Apple first unveiled Siri in the fall of 2011, Google took the wraps off Google Now in the summer of 2012 and now Microsoft is at long last about to release its own voice-enabled personal assistant this coming April. One of MSFTNerd’s sources claims that Microsoft plans to release its Cortana virtual assistant this spring, just in time for its annual Build developers conference.
MSFTNerd hints that the new service will be integrated directly with Bing and that users will be able to activate it on their mobile devices simply by saying the phrase “Bing tell me…” MSFTNerd also says that “the service will expand to the Bing app for iPhone in the US market this fall” and that “the underlying technology will be extended to American Xbox One & Windows users in 2015 with Threshold.” Cortana, for all you non-gamers out there, is the name of famous artificial intelligence character in Microsoft’s smash-hit Halo series.
