Microsoft wants to bring its virtual assistant Cortana into every part of its new Windows 10 operating system, following a previous 'Build 9901' leak showing Cortana on the taskbar.

The new leak shows Cortana will also be available on Spartan, the new web browser coming to Windows 10. Cortana will replace Bing Search for things like tickets, travel, hotels and tracking, pointing to a downsize in Bing's relevance.

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Microsoft is working to make Cortana more useful when it comes to suggestions and recognizing human voices. Although the virtual assistant has a lot of potential, due to Microsoft's investments in human voice recognition, it still needs more features to be useful.

It is not the only new feature coming to Spartan, according to The Verge's Tom Warren, users will also be able to annotate on the web browser with a stylus. The annotations and doodles will be saved onto OneDrive, and can also be shared to friends and colleagues.

Annotation on a web browser is not new, but it has never been implemented in a way where it is considered necessary. Perhaps Microsoft has some way of making it useful in the workplace, although this may be part of a bigger Windows 10 annotation program.

Grouping tabs will be available for Spartan, similar to Google Chrome and Firefox. This should allow users to sort tabs out between work and personal, something Internet Explorer has never offered.

Spartan will be available on PC, tablet and mobile. It is not clear if the web browser will be cross-platform when announced, although Microsoft intends to launch an iOS and Android app in the future.

Microsoft will reportedly use the same layout rendering engine as Internet Explorer for Spartan, despite web developers preferring the standard WebKit.

Spartan may just be a codename, and Microsoft may use another name when the web browser is announced on January 21, alongside Windows 10. Hopefully, it will not be called Internet Explorer - since that name has been tarnished in the past few years.

TagsCortana, Spartan