Microsoft is working diligently towards a release of Windows 10 that is targeted towards consumers which should arrive in late January. One of the features that will be coming -- and Neowin was the first to bring you details on it -- with Windows 10 is Cortana. While there have been tons of assets for the feature found in the builds, including all of the sound files, you have not been enable turn it on.
And while Microsoft builds out the infrastructure to support Cortana on the millions of Windows PCs that are expected to be sold with Windows 10, they have begun letting select groups use the feature. We have detailed a lot about the future of Cortana and Windows, which you can read about here, and now we have the first screenshot showing the icon in the taskbar.
This image has been floating around for a little bit and it took us some time to actually confirm that this is an authentic image. The user has the high-contrast theme turned on which is why the taskbar looks a bit different than most Windows 10 builds. But this is a real image of Cortana in the taskbar in Windows 10 which shows that it will replace the search functionality as expected.
Aside from the Windows Phone functions that Cortana already performs, there is not much else new in the Windows version. This is to be expected as Cortana will use the same back-end technology to power both platforms.
Until Microsoft officially announces Cortana in Windows 10, it could be pulled before the consumer preview but all signs point to its announcement at that time.
As we get closer to the public release of the consumer preview, we expect more features to leak out as more users get their hands on the builds.