Cortana is the name for the intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator for Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10. Cortana builds off Microsoft’s previous voice technology called TellMe, purchased by Microsoft in 2009.
Cortana competes against Apple’s Siri and Android’s Google Now voice assistants.
The first evidence of Cortana’s existence was found in June 2013 in the Windows Phone Central forums, appearing as ‘zCortana’ from a developer device that was accidentally sold to a non-Microsoft employee.
Naming and Voicing
The name Cortana was reserved for the AI in Microsoft’s Halo gaming series. While there was a desire to call Microsoft’s next-gen personal assistant Cortana as an official name, it was not clear that the company could do so, due to numerous marketing and trademark concerns.
However, on April 4 2014, Microsoft finally unveiled Cortana to the public during Build 2014. Microsoft chose the name Cortana due to a popular groundswell of fans who requested the name.
Jen Taylor, who currently voices Cortana in the Halo games, also voices the knowledge navigator for Windows Phone 8.1.
Look and Features
The current look of Cortana is both futuristic and minimalist, being represented as an orb with animation. From a pre-release description of Cortana by an inside source:
“The personality of Cortana is currently represented by a circle graphic that expresses what it’s doing (searching, identifying music, etc.) by various animations like spinning, flipping, etc. …more animations [have] come in over time, and the color is based on your theme color.”
Cortana can integrate with third-party apps via a new API introduced by Microsoft at their 2014 Build conference. For instance, users can say “Foursquare…checkin” and the personal assistant launches the Foursquare app and brings up locations around you to choose for checking in.
Cortana can set reminders, track your flights, tell you the weather, send messages, and answer questions. All searching on Windows Phone 8.1, including Internet Explorer, is handled through Cortana, which itself is powered by Bing.
Various sections of Cortana can also be pinned to a user’s Start screen, including Weather, Reminders, and News for quick access. The app, upon launching, can optionally deliver a ‘Daily Glance’, which includes your weather, traffic, and headlines.
Cortana can also make NFL and other predictions and speak Klingon.
Finally, another change is how users start Cortana as the app is now initiated via the Search key. Users will no longer have to hold down the Start key to launch the voice assistant.
Technology
The natural language processing capabilities of Cortana are derived from Tellme Networks (bought by Microsoft in 2007) and are coupled with a Semantic search database called Satoru. Computing power for Cortana is provided by Microsoft’s extensive cloud computing resources that also power Microsoft Azure.
Forthcoming features
The Cortana team, led by Marcus Ash, is adding new features to Cortana roughly every two weeks. Those new features are added to the Cortana ‘What’s New’ page hosted by Microsoft.
Evidence for package tracking by Cortana was found in the Windows 10 registry, suggesting that this is a forthcoming feature.
Starting with the Lumia Denim update later in 2014 for the Lumia 930 and Lumia 1520, users will be able to activate Cortana via passive voice, meaning they do not physically have to launch the voice assistant. Instead, users can simply say ‘Hey, Cortana’ and the phone, through passive-voice technology, will wake to take the request. This feature is dependent upon the Qualcomm Snapdragon 80x chipset series and SensorCore.
Updating
Cortana updates are delivered independently of those to the main Windows Phone OS, allowing Microsoft to provide new features at a faster pace. Not all Cortana-related features can be updated in this manner as some features such as “Hey Cortana” require the Windows Phone update service and the Qualcomm Snapdragon SensorCore Technology.
Expansion to other Platforms
In January 2015, Microsoft announced the availability of Cortana for Windows 10 desktops and mobile devices as part of merging Windows Phone into the operating system at large. On PCs and tablets running build 9926 or later, Cortana is accessed through the search button in the taskbar, while on smartphones Cortana is brought up using the search key on the device, and is very similar in design and functionality to its Windows Phone equivalent.
On May 26, 2015, Microsoft announced that Cortana would also be available on other mobile platforms. An Android release was set for July 2015, but an Android APK file containing Cortana was leaked ahead of its release. It will be followed by an iOS release later in the year.
During E3 2015, Microsoft announced that Cortana would come to the Xbox One as part of a universally designed Windows 10 update for the console.
Mircrosoft has also launched a beta version of Cortana for Android and iOS.
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