Microsoft Building Siri Rival Called Cortana
A new report suggests that Microsoft is currently working on technology to rival Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant for iOS devices. The software which is codenamed Cortana will supposedly be able to learn and adapt based on user interaction, reports ZDNet, a sister site to GameSpot.
The name Cortana is also the name of the artificial intelligence character in the Halo series who has accompanied Master Chief over the last 10 or so years.
The report by Mary Jo Foley suggests that the new software will change all aspects of Microsoft’s biggest products.
“Cortana will be more than just an app that lets users interact with their phones more naturally using voice commands. Cortana is core to the makeover of the entire “shell” — the core services and experience — of the future versions of Windows Phone, Windows and the Xbox One operating systems, from what I’ve heard from my contacts.”
Microsoft has previously spoken about such software, in an interview with CNET earlier this year Bing Senior Director Stefan Weitz said they would only release such software when they are confident of it blowing other competing services away.
“We have had internal debates about when to ship something. We could come out with something now like them, but it wouldn’t be state of the art. It’s too constrained to be an agent now,”
“We are not shipping until we have something more revolutionary than evolutionary.”
Just how revolutionary the software is remains to be seen, but hopefully when it finally sees the light of day using voice search and commands on Xbox will be a lot less painful than it is now.
