Harman/Kardon readies a Cortana-powered speaker

But at least one of its OEM partners is working on such a device for release some time next year. Harman/Kardon is planning to release a new audio device that will allow voice interaction with Cortana, Microsoft officials said on December 13. Amazon's Alexa line of products will soon get new home automation skills thanks to the release of an API by the company. Microsoft is making available to hardware partners a Cortana Devices software development kit (SDK) which will allow them to build devices on a variety of platforms that will work with Cortana. Microsoft officials said the devices SDK will work with devices running Windows IoT, Linux, Android "and more."