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AI Input Devices Microsoft

Toshiba Introduces a Cortana Keyboard Button For Windows 10 127

Posted by timothy from the remapping-possible dept.
Ammalgam writes: In what seems like a really pivotal moment for computing, Toshiba have indicated that they will be introducing a new button to their line of keyboards. This key would be dedicated to summoning Microsoft's virtual assistant in Windows 10 — Cortana. A dedicated Cortana key would be one of the more significant changes to the keyboard since the Windows key was added at about the time Windows 95 was introduced, in 1995.
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Toshiba Introduces a Cortana Keyboard Button For Windows 10 More

Toshiba Introduces a Cortana Keyboard Button For Windows 10

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  • Time to update x.org (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lilith's Heart-shape ( 1224784 ) on Saturday June 13, 2015 @05:12PM (#49905715) Homepage
    We need to handle a Mod-6 key now.

  • hardly revolutionary (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'm pretty sure this is the same department as laptop specialty keys or the play/pause/skip buttons. The Windows key is used for shortcuts and is positioned in the main grouping. Surely they aren't sticking this in the main group of keys.

  • Brings back memories (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Svenne ( 117693 ) on Saturday June 13, 2015 @05:13PM (#49905725) Homepage

    Oh, remember all those times you used that e-mail button on your keyboard to start your mail program, or the globe button to launch the web browser. I can't even imagine life before I had those. I bet this will be just as successful!

    • Unfortunately it's a toshiba, so it will stop working in a few months.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Is this sarcasm? ...I actually use those buttons. Calc is linked to terminal, printer to calc (i know, i know), globe is firefox, mail is mail, and the squiggle line thing that HP linked to it's crapware in Windows sits unused.

    • Worse, it looks a lot like a power button.

  • Basically (Score:5, Funny)

    by funwithBSD ( 245349 ) on Saturday June 13, 2015 @05:15PM (#49905733)

    a Clippy Key?

  • They took pageup/pagedown keys out, used on every page and introduced silly keys. Why is marketing people so stupid? Why do they win every decision?

  • Looks like it replaced the esc key.
    Now what?

    • It means that if you get a Toshiba computer, you can't escape from Cortana's grip.

    • There is no escape.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fisted ( 2295862 )

      Now we remap the damn key to produce an Escape keysym.

    • Looks like it replaced the esc key.
      Now what?

      You'll have to use "Ctl+[".

    • The picture is just a blue circle drawn over an ESC key where the lettering has been erased with a clone operation, so is probably just an interpretation of where it will be.

      The key will be located the upper left area of the keyboard, near the function keys

      But I hope they aren't planning on doing anything to the escape key.

      Chromebooks have a "google/apps search" button instead of caps lock, so it's not very original.

  • the time Windows 95 was introduced, in 1995.

    In case we thought that the 95 stood for something else.

  • Windows Keys (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dracos ( 107777 ) on Saturday June 13, 2015 @05:42PM (#49905871)

    Remember when Windows only needed 3 keys [imgur.com]?

  • What's the onomatopoeia for an eye roll? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    First paragraph of the article: "As an IT professional with 20+ years in the business, it’s easy to get jaded."
    This is written on http://www.windows10update.com, so yeah, I agree with that first paragraph. The rest of it? Not in my lifetime. Especially the fake hype about a god damned button!

    PS: How the hell does this merit a post here? And even if it did, I'd pick a better article, though I doubt that exists...

  • The summary really doesn't do this article the justice it deserves. It's been some time since I've seen such a strong example of Poe's Law.

  • I hate the Windows key (Score:3)

    by GoodNewsJimDotCom ( 2244874 ) on Saturday June 13, 2015 @06:03PM (#49905983)
    Back in the day, we'd play Quake using a keyboard, and the button between ctrl(shoot) and alt(strafe) was that dumb windows key. On all my keyboards I get for home use, the windows key rapidly meets the fate of being pried off by a screw driver.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Misagon ( 1135 )

      That is why many "gaming" keyboards offers a special "Window Lock" mode that does nothing but disabling the left Windows key ...

    • Then there are games where holding TAB will display the scoreboard, and holding Alt will show health bars...

  • Oh my gosh, what a creation! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Oh! My! Gosh! What a creation! I can imagine people kicking down the doors waiting for this one!!! How will they keep the hoards from breaking the building apart when they don't have enough in stock? I can even see people bringing in their old keyboards, getting a blowtorch and getting rid of that "ESC" thing (what was that for again?), and inserting the round circle (not a 0, not an O or an o, but the CORTANA button). This single lone thing is bigger than the CPU, its bigger than electricity! This

  • new ruler: pivotal moments (Score:5, Interesting)

    by epine ( 68316 ) on Saturday June 13, 2015 @06:06PM (#49905993)

    I dearly love my old Compaq keyboard, but he's a gap toothed beast ever since the "pivotal" moment where I hooked my fingernail under the exposed edge of my right-hand Windows keys and the key cap went catapulting through the air.

    Another "pivotal moment" in my career was when I finally learned how to quickly hack together a user style to eliminate annoying bling on any web page I happen to visit.

    I have close to 150 tiny user scripts in my inventory now, and no longer see any "social" buttons on any web site I frequent or any slider animations. As I don't actually use any social networks "share" decorations are just a visual plague so far as I'm concerned.

    The worst web sites I've visited come up completely red with a giant profanity across the screen (those that pretend to offer something useful, but the hoops exceed any possible utility one might derive).

    Just half an hour ago I coded up this user style:

    body a {
          background: yellow;
          pointer-events: none !important;
          cursor: default !important;
    }

    This makes all links on all tabs non-clickable, for when I want to select link text using MakeLink to copy into my wiki. It's damn annoying trying to select clickable text. I pretty much always use double-click drag (whole words only) for the main selection gesture. This simply doesn't work on links. Correction. It simply didn't work on links. Of course, I have to turn it on and off manually. I'll work on a button later.

    Oh, yes, another pivotal moment was when I took control over USB insertion events to prevent a certain device from auto-mounting every time I put it on the tit to juice up. That initiative required several freakish lines of syntax, but at the end of the day was entirely worth the effort.

    Huh. That's funny. There seems to be a pattern here. All my pivotal events, pretty much, are when I finally suppress some irritating pimple-glint love child auto-bling from imposing itself on my happy cocoon.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Livius ( 318358 )

      It's been a long time since I've seen a 'feature' added that really was universally useful.

      Sure, some people enjoy them, and maybe even find them occasionally practical, but it takes no more effort for the developers to make that kind of crap optional.

  • Its forseeable that cortana will (soonish) start to be always listening and react to the user saying "okay cortana" (or similiar), so no button will be needed.

  • Oh good, another fucking button in addition to the mail/ web/ home/ messenger/ calculator/ log off/ sleep/ and windows start buttons. Will it feature Mr. Clip it, and that annoying dog too? Personally, I want my keyboard to have a hot/cold automatic cup holder with integrated flush toilet.
  • ... that it's worth its own key? For that matter, is Siri or Ask Google any better?
    • Youi're missing the point: This is not being added because people use Cortana much (Win 10 hasn't even been released yet!) but it's another strategy to get you to use it more.
      Microsoft has done many things in Win 10 to tempt you to use their services (e.g.: search searches the web by default using Bing, OneDrive can't be uninstalled,..) and I hate it

  • Cortana isn't going to be available in all markets (Score:4, Insightful)

    by msobkow ( 48369 ) on Saturday June 13, 2015 @09:42PM (#49906747) Homepage Journal

    Cortana isn't even going to be available here in Canada when Windows 10 is released. Why would I want yet another Windows-specific key for a useless MicroSoft "feature" on my keyboard?

    As it is, I use good old fashioned AT keyboards without any of the volume keys and other crap that you see on "consumer" keyboards. Don't need them, don't want them, and hate wasting the desk space for another row of buttons.

  • "Cortana" is another C-word like "Clippy" and will probably prove about as useful... :P

  • With so many keyboard shortcuts bound to control-, and it requiring such an awkward reach to the current location, I guess it only makes sense to add a bunch of stupid clutter to what should be a straightforward input device.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

      looks at his brand new keytronic, looks at his 1992 model M...

      what the hell are you blathering about

  • You know, it's stories like this is what keeps me coming back to the Internet's pre-eminent tech site.

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortana [wikipedia.org] is still a disambiguation page...

  • As someone astutely observed with respect to the picture of Clippy 2.0:

    http://www.heise.de/forum/heis... [heise.de]

    I thought we'd all suffered enough advertising on our keyboards since 1995 already?
    Thankfully the glorious Model M remains unbreakable and unaffected... ;-)

  • Fail (Score:3, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday June 14, 2015 @06:26AM (#49908043)

    If you need to press something to activate voice control, it has already failed.

  • MICROSOFT INNOVATION SURVIVAL KIT
    ONLY BREAK SEAL IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

    Contents of Packet A: New Keyboard button.
    Contents of Packet B: New Mouse button.
    Contents of Packet C: New Assistant with Mechanical Voice.
    Also included: Start Button removal tool, 10-pack of various Wizards (from1997, dehydrated), Clippy spray.

    Customers who purchased this also bought:
    Apple Innovation Survival Kit [slashdot.org]

  • A very educational article. By reading it I learned that Onuora Amobi is another one to add to the long list of people I think are utter fucking idiots.

  • ....to keep my Cherry keyboard from the 90s. It is not OS dependent and does not have these extra buttons that just get in the way. That Cortana button seems to be tucked into the upper corner, I wish keyboard manufacturers would do the same with these dumb Windows keys. They constantly get in the way and really serve little purpose with Windows not being that easy to use purely with keyboard navigation.

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