Around September 2013, rumours started circulating that Microsoft was in the process of creating their own Siri-like voice system for their Windows 8.1 Phones. This news itself was awesome; finally the Windows Mobile would be getting it’s own natural voice command system and improving upon the current voice system on the phone. But on top of that with a codename like Cortana, we could only hope that the voice itself sounded exactly like Halo’s famous AI. Then that was kind of it, initial hype surrounding a circulating rumour and then not a lot more was heard…
On 16 January though, something happened. A Tumblr post by MSFTnerd seemed to confirm that Jen Taylor (the actual voice of Cortana and a myriad of other voice acting characters) was to voice this new voice command system, and additionally, it will be available for Beta in April this year for US developers! Reading on, the post goes on to state that the service will expand to the Bing application for iPhone users, along with Xbox One & Windows users around the world in the coming years. While we can’t base fact off of a single Tumblr post, we can at least hope that what has been stated will be confirmed by Microsoft in the coming weeks.
If this news isn’t exciting for a Halo fanboi like me, I don’t know what is. Maybe I’ll finally be able to have my phone call me Chief with an alarm that wakes me up with Cortana saying ‘Wake up Chief… I need you.‘ Please for the love of all that is holy Microsoft, make this a reality. A unified voice command system across my mobile, my Xbox and my computer would be amazing; but to add Cortana talking back to me? Well, you’ve have yourself a very happy camper. We can only hope that after 7 years she doesn’t descend into rampancy…