Meet Microsoft’s Cortana, a More Personal Siri

REDMOND, Wash. — When Microsoft was developing Cortana, a virtual assistant for its mobile operating system that was unveiled Wednesday, the company thought, naturally, about how it could improve on Siri, Apple’s sometimes bumbling assistant for the iPhone.

Its development teams studied other assistants too — actual human assistants, those keepers of executive calendars and intercepters of phone calls. After interviews with several of them, Microsoft resolved that virtual assistants need to do a better job of anticipating their bosses’ needs.

“Siri is this anthropomorphized character, but Siri doesn’t know you personally,” Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s operating system group, said in an interview.

Mr. Belfiore showed the results of its work on Wednesday at an event for software developers in San Francisco held by Microsoft. Cortana is the most high-profile feature of Windows Phone 8.1, a soon-to-be-released update to Microsoft’s mobile phone operating system.

It’s another way in which Microsoft is seeking to narrow the technological gap between its competitors and Windows Phone, which is a distant third among smartphone operating systems, accounting for 3 percent of worldwide shipments in the fourth quarter, according to IDC, the technology research firm.

Late last week in a conference room at the company’s headquarters, Mr. Belfiore demonstrated how Cortana offers all the Siri-like basics, with a number of its same shortcomings. Mobile phone users can use her to set calendar appoints with natural voice commands (“Schedule a phone call with Jim at 2 P.M. tomorrow.”)

Ask Cortana basic trivia — “How old is Barack Obama?” — and she responds with the correct answer in a congenial, synthesized female voice. But ask her when Barack Obama was elected president — a question with two correct answers — and she gets stumped, displaying a list of web search results on the topic so you can do the leg work yourself.

Mr. Belfiore showed how Cortana tries to go beyond Siri to figure out what mobile phone users want before they ask for it. If you keep searching for N.C.A.A. basketball scores, local traffic conditions and news on the Washington State mudslide, she will start to proactively display fresh data about those topics prominently.

With permission, Cortana can examine a user’s email to look for airline reservations, warning them if a flight is delayed. If traffic to the airport is horrendous on the day of departure, Cortana will notify users that they should get in their cars early. When you land in Mexico, Cortana, without prompting, will display the local currency exchange rate, provide an airport map and offer a link to an English-Spanish translation app.

Cortana is named after a virtual character in Halo, Microsoft’s science-fiction video game series, that uses her encyclopedic knowledge about the universe to help the game’s protagonist, Master Chief. The actress, Jen Taylor, who does the voice for the character, also provided recordings for the phone assistant’s voice.

Only when Microsoft’s new software is in use by the masses will it become clear whether it has a real edge on Siri. Apple’s virtual assistant was ridiculed, especially during its early days, for performance problems that rendered it unavailable when people wanted to use it. Those early impressions have been hard for Siri to shake, even as Apple has improved its technology.

Microsoft appears to be making Cortana more open to independent app developers than Apple has with Siri. People will be able to use voice commands to watch a television show on Hulu and to compose and send tweets.

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source:Bits

Cortana Revealed, Microsoft's digital assistant for Windows Phone

Leaked screenshots reveal Cortana, Microsoft's digital assistant for Windows Phone

 We already know that Microsoft is set to become the last major player to launch a digital assistant, but previews of what "Cortana" will look like have been almost non-existent. Now, thanks to leaked screenshots from The Verge, we're getting our first look at what to expect when the company's Siri rival makes its public debut with the launch of Windows Phone 8.1. Confirming earlier reports, Microsoft has opted for a circular animated icon as its primary UI element, which will use the same highlight color you've chosen on your Windows Phone device. That icon will reportedly jump about the screen as it asks you questions and responds to your requests.

 Cortana can also be tweaked to personalize greetings, allowing you to change your name or set a nickname for when it provides alerts, offers suggestions or displays reminders. Microsoft appears to be taking a few pages out of Apple's and Google's playbooks, which is further evidenced by the inclusion of a setting that will index your emails in order to track flights and other services -- just like Google Now. It's not clear whether Microsoft will add more services to its assistant before Windows Phone 8.1 makes its way to devices, or if it will even stick with the Cortana codename, but we may only have to wait a month until we find out for sure.

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 source: engadget.com

Apple has Siri, and Microsoft is about to get Cortana

Apple has Siri, and Microsoft is about to get Cortana

Cortana Notebook is Microsoft's privacy control

 Microsoft has been in a state of "shut up and ship" with Windows Phone for more than a year now. While the company has released a few minor updates to Windows Phone 8, its feature set hasn’t changed significantly from when Microsoft first introduced the mobile OS in October 2012. The software giant refuses to discuss or acknowledge an upcoming update, Windows Phone 8.1, but a recent software development kit leak has highlighted the huge number of feature changes that will arrive in the coming months and put Windows Phone more on par with iOS and Android. One of the main feature additions is Cortana, a personal digital assistant named after Microsoft's Halo game series.

 Cortana first emerged after a Microsoft employee lost a phone running Windows Phone 8.1 last year. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s Windows Phone work have revealed to The Verge that Cortana will replace the built-in Bing search feature, which is currently launched through a dedicated hardware key, and acts as a digital assistant with a mix of Siri and Google Now functionality. We’re told that Cortana will take the form of a circular animated icon with the hue of your selected Windows Phone accent color, and will have a personality not dissimilar from Apple’s Siri. Cortana will animate when it’s speaking or thinking, and bounce around or frown with "emotion" depending on the queries involved. Cortana will be backed by data from services like Bing, Foursquare, and others to give it some of the contextual power of Google Now.

 Central to Microsoft’s vision for Cortana is a Notebook feature that will allow Windows Phone users to control exactly what information is shared with the digital assistant. Notebook will allow the Cortana digital assistant to access information such as location data, behaviors, personal information, reminders, and contact information. We’re told it’s designed as a privacy feature to ensure Cortana doesn’t freely access information without a level of user control. While Cortana will learn things about users, it won't store them in the Notebook without asking you, and any information that's stored can be edited or deleted. Cortana will then use this information to provide answers to search queries by voice or text, and provide suggestions, alerts, and reminders. Cortana could greet you by name and ask if you need help or answer questions, much like Siri.

 Through search queries and just general phone usage, Cortana will learn more about a user and offer to store personal data like home and work locations and general interests in its Notebook. Cortana will also react to messages or emails that contain phrases like "let’s meet tomorrow at 8PM" and ask if you'd like to set up reminders or calendar entries. Cortana can also provide guidance on weather, stocks, directions, appointments, and music that’s contextual based on location and other data. As Cortana is a digital assistant, it will also be able to manage a do-not-disturb feature, similar to iOS, that’s designed to mute notifications. An "inner circle" of contacts will allow Cortana to manage notifications and phone calls during "quiet hours" when notifications are muted.

 Although the initial Cortana digital assistant that will ship in Windows Phone 8.1 will have a lot of capabilities, Microsoft will need to extend it to third-party apps and its Windows and Xbox devices to improve its functionality in the future. The real test of Cortana will be how well it works with voice commands and its ability to understand natural phrases and questions. Microsoft’s recent voice work with Xbox One is impressive, but it also requires that you follow a strict pattern of commands for it to work successfully. Microsoft will have to ensure Cortana is at least as good as Siri for the company to position this as a full personal digital assistant.

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 source: theverge.com