Why Cortana needs to be localized for various regions.
I blame Microsoft for dumbing the answer down. But every article I read on the topic basically states you can set the region to US and really the only thing you'll be missing is the correct "accent".
Accent is a nice feature. But it is actually the least of it.
People in English speaking countries generally don't think of there being multiple dialects of English. But this couldn't be further from the truth. For an individual who works for a company that has dealing around the world, I can point out that probably the big ones are North America, UK and Australian English. If you take an arbitrary word, there is a good chance it means the same thing, is more or less pronounced the same way and is used more or less in the same fashion across all 3 regions... but there are fairly common words which aren't. Take "thong" for example. In North America it refers to a type of underwear, but in Australia is refers to sandals. Brits call trucks lorries. Americans call (what the rest of the world calls) football, soccer.
Words for rest rooms, genders, and other colloquialisms can vary widely in those 3 regions. Some foods may not use the same names as well. So, if you use the US Cortana in the wrong country then you could find yourself unable to understand how to phrase your query so that you don't get an embarrassing response, or so that it even understands you.
So, there is a reason directly related to language that has nothing to do with accent. And, if you want to center around language, that is a much bigger potential issue than a mere accent. I'm not saying it is a huge issue, just that relative to how much of an impact a different accent would be it is certainly the vastly larger issue. Many people, including youths, may simply not know these differences in the language.
But, that is small compared to the lacking functionality. If you just want to use it like Siri, then fine, no big deal. But Microsoft has gone out of its way to make Cortana much more than the original Siri. They want a digital assistant that is capable of appearing smart. To do that, it needs context sensitive information. If it wants to make dinner recommendations for instance, it needs to know where to aggregate the data from. The most popular services for that in one region may not be the same in another. This could lead to lackluster quality of service or even complete gaps in some regions.
In other words, if you're using Cortana right now outside of the US. You really aren't using Cortana. You likely just have the interface with a light weight version of the features. You don't know what you're missing or how much better it could be. And maybe you're writing off the feature as a result of that.
Accent is a nice feature. But it is actually the least of it.
People in English speaking countries generally don't think of there being multiple dialects of English. But this couldn't be further from the truth. For an individual who works for a company that has dealing around the world, I can point out that probably the big ones are North America, UK and Australian English. If you take an arbitrary word, there is a good chance it means the same thing, is more or less pronounced the same way and is used more or less in the same fashion across all 3 regions... but there are fairly common words which aren't. Take "thong" for example. In North America it refers to a type of underwear, but in Australia is refers to sandals. Brits call trucks lorries. Americans call (what the rest of the world calls) football, soccer.
Words for rest rooms, genders, and other colloquialisms can vary widely in those 3 regions. Some foods may not use the same names as well. So, if you use the US Cortana in the wrong country then you could find yourself unable to understand how to phrase your query so that you don't get an embarrassing response, or so that it even understands you.
So, there is a reason directly related to language that has nothing to do with accent. And, if you want to center around language, that is a much bigger potential issue than a mere accent. I'm not saying it is a huge issue, just that relative to how much of an impact a different accent would be it is certainly the vastly larger issue. Many people, including youths, may simply not know these differences in the language.
But, that is small compared to the lacking functionality. If you just want to use it like Siri, then fine, no big deal. But Microsoft has gone out of its way to make Cortana much more than the original Siri. They want a digital assistant that is capable of appearing smart. To do that, it needs context sensitive information. If it wants to make dinner recommendations for instance, it needs to know where to aggregate the data from. The most popular services for that in one region may not be the same in another. This could lead to lackluster quality of service or even complete gaps in some regions.
In other words, if you're using Cortana right now outside of the US. You really aren't using Cortana. You likely just have the interface with a light weight version of the features. You don't know what you're missing or how much better it could be. And maybe you're writing off the feature as a result of that.
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