Cortana is part of Microsoft's new Windows Phone 8.1 software, the mobile platform's first major
update in 18 months. The "personal digital assistant," has the ability
to search the Internet, set up alarms, shift calendar appointments, find
restaurants, send messages, place calls and more.
Interacting with Cortana is very similar to using Apple's Siri. Push an on screen button, ask a question in a conversational manner, and Cortana will go to work.
Like Google Now, Cortana also has the ability to tap into apps and the phone's core
services to deliver you contextual information. It can offer the
weather where you're located, deliver favorite sports scores, or scan
email and provide updates on a flight status or package delivery.
Cortana also has the ability to figure out what your habits are
(when you wake up, when you're at work, what you frequently search for),
and use that information to predict your next move.
Similar as
it may be to Siri and Google Now, Cortana isn't a straight clone
either. Unlike the other two services, Microsoft will not only allow
third-party apps to utilize Cortana's service, either by controlling
apps via voice or fetching data for predictive search.
But Cortana has one feature that its rivals don't: Cortana can actually push the results of its searches over to other apps.
One such example was using the Bing health tracker app. In a
demonstration at Build, Joe Belfiore, Microsoft's Windows Phone design
chief, used Cortana to search for the number of calories in a banana.
When the results came back, he was presented with option to add the
banana to Bing's health tracker as something he ate.
Source: CNN Money
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