As it stands, Cortana is currently available to those in the US. We expect that this might be the case as Windows Phone 8.1 has yet to be released and is only in Developer Preview at the moment. Well the good news for those living outside the US is that Microsoft will be bringing Cortana support to you guys once it has exited beta.
This was confirmed by Joe Belfiore during a Reddit AMA in which he confirmed that Cortana will be making its way to countries like China and the UK along with other countries, such as Canada and Australia as soon as possible. Belfiore does not provide any specific dates but assuming Windows Phone 8.1 is indeed released mid-year, we guess we won’t have to wait too long, hopefully.
According to Belfiore, “The challenge in doing this is we want the Cortana experience to be EXCELLENT for everyone -– and this involves not ONLY delivering great voice recognition for all the different languages, but also making sure that we have a great regional experience with local content so she doesn’t feel like an American.”
At the moment for those living outside of the US and who have downloaded Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview, you can tweak your region settings in order to get Cortana running and we expect the same trick could be applied later as well. It should be noted that Cortana will be restricted to those under the age of 13 due to the COPPA Act, so that’s worth taking note of especially if you have given your kid a Windows Phone handset.
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