[dropcaps style=’2′]There’s a new PA in town. Windows Phone 8.1 is an upgrade coming out featuring Cortana, a personal assistant that you speak with and helps you out in daily tasks. If it sounds very much like Siri, you’re not wrong… it’s essentially Windows Phone OS playing ‘catch up’ to Apple and Google.[/dropcaps]
Cortana will be a replacement to the embedded Bing search functionality on Windows Phone 8.1. The features name is familiar to any fan of the Halo game series, however in appearance Cortana will not be a female character but instead a circular animating icon. Cortana will have indicative animations when it’s speaking or thinking about your question or request. No doubt, like other PA’s, the reply speed will have a lot to do with the internet connection (via WiFi or 3G/4G Connection).
Very much like Siri, but very different too. One of the features that makes Cortana interesting is the way it learns about you allowing assistance to be a flowing process. It saves everything it learns from you into a notebook system, Cortana’s notes will save personal info on you (ie. Relationships, Contact Numbers, etc), behaviours (ie. What time you wake up, how often you call and text), reminders (it even scours your flight eticket and emails that mention you to set auto reminders) and even where you frequent (powered by Foursquare technology).
Microsoft’s voice-activated assistant will use your information stored in the notebook, cross reference it to Bing, Foursquare and possible (but not confirmed) Facebook to ensure the set data is correct and it even suggests adjustments based on available information.
If we get our hands on Windows Phone 8.1, we will no doubt conduct a review.