microsoft is working on an  advanced version of its competitor to apple's siri, using  research from an artificial intelligence project called  'einstein' microsoft has been running its 'personal assistant' cortana on its windows phones for a year, and will put the new  version on the desktop with the arrival of windows 10 this  autumn it has now been revealed cortana will be available as a standalone app,  usable on phones and tablets powered by apple inc's ios  and google inc's android, people familiar with the  project said scroll down for video  cortana will be available as a standalone app,usable on phones and tablets powered by apple inc's iosand google inc's android, people familiar with theproject said cortana could tell a mobile phone user when to leave for the airport, days after it read an email and realized the user was planning a flight it would automatically check flight status,determine where the phone is located using gps, and checking traffic conditions microsoft has been running its 'personal assistant 'cortana on its windows phones for a year, and will put the new version on the desktop with the arrival of windows 10 this autumn 'this kind of technology, which can read and understand  email, will play a central role in the next roll out of cortana,  which we are working on now for the fall time frame,' said eric  horvitz, managing director of microsoft research and a part of  the einstein project, in an interview at the company's redmond,  washington, headquarters the plan to put cortana on machines running software from  rivals such as apple and google, as well as the einstein  project, have not been reported cortana is the name of an  artificial intelligence character in the video game series  'halo' they represent a new front in ceo satya nadella's battle to  sell microsoft software on any device or platform, rather than  trying to force customers to use windows success on rivals' platforms could create new markets and greater relevance for the  company best known for its decades old operating system the concept of 'artificial intelligence' is broad, and  mobile phones and computers already show dexterity with spoken  language and sifting through emails for data, for instance still, microsoft believes its work on speech recognition,  search and machine learning will let it transform its digital  assistant into the first intelligent 'agent' which anticipates  users needs by comparison, siri is advertised mostly as  responding to requests google's mobile app, which doesn't have  a name like siri or cortana, already offers some limited  predictive information 'cards' based on what it thinks the user  wants to know microsoft has tried to create digital assistants before,  without success microsoft bob, released in 1995, was supposed  to make using a computer easy, but ended up being the butt of  jokes the office assistant nicknamed 'clippy' suffered a  similar fate a few years later 'we're defining the competitive landscape of who can  provide the most supportive services that make life easier, keep  track of things, that complement human memory in a way that  helps us get things done,' said horvitz outside his door stands 'the assistant', a monitor showing a  woman's face that can converse with visitors, has access to  horvitz's calendar and can book meetings on his desktop, horvitz runs 'lifebrowser', a program that  stores everything from appointments to photos and uses machine  learning to identify the important moments a keyword search for  his university professor instantly brings up photos and video  from the last time they met cortana could tell a mobile phone user when to leave for the  airport, days after it read an email and realized the user was  planning a flight it would automatically check flight status,  determine where the phone is located using gps, and checking  traffic conditions none of the individual steps are a breakthrough, but  creating an artificial intelligence that can stitch together the  processes marks a breakthrough in usefulness, microsoft says apple is also pushing siri, which uses microsoft's bingsearch engine in the background, into new areas with its carplayand homekit platforms, as well as the recently unveiled applewatch rivals are on the same track google's latest mobile app  uses the predictive power generated from billions of searches to  work out what a user is doing, what they are interested in, and  sending relevant information, such as when a favorite sports  team is playing next apple is also pushing siri, which uses microsoft's bing  search engine in the background, into new areas with its carplay  and homekit platforms, as well as the recently unveiled apple  watch the key to cortana's success will be knowing where a user  is, what time it is, and what they are trying to do albert  einstein's work on the relationship between space and time gave  rise to microsoft's secret project name, said horvitz 'einstein was brilliant about space and time,' he said 'it's using brilliance about space and time generally in our  agents' (reporting by bill rigby, editing by peter henderson and john  pickering)
google now apple cortana
will compete against google now and apple's siri . cortana is the name of artificial intelligence character in the game 'halo'