Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft boss, wanted to name Microsoft’s voice assistant Bingo so it would become more of a Microsoft brand. Sandeep Paruchuri, who led Microsoft’s product team for many years, made this known in the Big Bets Newsletter.
In the newsletter, Paruchi shared the story of how the AI assistant of Microsoft got her name. For example, he said that Ballmer’s parting gift was called Bingo, but that “the team has been waiting.” Successor Satya Nadella preferred a different name. He agreed with the developer team and eventually named the voice assistant Cortana.
The name Cortana is taken from a Halo character. The character is an artificial intelligence that Master Chief interacts with a lot throughout the series. Officially, according to Paruchiro, the voice assistant would first be called Alyx. That name was then leaked and was not well received by the public. That is why Microsoft ultimately chose to look for another name.
What can you do with Cortana?
The Big Bets newsletter also shares details about how the assistant became one of the main promotional items for the Windows Phone platform. Cortana was first released by Microsoft in 2014. The assistant can set reminders, recognize a voice, answer questions using search engine Bing, open apps on your computer, and much more. Not everyone has been happy with Cortana, especially since there was no simple method in Windows 10 to disable the voice assistant.
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