Cortana finally getting its own hardware home

Microsoft is finally giving Cortana its own hardware home.

Okay, it isn’t Microsoft precisely, however Harman Kardon’s Invoke, introduced Monday and coming this fall, is the primary stand-alone hardware dedicated to the Microsoft’s chatty AI. And it appears to be like like Amazon Echo’s conical cousin, proper right down to the quantity dial on prime.

Like the Echo, Harman Kardon’s Invoke is a speaker, however owing to Harman’s audiophile roots, it raises the aural ante, together with three woofers and three tweeters. The mixture offers what Harmon calls 360-degree sound.

Cortana, although, is the star right here. The voice assistant can be backed by a seven-microphone array, together with echo- and noise-cancellation expertise — all of which ought to assist Cortana hear you higher once you say, “Hey, Cortana, what’s the weather?”

There is not quite a lot of element on the Harman Kardon website or Microsoft’s blog post, however each promise music management (for choose music providers that Microsoft doesn’t listing) and the flexibility to manage Smart Home units.

Invoke’s model of Cortana is after all the identical digital assistant in your PCs, iOS and Android apps, offered you have signed in with the identical Microsoft consumer account.

The arrival of Invoke this fall might mark a turning level for Microsoft Cortana, the principally Windows 10-bound voice assistant that is primarily used as text-based search (nearly nobody is speaking to their PCs). Thanks to the recognition of Amazon Echo and Alexa, individuals are already comfy speaking to a pretty machine that sits of their kitchen, lounge or bed room. Like Google Home, Cortana is backed by a robust search engine — on this case Bing — so it might know greater than Alexa, which regularly will get primary questions fallacious.

There’s a twist right here, although. Harman Kardon is a completely owned subsidiary of Samsung, the identical firm that simply launched Bixby, its own digital assistant. Of course, Bixby is extra involved with controlling options and experiences on Samsung units and never being an in-house know-it-all. Perhaps Microsoft’s resolution to go together with Harman Kardon for Invoke is simply a sign that this would be the first of many Cortana hardware partnerships, ones that we could hear extra about this week at Microsoft’s Build Developer’s Conference in Seattle.

Pricing for Invoke hasn’t been set, however you possibly can register on the positioning to get notified when the machine is obtainable.

Bonus Video: Cortana is now a part of Windows 10 setup