It was confirmed by Microsoft last year that premium audio brand Harman Kardon is working on a new smart speaker that’s powered by its artificial intelligence assistant Cortana. It didn’t reveal much information about this product but the teaser video that it shared made it seem like the speaker, called Invoke, would be quite similar to the Amazon Echo as far as its form factor goes. The company also said back then that the speaker would be released at some point in 2017.
It was only revealed earlier this month that this smart speaker is going to be called Invoke and that it’s even going to have Skype integration which would enable users to make voice calls.
According to a new report, Microsoft has released a new update for its Cortana app to some users. The updated app comes with a Devices section that reveals more information about the Invoke.
It reveals that the smart speaker will be able to function with several music streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, Microsoft Groove, iHeart Radio, TuneIn, and more. This is surely a good sign.
Microsoft is not going to close off the smart speaker or limit its access to services that it owns. Users love having a choice and its good that they’ll have quite a few of them when they want to stream music using the Invoke.
Microsoft is yet to confirm when it’s going to launch this Cortana-powered smart speaker and how much it’s going to cost.
Filed in . Read more about Cortana, Harman Kardon and Microsoft.