Microsoft's Cortana assistant now available on Android in the US

The battle for personal assistand domination is well underway with yesterday's announcement of Google Home, hints that Siri will be coming to OS X, and now with Microsoft's Cortana assistant crossing over to the Android realm via an app but currently only for the US.

Cortana manages your schedule, your interests, your people, your reminders—Cortana makes sure all that stuff is available wherever you need it. You can set a reminder to pick up milk on the way home while you’re on your PC at work, and Cortana will give you the heads up on your phone when you’re on the road. You can also ask Cortana to make an appointment, send an email, open an app, or help you find what you’re looking for. And it’s not only about productivity, Cortana’s always up for a little chit chat. She's also pretty savvy about predicting outcomes of sports matches.

Powered by Bing, the Cortana version for Android requires your companion PC to be running version 1511 or later. Canadians who really want to use the app have to likely change location on their devices which may not be ideal for other apps.

SnipNotes 2.0 is an intelligent note-taking for iOS and Apple Watch

Indie software developer, Felix Lisczyk today is proud to announce the release and immediate availability of SnipNotes 2.0, the next major version of his popular productivity app for iOS devices and Apple Watch. SnipNotes combines a highly configurable clipboard manager with an intelligent note-taking app: Users can quickly save any content from their clipboard, text and images from websites, addresses from Maps and much more.

SnipNotes categorizes notes automatically based on their content and provides a set of actions for each type. For example if the user stores a phone number, he can call it or send a SMS. If he saves an address, he can view it in Maps. SnipNotes integrates into notification center on iPhone and iPad, so users can save content and use actions from anywhere and don't need to open the app first.

Click to read more ...

Get to see more ghosts causing trouble in new ‘Ghostbusters’ trailer

No one is safe from the evil spirits roaming New York City. Not even Ghostbusters’s receptionist Kevin (played by Chris Hemsworth). It does make for some funny moments, though. At least we’re going by what the new trailer is showing. It looks like someone is making a machine to amplify paranormal activity and terrorize the living. Who are you going to call at times like these? The Ghostbusters, of course. The new film is directed by Paul Feig and stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. It’s expected to hit theatres on July 15^th.

Source: The Verge

Create better presentations with Microsoft PowerPoint and Shutterstock

Sometimes in meetings or presentations you will need a powerful image to get your message across. Microsoft and Shutterstock are helping you out with a new plugin for PowerPoint. It’s basically an embedded search engine for Shutterstock photos. The photos are arranged via category or you can search for the image you want and then you can choose different image sizes depending on what you need the image for. You can then preview the images on your presentation, including the watermarked previews for those images you still purchase. Yes, you will have to pay to get the high-resolution photos you need. The plugin is now up for download through the Office Store.

Source: The Next Web