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Does this animation look familiar to you? Microsoft’s answer to Siri revealed

cortana

The Verge provides a first look at the animation for Cortana, Microsoft’s answer to Siri. While it’s a still photo rather than a video, it seems pretty clear how the circular animation works … can anyone think of where they’ve seen anything like that before?

Cortana – named after the AI character in the Microsoft game Halo – is set to appear in the forthcoming 8.1 update to Windows Phone. The feature looks like a relatively direct Siri clone, with some features borrowed from Google Now – such as the ability to scan your emails for things like flight numbers and plans to schedule meetings.

It’s not yet known whether Cortana will be the public name of the feature, or just an internal codename.

[tweet https://twitter.com/MikeBeas/status/440553994109587457]

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Comments

  1. abraham royce (@aberoyce) - 10 years ago

    Not sure if anyone cares about the animation of the windows product but why SIri has barely gotten better since “she” was introduced.

    • rrobinson1216 - 10 years ago

      She lost her snarky attitude of iOS 6…I kinda miss it. What kind of things are you wanting Siri to be able to do?

      • I’ve not noticed a change in snark. She doesn’t always have the same replies, but some of them are more sarcastic than before. She also can project attitude through her voice now, which is pretty neat.

      • jrox16 - 10 years ago

        Ask Siri “what does the fox say”. Also ask “who let the dogs out”. She is still amusing.

    • Robert Nixon - 10 years ago

      I think either your memory is fuzzy or you didn’t use Siri when it first came out. It has gotten leagues better.

      • rrobinson1216 - 10 years ago

        I wasn’t the one that said it hasn’t gotten better. I just said I missed some of her snarky replies…like when you ask her where to hide a body, for example. I jailbreak anyway, so Siri got way better for me long ago.

    • jrox16 - 10 years ago

      Siri has improved in both speed and reliability. Apple is a company that will always work to perfect a new technology before throwing in more features which always add more bugs. But she is definitely more capable today than she was when introduced anyway.

    • scumbolt2014 - 10 years ago

      Wrong

  2. Luis Alejandro Masanti - 10 years ago

    Mac OS uses a wristwatch to show delays… When Microsoft introduced Windows, it used a sand clock.
    Sire uses a mike… Microsoft should use a ‘RCA Victor gramophone (dog included)’ to parallel icons.

  3. taoprophet420 - 10 years ago

    The photo that says Cortana Settings could be a good indication of the name.

    • Ben Lovejoy - 10 years ago

      That tells us what it’s called now, not necessarily what it will be called when launched

  4. scumbolt2014 - 10 years ago

    Eh. M$ right on track 3+ years late to the show per usual.

    More important too me is what “gimmick” features the iPhone 6 and/or wearable device Apple makes next that all the anal-systs and competition CEO’s will mock and discount as nothing then it will be on all the competitions devices as they innovate until the cows come home.

  5. Alborz Heydaryan - 10 years ago

    is set to appear*
    NOT: it’s set to be appear!

  6. Andrew Messenger - 10 years ago

    A headline about an animation, yet no animation to be seen.

  7. Michael (@iamMLH) - 10 years ago

    It does look familiar. It looks like Shazam.

    Everyone is really missing the points on this. Microsoft didn’t just copy a circle. They also stole the idea of using a microphone to signify talking, a music note to represent music, a human hand in an advertisement to show something can be held and words spelled out with small symbols called letters. Clearly Apple is on the cutting edge of human symbology, and Microsoft is just fighting to catch.

  8. Siri isn’t merely a joke, it’s a time waster that causes your stress levels to soar. Life is better WITHOUT Siri.

  9. Wait, what? You seem to be suggesting that looks like something that’s a part of Siri, but Siri has nothing like that? (Siri does have a single circular progress ring after you query it, but that’s just a copy of the common Metro style progress rings like so much of iOS 7). But never mind that, because this doesn’t look like a progress ring at all.

    Instead, this looks like something that might be interactive and animate in response to your voice. It also looks very much like something out of Halo…

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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