Microsoft Cortana is an intelligent personal assistant on the Windows Phone 8.1 operating system available on an opt-in basis. Its name comes from Cortana, the artificial intelligence character in the Halo series, with Jen Taylor, the character's voice actress, returning to voice the personal assistant.

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Cortana was demonstrated for the first time by Microsoft corporate vice president Joe Belfiore at the Microsoft BUILD Developer Conference (April 2-4, 2014) in San Francisco. It has been launched as a key ingredient of Microsoft's planned "makeover" of the future operating systems for Windows Phone, Windows, as well as Xbox One. It is currently available to all users of Windows Phone 8.1 in the United States as a beta, and will eventually roll out to all WP8.1 users worldwide in late 2014 and early 2015.

Features
Cortana's features include being able to set reminders, recognize natural voice without the user having to input a predefined series of commands, and answer questions using information from Bing (like current weather and traffic conditions, sports scores, and biographies). Windows 8.1's universal Bing SmartSearch features are incorporated into Cortana, which replaces the previous Bing Search app which is activated when a user presses the "Search" button on their device.


Cortana, Microsoft's digital assistant, has successfully predicted the outcome of every match of this year's World Cup elimination round.

This means Cortana is on track to correctly predict more World Cup wins than Paul the Octopus. The supposedly psychic sea creature, who died in 2010, became a worldwide sensation when he predicted the winning team in eight of the 2010 tournament's matches — including the final.

Paul the Octopus correctly predicted the outcomes of seven World Cup matches his home country of Germany played during the 2010 World Cup, as well as Spain's victory over the Netherlands in the final match. Sadly, Paul died soon after the 2010 tournament concluded.

Cortana will ship with Microsoft's upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 update, slated for later this month. Until then, you can keep tabs on Cortana's predictions over at Bing.

Cortana is indeed the future of technology. She gives weather information, helps Windows users plan their schedules and so on.


Sources: http://mashable.com/2014/07/02/cortana-world-cup/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Cortana