According to a rumor last week, we heard that Microsoft could be thinking about renaming Cortana for the China market. Presumably this is to give the voice assistant feature a more local name to help get more customers interested. While it remains to be seen if Cortana will be renamed in China, Microsoft has unveiled a new logo and design for the feature for the Chinese market.
This was revealed on Microsoft’s Windows Phone blog where as you can see in the image above, Cortana has been given a pair of eyes and has been designed to look cuter. This is as opposed to the normal version of Cortana where it looks more AI-like. Cortana for China will also be gaining additional features such as being able to display air quality, driving restrictions, and can also lookup English words in the Bing Dictionary.
However those living in the UK can expect some customized features as well. For example Cortana for the UK has been tailored for UK spelling and pronunciation of certain words, and will also be able to provide local data on sports teams, especially for users who are avid followers of the English Premier League. Cortana will also be able to display the London Stock Exchange, commuter conditions, and more, and will deliver it in an English accent.
At the same time, Microsoft has also announced that Cortana for the UK and China will be entering its beta phase, and as for other countries like Canada, India, and Australia, Microsoft has marked the voice assistant as alpha, meaning that those countries will probably be next on Microsoft’s release schedule.
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