Meet Microsoft's version of Siri - Cortana.

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

The real Siri voice has been revealed!

Meet Susan Bennett - you may know her voice if you have ever flown Delta Airlines or used an ATM. But I bet you didn't know her voice was also your favorite digital companion, Siri.

"The first time I actually heard my voice as Siri was when my friend emailed me and said, 'Isn't this you?'" Bennett told CNN, who broke the story. "I went to the Apple site and that's where I heard the voice. I went, 'Oh! Hmm. That is me.'"

Bennett says she recorded what would eventually become the voice of iPhone in July of 2005, for four hours a day, every day of the month. "I had absolutely no idea where they would end up," she admits. "Originally, it was just a bunch of sentences and phrases that were created so that every single combination of vowels and consonants and syllables could be spoken."

All of which might explain why Siri is so sassy: "There are some people that just can read hour upon hour upon hour, and it's not a problem. For me, I get extremely bored. That's one of the reasons why Siri might sometimes sound like she has a bit of an attitude...Those sounds might have been recorded the last 15 minutes of those four hours."

Source: CNN

Microsoft scores a slam dunk for Windows 8 tablets as Siri slams the iPad in a new ad.

In the latest Windows 8 news, Microsoft has shifted gears to take aim at Apple.

In this new 30 second ad, you see Siri taken hostage and forced to tell the truth...The truth as Microsoft sees it, that is.

Source: Windows YouTube Page