As previously reported, Harman Kardon is working on a Cortana-powered speaker, much like Amazon’s Alexa devices, such as Echo. Now, we’re finding out a little bit more about what the Harman Kardon Cortana-powered speaker could offer, its name and what Cortana speakers as a whole could bring to the table (or, in some cases, shelf) (via Windows Central).
Yesterday, we covered that a new Cortana Speaker setup wizard was present in Windows 10. It appears that this is more usable than first thought, as it contains steps to set up the Harman Kardon speaker. In these steps is the ability to allow the speaker certain permissions, such as accessing Cortana information, communicate with other devices but, more importantly, the ability to call using Skype.
Looking at the list of permissions, it would appear the Harman Kardon speaker will have the ability to make Skype calls, making it not too much of a stretch to assume it could also include a built-in microphone.
Additionally, the Harman Kardon speaker looks set to be called the Harman Kardon Invoke, as the setup wizard specifically mentions this as being the name:
The speaker is dubbed to release later this year – would you like the ability to make Skype calls without lifting a finger?