Long rumoured voice assistant, codenamed “Cortana”, is all set to make its beta appearance on Windows Phone, starting April 2014, according to a very credible source – @msftnerd. The Siri-like feature is reportedly voiced by Jen Taylor, who actually did the voice acting for Cortana, an AI character in the hit game-series “Halo”. The voice assistant, which might carry the name “Bing Tell me”, will launch for developers, in beta, in April, which coincides with the Build 2014 Developer event by Microsoft. “Build” is where Microsoft plans to unveil information about the next release of Windows, codenamed Threshold.
“Bing Tell Me ..”
“.. will it rain today?”
“.. when’s my next meeting?”
“.. how do I get to the American Airlines Arena?”
..is supposedly the way one can talk to Cortana. This kind of conversational assistance has been in Apple’s Siri since 2011, which was then usurped by the conversational and predictive situational assistance from Google Now. All the services are constantly improving and, as always, Microsoft is years late to the game with Cortana. According to sources quoted earlier, the service is being delayed mainly because apparently they want the experience to be much better than what others are currently offering. But the main question is will Microsoft deliver? I think we will find out soon.
After the beta testing phase, Cortana will reportedly roll out to the Bing app on iPhone later this year, during fall, and then onto other Microsoft platforms like Xbox and Windows(9) in 2015. Other “English-speaking” territories will be getting it over 2015-16 it seems like. Due to the credibility of the source, we find this information really accurate, but it also makes us wonder why the company, when already late, is launching the service even slower, in terms of roll out. It all remains to be seen how good and accessible this service is, and considering the fact that “English” speaking countries alone get this in 2016, there is no hope left for countries like India, where Siri and Google Now keep working perfectly.
Again, this is all assuming the fact that the source is really credible. We hope that Microsoft notices though, because the roll out seems extremely slow, especially in a fast paced market.
Source MSFTNerd