Cortana showcases her electronic wits in a series of entertaining videos

posted by Luis D.

Apr 02, 2014, 2:52 PM

Cortana showcases her electronic wits in a series of entertaining videos

In case you didn't get properly acquainted with Windows Phone 8.1's voice assistant from the live stream and our coverage, Microsoft is giving you an entertaining second chance. The video series shows Cortana interacting with her human overlords to the best of her electronic abilities. Her answers can be quite amusing and we had a fun time watching these.

Enjoy them for yourself and, while you have the time, think up of ways to chat up Cortana when she eventually circles on your Windows Phone 8.1 device.

Meet Cortana - Windows Phone 8.1's voice assistant

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source: Microsoft

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12 Comments

9. Karriope

Posts: 148; Member since: Jun 07, 2013

The reaction processing seems just a little slow, but aha, that's a witty assistant alright.

posted on Apr 03, 2014, 9:32 AM 0

7. Scott93274

Posts: 6044; Member since: Aug 06, 2013

Well, Notifying the user that they have overlapping appointments was cool, but other than that, it hasn't really done anything that I haven't seen before on Google Now of Iris. It's so easy to design something like this when others have been giving you examples to reference for several years already.

posted on Apr 02, 2014, 4:47 PM 0

5. CX3NT3_713

Posts: 2365; Member since: Apr 18, 2011

Wow!! Cortana is shytin on siri...this is going to be awesome

posted on Apr 02, 2014, 3:48 PM 2

4. good2great

Posts: 1042; Member since: Feb 22, 2012

jroc... it has a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way to go buddy. the overlapping appts should have been picked up as soon as she responded

posted on Apr 02, 2014, 3:36 PM 2

6. jroc74

Posts: 6023; Member since: Dec 30, 2010

Yea...that is a good point. lol. It shouldn't have allowed the appt to even be made....should have gave the warning first.

posted on Apr 02, 2014, 4:16 PM 1

10. airisoverrated

Posts: 55; Member since: Jun 08, 2012

Speak for yourself. I constantly have overlapping appointments due to reminders, repeating calendar entries, full day events layered with sub appointments throughout the day, and facebook events that I don't necessarily care about. If I tell my phone to add an appointment I want it to happen. A notification of the conflict is all i need. I can decide for myself if it's an issue.

posted on Apr 04, 2014, 2:32 AM 1

12. jroc74

Posts: 6023; Member since: Dec 30, 2010

If DVR's could warn us before recording overlapping shows, movies....I think these apps can too. (the older ones anyway....I understand DVR features are better now.) But you make a interesting point tho. Although....when would you get the notification? Would it be in enough time to let someone know you cant make it? I wouldnt want to schedule an overlapping dr appt and job interview...or overlapping job interviews...

posted on Apr 04, 2014, 10:43 AM 0

13. airisoverrated

Posts: 55; Member since: Jun 08, 2012

Indeed, there are certainly appointments that shouldn't conflict. A neat expansion of this feature in the future would be the ability to ask Cortana if you have an appointment at a specific date and time, or to list your appointments on a given date. That would certainly expand upon the personal assistant feature set they're going for. And in the even more distant future, it would be awesome to set the appointment location through Cortana, and if it could let you know your allotted drive time between appointments is insufficient. For now though, it's clear in the video that the notification comes immediately after creating the appointment. I don't see how immediate feedback is not going to let you know in time. This is no different from Siri, and unless it's been added in a more recent update over the past few months (possible but I'm unaware of it) Google Now is extremely limited in adding and editing your calendar (it's one feature I wanted them to copy from Siri). So Cortana's current calendar interaction is at least as good as it's competition.

posted on Apr 05, 2014, 12:20 PM 0

11. airisoverrated

Posts: 55; Member since: Jun 08, 2012

A looooong way to go? Lets think about that. Apple already purchased another voice interaction company to play catchup to google now and cortana. I'm not saying cortana has every feature of google now, (for example bringing up your airline pass in a scanable fashion right in google now is cool) but it's got many of the same abilities, and a few unique ones that google doesn't have that I personally will use much more often. Reminders based on who you're calling? Awesome for me when I'm working so I can make sure I cover all of the topics I need with whoever Im speaking with. Location based reminders? Totally useful for everyone, from shopping lists to tasks to be completed. 3rd party app integration is the bees knees, though likely only to be implemented by larger microsoft partners in time for launch. But Apple still hasnt implemented this and it has huge potential for developers and can present even more ease of use for casual users (see that Hulu Plus part). Notice I didn't bother comparing it to Siri much. At this point it seems to be the least capable of the three. It can add appointments, text for you, call folks, and look stuff up, but has no feature to set it apart from the others. Yes cortana seems to be a bit of Siri (natural language, personality) and google now (tracking relevant personal info like travel time to appointments), but with some unique features that set it apart. Thats what all these companies do, take the best of what your competition does and try to improve it. We will see if it works as advertised when released (remember siris launch issues with servers being overloaded), but if it performs as well as this demo, It will be very powerful and a great platform to build on in future releases.

posted on Apr 04, 2014, 2:47 AM 0

3. jroc74

Posts: 6023; Member since: Dec 30, 2010

The written response to 10 was funny....and 14....that was nice it reminded him of overlapping appointments. Cortana might give Google Now and Siri a run for their money. This is shaping up to be a 3 platform race. BB is dead.