"Portana" is Cortana ported over to Android

OrangeSec is a hacker group out of Italy that claims to have ported over Cortana to Android. Cortana is the virtual, voice activated personal assistant employed by many users of handsets powered by Windows Phone 8.1. The group named its port "Portana," and despite the name, it is not a real port since not all of the features are included. For example, Portana cannot integrate with Android apps as Cortana does with Windows Phone apps.

Portana also doesn't connect to Microsoft's servers and only speaks Italian. Apparently, the hacker group was able to get to Cortana's backend without Microsoft's approval.

Last month, a report from Reuters said that Microsoft was planning on making Cortana available to iOS and Android users as a stand-alone app, but Microsoft has not officially confirmed this speculation. Marcus Ash, the group project manager for Cortana on Windows Phone, said last summer that Microsoft would be interested in sharing Cortana with other platforms.



source: VentureBeat via WindowsCentral