Coming later this year, Windows Phone 8.1 update will be carrying plenty of new features to Microsoft’s mobile operating system. One of them is called Cortana which is a personal assistant that is similar in nature to Apple’s Siri and Google Now.
Cortana was somehow missing from the recently leaked SDK but earlier today, The Verge has posted a set of screenshots that showed the new feature in action.
Designed as the replacement for the existing Bing search feature within Windows Phone 8, Cortana will rely on a system dubbed as Notebook which will access and learn user’s data and usage behaviour in order to provide answers or suggestions to user’s queries. Again, just like how Siri and Google Now functions.
To Halo fans out there, if you are expecting to see Cortana comes alive on Windows Phone 8.1 in the form of female figure like how she is depicted inside the game…well, sorry to say that will not be the case. Instead, Cortana is represented by a circular animated icon. However, users are able to set the name that Cortana calls them. So, feel free to set it as “Master Chief” if you want to…you know, fulfil your Halo fan dreams.
Furthermore, it might be possible that Microsoft will name the feature with a different name since Cortana is currently just an internal name given to the feature. I do hope Microsoft will stick with the name though since that is definitely an awesome fan service.
Expect more details regarding Cortana and other features of Windows Phone 8.1 to be revealed at the upcoming Microsoft Build Developer Conference in early April. So, stay tuned.
[Source: The Verge]
