Alexa, get me Cortana: You can now voice shop on Amazon from Windows

A year after Microsoft and Amazon first announced skills to bring Amazon's personal assistant to Windows users and the Microsoft assistant Cortana to the Amazon Echo connected speaker, the new features are available to consumers. The idea is that from Windows, users will be able to voice shop on Amazon, and on the Amazon Echo speaker, users will be able to hear e-mails and set up calendar appointments from the Microsoft Outlook program. "The goal is to have two integrated digital assistants who can carry out tasks across different dimensions of daily life -- at home or work, and on whatever device is most convenient," Microsoft's Jennifer Langston wrote on a company blog. But before you can get them to work, first you'll need to "enable" their skills. Amazon sends customers to the Alexa smartphone app to add skills, while Microsoft sends people to the web.