February 2017, while there is no specified date for the Cortana Devices SDK.

Developers can sign up here to get updates regarding the Cortana Skills Kit. Furthermore, device manufacturers can use this form to receive news about the Cortana Devices SDK and possible access to an early preview.

Sead Fadilpasic
Sead Fadilpasichttp://journalancer.com/
Sead is a former Al Jazeera journalist who shares his passion for technology on various tech media outlets. Formerly a heavy gamer (semi-professional Warcraft 3 gosu), he now enjoys reviewing software and churning out words about the latest tech-news. He holds a college degree in Journalism and likes to annoy his neighbors by playing one of his three electric and two acoustic guitars.

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