Though Cortana itself is getting better by the day, actually firing up the voice assistant is not as simple. You have to either hold down the search button, or use a live tile, which significantly slows the process of quickly getting information. New information from Microsoft employee Marcus Ash suggests that the company is working on a voice-activated Cortana for the future.

Windows Phone products rocking always-on Cortana would find themselves in the same league as the Moto X in the sense that a voice assistant would be always available. There are a couple drawbacks, however, to having this voice activation feature — Ash and his team have to develop a way to single out a user’s voice, as opposed to what happened in the latest Xbox One commercial (read: a Breaking Bad actor turned on Xbox One devices everywhere by shouting it during an ad).

Power concerns are also present, which has us thinking only devices with a Snapdragon 800 processor or better will be able to take advantage, because of that chip line’s touted always-on capabilities.

We don’t know if and when this will come to fruition, but Microsoft certainly seems hard at work.

Source: Marcus Ash (Twitter)
Via: WPCentral