• I don't have any of the "voice activated" things yet though I am interested in them. The problem for me is I'm "hard of hearing" ("Pardon. Could you repeat that" 😉 )  so things that speak to me, including people, can be a bit frustrating. I'm not against them on principle, it's just that I'm not that comfortable with something that "speaks to me". That's probably the opposite of many people.

    But! I do make considerable use of "things" which create reminders and prompts of various kinds. Some of the "things" are quite technical (a Project Management wiki, long-term schedules) and some are completely non-technical (like a year-at-a-glance wall calendar). I really like the idea of being able to step one level up and define threshold events and other criteria which would insert items into these lists - "Remind me to... in 3 months if I haven't done it in the meanwhile", "Remind me to ... if x > y"....

    The issue for me is always maintaining consistency and balance between longer-term overview, prioritisation and short term "this is what I'm doing today". I see tools like Cortana etc as being a really useful step towards providing real, "virtual assistants".

    Incidentally, I also see issues with even the stuff I use already regarding the balance between ease of access and security/privacy and they way we come to depend on these "crutches", but that is another different discussion.

    Tom Gillies LinkedIn Profilewww.DuhallowGreyGeek.com[/url]