Microsoft working on Cortana personal assistant for Windows Phone

 More evidence is emerging that Microsoft is working on a Siri-like personal assistant for the Windows Phone 8 operating system.

At the moment, it's called Cortana - named after the artificial intelligence character in the Microsoft game Halo.

While we know the system is in intense testing, we don't know if it uses the character's voice.

It seems Microsoft is hoping to include Cortana, or whatever it's called by then, in the major WP 8.1 update expected in early-ish 2014. That's the update which should also bring a notification centre of some kind to the OS.

The plan is for Cortana to be fully integrated into Windows Phone and not just act as a voice-recognition service. It could also be rolled out to other Microsoft platforms like Windows and Xbox.