Cortana: Microsoft's Personal Assistant For Windows

Microsoft has finally taken the wraps off of their Windows Phone OS code name "blue". Under the hood the OS features alot of tweaks, improvements & alot of perks too. Today at build conference Microsoft unvield updates for Windows 8.1, Windows Phone 8 & Microsoft Office. Windows Phone update was the one which intriguide the interests of alot of people & developers in the audience.

Windows Phone 8.1 now packs Google Now & Siri counter part, named Cortana. The name of this virtual voice assistant which according to Microsoft is your "Personnal Assistant" is based on the name of the super computer from famous game Halo. Cortana is powered by Bing. From the first impressions of it, Cortana looks more personal & does a better job then Google's & Apple's voice assistants.

Cortana can do usual tasks like setting alarm, reminders, appointments in calender in a blink of an eye. The features that give it leverage over other voice assistants in the market is it is constantly learning about you. The more it learns about you, the better it is at its job as a "Personal Assistant". However, due to privacy concerns of some users, Microsoft has left it upto the users, what they want Cortana to know & learn about them. They have full control over its services. Cortana can read your emails to provide more contextual suggestions but it you don't want it to be scanning your emails, you can take this privelage from it. Moreover, Cortana doesn't upload the emails for scanning over to Microsoft's servers, it does everything on the phone, so your data never gets out of your hand's grip.

Another powerful feature that Cortana offers is that it can be extended via 3rd party applications. This means developers can integrate & extend Cortana's functionality in their applications to make the apps more personal. Cortana is still in Beta stage. However that won't be the case for long because Cortana is powered by Bing, the Microsoft's search engine, which means the software giant can make Cortana to learn human psychy & different kind of language grammers very easily. This removes the factor of using strict pre-defined/pre-integrated search/voice commands from virtual personal assistant of Windows Phone.

A few perks that Cortana has up its sleeves is it chats and answers like any human would do. Some answers pack jokes & some include sarcasm. If you want Cortana to sing a song for you, Cortana has got you covered, Cortana can even sing songs. 

Cortana In Action: (Youtube)

Looking at how Microsoft is integrating all its platforms together & listening to their users demands, Microsoft's future looks promising. Windows Phone is constantly improving & getting more and more personal, Windows x86/x64 OS is constantly evolving & integrating users demanded features, Xbox can run Windows Phone & Windows applications. All these steps are pointing towards a bright & successful future of Microsoft.