Microsoft Nokia Lumia Denim update detailed: Cortana everywhere and 4K video, stills in Camera app

Besides launching two new Nokia Lumia phones , Microsoft also announced the roadmap for the next major Nokia Lumia update dubbed Denim. The update will follow Nokia Cyan, which is yet to roll out in an extensive manner, and will bring improvements to the camera app and more importantly add features to Cortana for better voice-enabled search.

If you have become used to saying OK Google on Android, soon you will have to say Hey Cortana on a Lumia phone running the Nokia Denim update. That phrase will launch Cortana from everywhere in WP interface. Despite it being a shameless rip-off of the Google Now functionality, it adds a much-needed feature to Cortana.

The Nokia Camera app will see the most improvements, seemingly allowing users to capture faster. Users can shoot a picture by tapping and holding the camera shutter, even when the phone is asleep, and it will supposedly capture a picture in less than 1.5 seconds. 4K video recording is also coming with a long-press from locked state firing up the shooter to shot a 4K video at 24fps. What’s more the new camera app will let you select individual frames from within the 4K video recording for stills. This requires either a Lumia 930, 1520 or the Lumia Icon.

Also included are something called live images, which show a 1 second animation before the actual still is shown. And there’s Rich Capture, which lets you turn the flash on or off and adjust the light intensity after the image as been taken. So in essence it will take an image across a range of light conditions and you can choose to isolate one image or merge all the results.

Also new, the Glance screen will show updates from Bing Weather, or Bing Health & Fitness, in addition to time and date, notifications and application data.

The Lumia Denim update will come fastest to the Lumia 930, Lumia 1520 and Lumia Icon by the end of this year, and will be rolled out to other Lumia smartphones afterward. However, the newly announced Lumia 830 is already running Denim with the updated Camera build.