Lenovo had a roster of new products to show during Lenovo Tech World in China, and one of them is the result of a partnership with Microsoft, specifically with Cortana. In January, Microsoft revealed that its digital assistant, which was only available on Windows 8.1 phones, would be available on all Windows 10 devices. However, Lenovo took the idea even further and combined Cortana with REACHit, a program that allows users to easily manage and search for specific files across multiple Lenovo PCs, tablets, and third-party services.
The result is a more expansive search from any Lenovo device running Windows 10. With Cortana now on any Windows 10 device, you can easily pair it up with REACHit to find files from your home computer, and access that content on any of your other Lenovo devices.
REACHit works by searching through your device's storage files and Windows apps such as Outlook, OneDrive and Microsoft Exchange. Part of the magic is possible through GPS locations and constant time stamps on your files. You can take a picture at a certain park on a Tuesday, and by using Cortana and REACHit, you can specifically ask the program to find that picture based on certain characteristics, such as where the photo was taken, when it was shot, the name of the photo file or even which device you used to store the photo.
The same method would also work for finding certain emails or documents so you can find the document you downloaded at a certain time or located the email sent from your local coffee shop. Either way, the software will find it and show it to you on the Lenovo device that you are currently using.
The functionality is not just limited to the device's storage and apps. You can also add other third-party programs such as Google Docs, Gmail, Dropbox and Box to the search parameters for an even more comprehensive search. At present there's a small number of third-party services that work with REACHit and Cortana, but considering that those three services already have a massive customer base, it's only a matter of time until Lenovo and Microsoft attract similar services to work with the new feature.
Cortana and REACHit will make their collaborative debut in a beta version when Windows 10 launches later this summer, with full public access starting in the fall. Interested users can sign up on Lenovo's website.
The software sounds promising because it can find any file across your suite of Lenovo devices running Windows 10. Not only that, but it can look through third-party services, as well. The one downside is that it's exclusive to Lenovo products. Hopefully, Microsoft improves Cortana to the point where this feature will be available on any device that runs Windows 10.
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