Microsoft’s Cortana voice assistant to hit Lumias in April, voice-over done by Halo's Jen Taylor

[geeteam]

The geeks of mobile, and especially the Windows Phone fans, are eagerly awaiting Microsoft's Cortana voice-controlled assistant. That's not only because it will finally be an answer to Google Now and Apple's Siri, so their friends with iPhones or Android handsets will have one less reason to brag, but also because Microsoft is big in artificial intelligence, voice recognition and simultaneous translation research.

Whether or not the amazing R&D demonstrations that you see in the embedded video below, will be transferred successfully to Cortana, remains to be seen, and likely very soon. Acclaimed leaker MSFTNerd hinted that it will arrive to Lumia devices in beta form some time in April, just as we heard. Actually that's when this year's Build conference will be held, so no wonder there will be new WP features presented, as well as the rumored Threshold UI for the Windows portfolio.

Cortana, claims the source, will be voice-overed by Jen Taylor, who does the accent of the same character in the Halo franchise. It is also coming to the Bing app in iOS, Xbox One consoles, and, naturally, to Windows 9 "Threshold", when it hits your computer next spring. That's the timeframe also for Cortana to reach countries other than the US, as it will apparently launch in beta stateside only for this year. Some sample questions it will answer are below, evidently you will be able to make small talk, like with Google's or Apple's virtual assistants:

"Bing Tell Me .."
“.. will it rain today?”
“.. when’s my next meeting?”
“.. how do I get to the American Airlines Arena?”

Source