A man shows the new Lumia 830, left, and 730, right, smart phones during a Microsoft Nokia presentation event at the consumer electronic fair IFA in Berlin, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014. (AP Photo) BERLIN — Microsoft will seek to draw more people to its Internet-based services with two new mid-range smartphones it unveiled Thursday, including one designed to help people take better selfies. The devices are under the Lumia brand Microsoft bought from Nokia. They run the latest version of Windows Phone 8 and feature Cortana, a Siri-like voice assistant available to help with directions, calendar appointments and messages. Many of those interactions will steer users to Microsoft services such as Bing search and OneDrive storage. Chris Weber, Microsoft’s vice president for mobile devices sales, insisted consumers should feel comfortable about storing their personal pictures on OneDrive, despite the recent exposure of celebrities’ private pictures stored on rival Apple’s cloud-based system. “I think we have to amplify the message around security regarding these cloud services,” Weber told reporters. To this end, Microsoft is also giving users more control over the kind of information — friends, diaries, home address — that the Cortana voice assistant will have access to, he said. Microsoft bought Nokia’s phone business in April as it seeks to boost Microsoft’s Windows Phone system, which has had little traction compared with Apple’s iPhones and Google’s Android system. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made mobile phones and Internet-based services priorities for the company as its traditional businesses — Windows Read More …
