Xbox One Will Receive Cross-Platform Apps

April 2, 2014 by Samantha Lienhard - Leave a comment

About a month ago, we discussed Microsoft’s upcoming personal digital assistant, Cortana, and speculated on how it could be used with the Xbox One. Microsoft revealed more details about Cortana at its Build 2014 conference, and while there still isn’t any news of Cortana-Xbox integration, we still see it as a likely possibility.

What Microsoft did announce about the Xbox One was the arrival of cross-platform apps. It won’t be available for a while, but it sounds as though you’ll eventually be able to use Windows apps on your Xbox One.

What apps would you most like to see on your console? Would you like the ability to use the Kinect’s voice commands with Cortana?

Microsoft Introduces Its Own Siri—Cortana

March 3, 2014 by Cheats.co Staff - Leave a comment

When Windows Phone users get the upcoming 8.1 update, the Bing search feature will be replaced by a personal digital assistant similar to Apple’s Siri. Its name? Cortana.

Although this feature is named after the AI from the Halo series, Cortana doesn’t share her appearance, but instead appears as a circle, with speaking/thinking animations. On the other hand, there are rumors that the Halo voice actor for Cortana will provide the voice of this Cortana as well. You can customize how Cortana addresses you, whether you want it to use your name or call you by a nickname. You can also make sure it pronounces your name correctly.

Cortana will use a Notebook feature to store and access data, and you can choose to let it keep track of information from your emails, as well. It also will use data from services like Bing and Foursquare. In this way, it acts as a combination of Siri and Google Now.

Xbox One players are hopeful Cortana will be used in conjunction with the Kinect’s voice recognition features, and that it could be used to set up and navigate the console. While Microsoft hasn’t said anything about such a plan, this would fit with their goal of allowing players to connect all of their media with the Xbox One.

We can’t be sure that Microsoft is going to keep the name Cortana for the finished product, although that would certainly be cool. We’ll let you know as soon as we learn more. In the meantime, check out some of these shots of Cortana in action, including the line, “I’m absorbing the entire internet. Won’t take long now,” which suggests a sense of humor and playfulness behind this feature.

Thanks, The Verge.