Dev.SN ♥ developers
Sections
Dev.SN
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.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Cortana: Windows Phone 8.1's AI Assistant
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 1000 moderator points
| 25 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 2, Insightful) by moozh on Tuesday March 04 2014, @03:40PM
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, @03:50PM
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, @04:05PM
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, @05:13PM
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, @05:27PM
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, @05:25PM
Flamebait? What, pray tell, about my comment was flaming or baiting?
(Score: 1) by moozh on Tuesday March 04 2014, @06:40PM
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 Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:52PM
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 Tuesday March 04 2014, @11:07PM
"not that piece of shit windows thing you're using Jim, try something by Apple" - Bob
(Score: 1) by EvilJim on Tuesday March 04 2014, @11:11PM
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.