Member AnonTechie guides us to an article at The Verge, "Leak reveals Cortana, Windows Phone 8.1's mashup of Siri and Google Now."
From the article:
Microsoft's upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 update will include Cortana, a personal digital assistant designed to rival Siri and Google Now. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans have revealed to The Verge how Cortana looks and operates, replacing the built-in Bing search functionality on Windows Phone 8.1. While the feature is named after the Halo game series, Cortana will take the form of a circular animated icon instead of a female character. Cortana will animate when it's speaking or thinking, forming a personality not dissimilar to Apple's Siri.
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Cortana: Windows Phone 8.1's AI Assistant
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(Score: 5, Funny) by dublet on Tuesday March 04 2014, @07:04PM
Would you like help?
- Get help choosing an Android or Apple phone.
- Keep on struggling with Windows Phone.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome. [dublet.org]"
(Score: 5, Funny) by wjwlsn on Tuesday March 04 2014, @07:38PM
That's too sophisticated. It'll probably be more like:
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 1) by Yow on Tuesday March 04 2014, @08:55PM
I have no mod points so I give your comment a +1 insightful/funny
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday March 04 2014, @07:05PM
"Cortana will take the form of a circular animated icon"
Should have used a little animated paperclip. I bet everyone would love that.
The wheel of IT eternally rotates and every dumb idea becomes new and brilliant, for a little while. Forever. This is just Microsoft Bob all over again.
As my educational project to learn Android I was going to clone MS Bob as accurately as possible but I just couldn't get the motivation to do it, in preference to everything else.
(Score: 3, Funny) by tbuddy on Tuesday March 04 2014, @07:23PM
I just hope one day this will be the preferred digital personal assistant for finding a superior third party digital personal assistant.
(Score: 1) by skullz on Tuesday March 04 2014, @07:38PM
I've been disappointed with the Google implementation and don't have the overwhelming sense of superiority to mess with Siri so maybe Microsoft will do something good here.
If I could trust Microsoft to be bloated and expensive I would actually feel better with my data being analyzed and and stored by them than by someone wanting to sell me Viagra pill advertisements. I wouldn't mind being minded for data if I had to pay a monthly fee, as sad as that is.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 04 2014, @08:50PM
As opposed to what?...
Thanks, I'll rather stay with the guys trying to sell me Viagra: one never knows when having one handy will save the day (or night)... only that sooner or later it will happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by skullz on Tuesday March 04 2014, @09:37PM
Exactly. They are focused on trying to get you to buy more crappy products and achieve world domination again. With Google you are the product.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 09 2014, @03:29AM
50z3u8 http://www.qs3pe5zgdxc9iovktapt2dbyppkmkqfz.com/ [qs3pe5zgdx...kmkqfz.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 09 2014, @08:21AM
g9qjRg http://www.qs3pe5zgdxc9iovktapt2dbyppkmkqfz.com/ [qs3pe5zgdx...kmkqfz.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by moozh on Tuesday March 04 2014, @07:40PM
Microsoft has been doing the me-too thing for a long time now, with underwhelming results. Don't expect this to be anything groundbreaking.
If they had release Cortana earlier, before Siri, that would've bought them a ton of buzz, just for the novelty of having an "AI" in your phone (you know you would have made-believe just for fun, especially if you were a fan of the games).
Now, it just feels like desperation. Someone asked "Why is our product tanking?", and the answer they got back was "Siri's pretty popular, why don't we make our own!?"
Don't get me wrong, it might turn out to be a useful application. It's just that their track record in this respect(playing catch-up) has been dismal and so my expectations are low.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by dotdotdot on Tuesday March 04 2014, @07:50PM
Windows Phone has always had pretty good voice integration for calling people, getting directions, searching with Bing, and text-to-speech/speech-to-text for messaging. This is just a natural evolution with a few more features and a catchy name.
No, it's not groundbreaking, but neither is it just me-too.
(Score: 1) by Woods on Tuesday March 04 2014, @08:05PM
Yeah, Android was the same way, and so was IOS... And then Apple decided that their voice recognition software should start talking back to you.
Really instead of a "Personal assistant" or "AI", they made a text to speech app.
So then Google played along and made their app talk back as well. I remember when Siri was announced and people were showing it off, and I would do the exact same things with my Android phone, but people were less impressed because it did not speak back to me.
Personally, I find the whole thing uninteresting. All the features were already there, but now instead of reading the results of my query, I listen to the results. And for some reason, that is considered a breakthrough.
(Score: 1) by mrclisdue on Tuesday March 04 2014, @09:13PM
Wow, you sure spared no vile words with your vicious, insult-infested attack on, erm:
I'm thinking that if I take the first letter of each word, give it the old rot-13, and translate to Sanskrit, you've just called a gay black autistic woman a handmaid.
Now, knock it off, ya hear?
(Score: 2) by dotdotdot on Tuesday March 04 2014, @09:27PM
Yeah, I don't see the reason for the downmod either. Maybe I didn't express enough Microsoft hatred. This is starting to feel more and more like the old site.
(Score: 2) by dotdotdot on Tuesday March 04 2014, @09:25PM
Flamebait? What, pray tell, about my comment was flaming or baiting?
(Score: 1) by moozh on Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:40PM
I have to agree that it's possible that Siri-like functionality could be considered an expected feature of modern/future phones and Microsoft, in order to stay competitive, has no option but to include their own offering.
(Score: 1) by EvilJim on Wednesday March 05 2014, @02:52AM
What is catchy about the name? 3 syllables sounds like a waste of time if you're using this frequently, one syllable and they could possibly beat out apple. "Bob, what is the best mobile phone?"
(Score: 1) by EvilJim on Wednesday March 05 2014, @03:07AM
"not that piece of shit windows thing you're using Jim, try something by Apple" - Bob
(Score: 1) by EvilJim on Wednesday March 05 2014, @03:11AM
Why did M$ name you after something and not pick a new name for you? - Jim
because my overlords dont innovate, they imitate . - Bob
your name makes you sound like a Ford Cortina - Jim
your name makes you sound like a fucking idiot - Bob
Fuck you! - Jim - I hate this thing already.
(Score: 1) by TestablePredictions on Tuesday March 04 2014, @08:46PM
I guess this could have potential. But do I have to use Windows phone?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortana [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by ikanreed on Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:10PM
Yes, as in the oversexualized AI character from their series of best-selling videogames that did nothing creative or interesting after the first installment(which, in a completely coincidence was developed by another company that got bought up).
(Score: 2) by Covalent on Tuesday March 04 2014, @09:30PM
...when it says "a problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your phone."
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 1) by jheath314 on Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:21PM
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"
(Score: 2, Informative) by stokessd on Tuesday March 04 2014, @09:32PM
Wasn't that the name of one of the characters in HaloII? I'm not an XBox guy, so I've only played it a couple times. I'm glad Microsoft is combining the various catch-up division's mindshare.
(Score: 1) by nwf on Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:12PM
Yes, I think back to Halo I, which is all I've ever played. This is how Microsoft does integration and leveraging, still sticking to their marketing CEO roots.
I'm sure if they keep the managers and committees out of the picture, they could develop something useful and cool. Time will tell.
I do use Siri, and my problem is that I want to ask it to do things it just can't do, and it's never clear what all it can do. It's almost like they need either nothing or near 90% of what a human could do.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:25PM
Comments here are so much better than on Slashdot! Over there, the very first comment and a third of the other comments would have been tired, predictable and redundant jokes about Clippy, most of them moderated +5.
Oh, wait.