Microsoft's Cortana Assistant Gets New Features on Android, Windows

Microsoft's voice-based virtual assistant Cortana has got an update that lets it greet users, play games, and more on 'Special Days'. Some users are also noticing a new feature that lets them open certain websites simply by saying the site's name to Cortana.

An update to the Cortana app for Windows 10 Mobile and Android users has brought a 'Special Days' toggle in the settings menu, reports WindowsCentral. The 'Special Day' listing can be found in the Cortana's Notebook. Opening it shows the description "Cortana can offer greetings, games, or other activities on certain holidays and special dates." It is not yet clear as to when iOS beta users would get the feature.

WMpoweruser on the other hand has spotted another new Cortana feature only accessible by select Windows 10 Mobile users for now. The feature enables users to simply say the name of the website to Cortana and the voice-based virtual assistant would open the site right away. Users don't even need to add suffixes such as .com or .net. However, this feature is currently limited to Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Pizza Hut, and Wikipedia. Previously the voice-based virtual assistant could only open a website on voice commands if the site was pinned on the handset's start screen.

This new-found feature of Cortana seems to be deeply integrated with the company's Edge browser. As a result, it might take a while for it to reach Cortana for Android or the upcoming Cortana for iOS app, which is currently under beta testing.