Microsoft took the wraps off of Windows Phone 8.1 on Wednesday and announced updates to Windows 8.1 at the Build developer conference in San Francisco. Windows Phone Vice President Joe Belfiore introduced Windows Phone 8.1, and Cortana, the personal digital assistant for Windows Phone. Cortana is powered by Bing, some of the interests in Cortana’s Notebook will light up on Bing.com, when you sign in on the web. Bing.com will give you access to the things Cortana tracks for you, like your weather, stocks, news, and flights.

According to Microsoft’s official blog post, “Cortana will be available soon in the U.S. in beta, then will launch in the U.S., the U.K. and China in the second half of 2014, with other countries to follow in 2015.”

Cortana was first seen in Halo, one of the cornerstones of Xbox 360’s success. In the game, Cortana is an artificial intelligence being, which guides the Master Chief during the course of the game. The idea is that legions of Xbox fans will relate to the name and would no further introduction the concept, because just like in Halo, Cortana will take care of you during the course of your Windows Phone experience.

                        

Cortana will show up as a hollow ring on your phone when it has something to say to you and it can even express a few ‘emotions’ when that’s called for. Expect it to become animated and happy when you favourite team wins or sad when they have had a bad day on field. It’s a simple yet powerful concept, one that will make any user feel as if Cortana is really happy or sad with them. To interact with Cortana, you can either speak or type, if you’re in a meeting, just type and Cortana won’t talk out loud. But if you ask her a spoken question, she’ll answer verbally and even carry on a natural conversation.

Cortana isn’t just a dry computer returning search results. Just as she has in the game Halo, Windows Phone’s Cortana has a bit of personality, With the Cortana assistant, Microsoft catches up to Siri and Google Now in many ways. You can use voice commands to search for information, set alarms and make calendar entries, for instance.