Microsoft has officially unveiled its own answer Siri and Google Now for Windows Phone 8.1, and the rumours were true: it is genuinely called Cortana. Cortana
was introduced today by Microsoft's Joe Belfiore onstage at the
company's annual Build conference in San Francisco.
The voice of Cortana sounded like it was being
provided by voice actress
Jen Taylor, who also lends her vocal chords to
the character in the games. If it wasn't Taylor, it sounded like a
particularly uncanny impression.
"Cortana is
powered by [Microsoft search engine] Bing," added Belfiore. I'm not sure
how 343 Industries is going to write that into Halo 5, mind. Cortana
on Windows Phone can perform many of the features that we've come to
expect from these types of services, such as setting appointments and
searching the web.
One of Cortana's unique points, however, is that it
can understand and answer follow-up questions: the app answered "How
about in celsius?" after responding to the initial question of what the
weather was like in Las Vegas.
In a bit of typical on-stage banter, Belfiore also asked Cortana "what's the story for the next Halo game?" The answer? "I'm quite certain you don't have proper security clearance for that information." Drat. Cortana will be released first as a beta in the US, and the service will reach the UK and China shortly after the full launch.