Microsoft Working On Apple Siri Competitor Codenamed ‘Cortana’

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Along with the report that notifications and multi-select Live Tile options are coming to Windows Phone 8.1, WPCentral reported that Microsoft is working on a Apple Siri competitor codenamed ‘Cortana’. The codename is not surprising given that Cortana is a fictional artificially intelligent (AI) character in the Microsoft’s own Halo video game series.


"...an overhaul to the TellMe service is in the works under the codename ‘Cortana’ that should give Siri a run for its money..."

In July, Microsoft Bing’s director Stefan Weitz in an interview to CNET revealed that Microsoft will release a Apple Siri/Google Now competitor only when they think it is revolutionary. And he told that when it gets released, they expect it to leapfrog their competitors.


“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.”

“There are teams working hot and heavy on this right now.”
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http://wmpoweruser.com/report-microsoft-working-on-apple-siri-competitor-codenamed-cortana/ via: http://m.wpcentral.com/notification-center-and-multi-tile-select-coming-windows-phone-81

UPDATE:

Microsoft's 'Cortana' is like Siri for Windows Phone
By Tom Warren on September 12, 2013 08:23 am Email @tomwarren 0Comments


Microsoft is currently testing and readying its Windows Phone 8.1 update that is believed to include a new personal assistant. ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reports that the Siri-like feature, codenamed Cortana after the Halo character, will let Windows Phone users interact with a handset through voice commands. Windows Phone already includes basic voice commands, but Cortana looks to be a step further with a system that will learn and adapt.

Steve Ballmer has promised a "service-enabled shell" for Microsoft's devices, and Foley claims Cortana is central to this new shell for Windows Phone, Windows, and Xbox One. It's not clear exactly how Cortana will work on Windows Phone, but screenshots of Windows Phone 8.1 earlier this year revealed that Microsoft is already testing the technology. The Verge has obtained additional screenshots of Cortana in action. It looks like Microsoft is testing the ability to pull in weather information, notifications, and calendar events into a single central interface. The interface also includes location information, and access to Bluetooth controls. Microsoft has previously shown concepts of a voice activated personal assistant for Windows Phone, and it could be ready to now make it a reality.

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More shots: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4722484/windows-phone-8-1-cortana-personal-assistant-screenshots
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Thanks hadareud!
 
I feel bad for Microsoft, because I bet they will make an awesome effort on this kind of thing, but no one will notice because no one has their phones.
 
The irony of creating a Siri (or Google Now, if you will) clone and calling it "revolutionary" is hopefully not lost on anyone.

And that's the thing, Microsoft's strategy for over a decade now is reactionary design. Look at what everyone else is doing and trying to reinvent the wheel. They have varied success, some stuff works, most of the stuffs falls flat because they don't offer anything special (even if it improves on what existst, it's never mindblowing systemselling stuff) and because they're always a year (or two) behind what the competition does.
 
Google Now isn't voice search, it's the service that provides you with (hopefully) relevant information without you having to search for it.
 
The best course of action is to make our minds up now before anything is announced or shown and comment on what it will be able to do or not and judge how good it is at it.

Everything else would be silly.
 
Halo CE Cortana or Halo 4 Cortana?

This is important!

Aiii said:
The irony of creating a Siri (or Google Now, if you will) clone and calling it "revolutionary" is hopefully not lost on anyone.
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That's not really what they're saying.

Apart from the fact that we don't even know what it does exactly, and to what extent it's a "Siri clone". If they actually called a Siri clone revolutionary, don't you think they know they'd be laughed out of the building?
 
Aiii said:
The irony of creating a Siri (or Google Now, if you will) clone and calling it "revolutionary" is hopefully not lost on anyone.

And that's the thing, Microsoft's strategy for over a decade now is reactionary design. Look at what everyone else is doing and trying to reinvent the wheel. They have varied success, some stuff works, most of the stuffs falls flat because they don't offer anything special (even if it improves on what existst, it's never mindblowing systemselling stuff) and because they're always a year (or two) behind what the competition does.
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I agree with your analysis of MS. But I do take it to mean that they won't release it until it does something that Siri or Google's voice search doesn't.
 
Cortana must be the codename for the project, just like Natal was for Kinect.

I expect MS to name the actual AI lady something like Microsoft Jane.
 
glaurung said:
Cortana must be the codename for the project, just like Natal was for Kinect.

I expect MS to name the actual AI lady something like Microsoft Jane.
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Maybe it's Clippy, finally given a voice?

Or Microsoft Bob. Hahaha that's something they sold in a package :P
 
MS buys our Nokia.

Working on leapfrogging competition on voice commands.

Has Kinect 2.

Ok you have my attention now MS.
 
BocoDragon said:
Maybe it's Clippy, finally given a voice?

Or Microsoft Bob. Hahaha that's something they sold in a package :P
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Haha, if they made this thing a modern Clippy, some people would burn down the MS Stores.

They'd more likely have better success with this branding:
tumblr_m7jrgz50NR1qg25ugo1_400.jpg
 
Milchjon said:
That's not really what they're saying.

Apart from the fact that we don't even know what it does exactly, and to what extent it's a "Siri clone". If they actually called a Siri clone revolutionary, don't you think they know they'd be laughed out of the building?
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BocoDragon said:
I agree with your analysis of MS. But I do take it to mean that they won't release it until it does something that Siri or Google's voice search doesn't.
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That's evolutionary. Take something that exists and expand on it.
 
I really like the idea of a personal assistant, even when it gets as creepy as Google Now. Microsoft's problems are that the Bing search results still aren't as good as Google's and that most of the features are going to be disabled outside the US, just like Google Now.

So when Microsoft unveils Cortana during a press conference and shows all the cool features and whatever else it might do better or not, the rest of the world, where the Windows Phone market share is higher than 3.5%, watches and couldn't care less.
 
I'll take a Kinect 3 mobile with Cortana AI thanks. Future versions with her hologram are welcomed too ;)

Jen Taylor in your pocket? Yes please.
 
Aiii said:
That's evolutionary. Take something that exists and expand on it.
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Like I said, you don't know the functionality.

And if you're nitpicky about what qualifies as "revolutionary", almost no tech does. It all builds upon existing stuff. Whether it's Siri or Google Now or Kinect or the iPad or iPhone or Wii or whatever.
 
BocoDragon said:
I feel bad for Microsoft, because I bet they will make an awesome effort on this kind of thing, but no one will notice because no one has their phones.
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Close to 1 in 10 in Europe and growing. Nobody is saying there isn't enormous room for growth, but they're in a solid position and - again - growing steadily.
 
Aiii said:
That's evolutionary. Take something that exists and expand on it.
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Touché. There could be a revolutionary feature added to the convept of voice, though. Probably ain't happening though.
 
BocoDragon said:
I feel bad for Microsoft, because I bet they will make an awesome effort on this kind of thing, but no one will notice because no one has their phones.
Click to expand...

Hopefully coming to Xbox One at some point.
 
hadareud said:
The best course of action is to make our minds up now before anything is announced or shown and comment on what it will be able to do or not and judge how good it is at it.

Everything else would be silly.
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lolz

Also this is good, not bad, people.
 
cyberheater said:
Hopefully coming to Xbox One at some point.
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That'd be fairly cool.

brotkasten said:
I really like the idea of a personal assistant, even when it gets as creepy as Google Now. Microsoft's problems are that the Bing search results still aren't as good as Google's and that most of the features are going to be disabled outside the US, just like Google Now.

So when Microsoft unveils Cortana during a press conference and shows all the cool features and whatever else it might do better or not, the rest of the world, where the Windows Phone market share is higher than 3.5%, watches and couldn't care less.
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That wouldn't be cool but something I'd fully expect them to do.
 
What's the point? Siri isn't much more than a novelty anyway. I played around with it for a few days after getting my phone and haven't touched it since. I don't think I've ever seen anyone else use siri in a serious manner either. Microsoft is wasting their money and effort.
 
TheMan said:
What's the point? Siri isn't much more than a novelty anyway. I played around with it for a few days after getting my phone and haven't touched it since. I don't think I've ever seen anyone else use siri in a serious manner either. Microsoft is wasting their money and effort.
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Controlling stuff via natural language will always appeal to people. Just because the tech isn't quite there yet doesn't mean we should stop working on it.

It wont go away. Just look at Google Glass and Xbone.
 
If it's something similar to Google Now, I think it's not a waste of money at all, depending on the implementation.

Having a personal assistant that is deeply integrated into the OS would be excellent.

The voice implementation on WP is rather good already, they have been hinting that there's a lot more to come and that Kinect technology would not be limited to Xbox, so depending on what it can do and what you can do with it, it could be much more than just a novelty.

But of course, it could be just that as well and it could be a big waste of money on something that nobody needs and nobody is going to use beyond initially trying it out.

It rather depends on what Cortana actually is. Which is what we don't know.
 
TheMan said:
What's the point? Siri isn't much more than a novelty anyway. I played around with it for a few days after getting my phone and haven't touched it since. I don't think I've ever seen anyone else use siri in a serious manner either. Microsoft is wasting their money and effort.
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You answered your own question. The point is to make a personal assistant that is more than a novelty. If Microsoft is heading in the right direction with Cortana, then it should be a proper mix of Google Now and Siri or rather more of a Google Now competitor. People want information, but they don't want to talk to their phone to get them and even Apple couldn't change that.
 
GNow is great, but moreso for the functions it does more than the voice recognition.

The Voice recognition is the best I have seen so far, but I still only rarely use it. Mostly when I'm in the car and stuff. Its good of them to be working on it though, they don't really have a choice honestly.
 
I only really use the voice stuff in the car too, but it's very useful.

Sending text messages or selecting music etc. is much nicer when you don't pay for it with your life.

I'm mainly interested in the personal assistant stuff if it rivals or betters Google Now both in functionality and implementation.
 
TBH Microsoft do have a long history of voice recognition software and a lot of the stuff they are doing in the field is very impressive. I find it funny that people mock them over this of all things.

Perhaps they are hoping to include real time language translation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu-nlQqFCKg

Tell me is already pretty good/accurate at the moment too.
 
brotkasten said:
You answered your own question. The point is to make a personal assistant that is more than a novelty. If Microsoft is heading in the right direction with Cortana, then it should be a proper mix of Google Now and Siri or rather more of a Google Now competitor. People want information, but they don't want to talk to their phone to get them and even Apple couldn't change that.
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Yup

Its all about 2 things: Speed of input and quality of data.

For Siri you have to talk (and its not always accurate) to receive any kind of options.

Google Now can do voice search as well and, from what i've tried, more accurately as well; but the most important part is the fact that it provides information that has yet to be requested. Google makes it incredibly easy for Google Now to fetch quality data thanks to the high use rate of their applications.

Microsoft is going to have to find ways to get more people to use their services if they want to be better than Google Now.
 
I doubt Microsoft can really compete with Google Now. However, I don't think they actually need to. To some extent Microsoft's Live Tiles already assume the functions of Google Now on both Windows 8 and Windows Phone. Live tiles can show you everything from the weather to your favorite sports team to your daily commute. You just have to set them up manually. It may not be as automatic as Google Now, but every app can take advantage of it and no one tries to learn every single thing about you to sell ads. So Microsoft could just focus on the personal assistant aspect.
 
maeh2k said:
I doubt Microsoft can really compete with Google Now. However, I don't think they actually need to. To some extent Microsoft's Live Tiles already assume the functions of Google Now on both Windows 8 and Windows Phone. Live tiles can show you everything from the weather to your favorite sports team to your daily commute. You just have to set them up manually. It may not be as automatic as Google Now, but every app can take advantage of it and no one tries to learn every single thing about you to sell ads. So Microsoft could just focus on the personal assistant aspect.
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Live tiles are only as good as the developers who code the application. The best you usually get out of live tiles are shortcuts to app functions, but those are rarely live.
 
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