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Microsoft’s ‘Cortana’ Siri-competitor spotted ahead of Build conference

Microsoft’s Build developer conference is today, and we’re covering all the latest announcements on a number of new technologies the software giant hopes to reveal. One of the big reveals today will be about Microsoft’s competitor to Apple’s Siri voice assistant, Cortana. We don’t know much yet about Cortana, but a screenshot from the Bing personalization page suggests some deep integration between Microsoft’s search technology and the new voice assistant.

The page in question has been since edited to hide any mention of Cortana, but a sneaky user was able to grab a screenshot stating that Cortana will use your Microsoft account through Bing to “personalize” your experience. This is a pretty standard policy statement for services like Bing and Google, but it tells us that Cortana will certainly integrate heavily with Microsoft’s Bing search technology, much like how Google Now integrates closely with Google search technology.

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For now, that’s all we know about Cortana, aside from the fact that Microsoft really is milking Halo while it still can, naming the voice assistant technology after the popular AI companion in the video game series that helped put Xbox on the map. We’re guessing Cortana’s highlights will include some powerful integration with Bing, Windows Phone, and probably have a guiding voice much like the Halo character. We’ll know for sure in just a few hours when Build gets underway.

Stay tuned with us as we follow the Build conference and find out all Microsoft has to share about Cortana and more.

Joshua Sherman
Joshua Sherman is a contributor for Digital Trends who writes about all things mobile from Apple to Zynga. Josh pulls his…
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