The feature comes from Microsoft’s Torque app, which is crossing over from Android ar to smartphones. On smartwatches you can flick your wrist to fire up the app, which lets you search with Bing using your voice. It’s designed to give contextual answers much like Now, telling you the time in another part of the world, temperature, or other direct information. If that isn’t enough Microsoft for you, the company also updated its Next custom lock screen. Much like Yahoo’s Aviate, it tries to present specific apps to you based on the time location, so you can more quickly access the right apps for work, home, or being on-the-go. The newest version now puts the forecast on the home screen, which looks pretty good over the minimalist background. Both projects come from Microsoft’s Garage, a quasi-experimental group building several Android ndows one apps. y this matters: Microsoft CEO Sadya lla is pushing the company in a new direction, focusing on cloud-powered, cross-platform services. Give him points for letting Microsoft developers get creative with its Garage initiative. However, given how well search services integrate on Android, it’s hard to see a lot of people clamoring for quicker access to Bing.
