September 8, 2014
In China, chat up XiaoIce, Cortana’s little sister

XiaoIce, which means “Little ice” in Mandarin, is a social assistant that can be added on several major Chinese social networking services including Weibo, a microblogging service used by 700 million people. And recently, customers using the Windows Phone 8.1 Preview for Developers have been able to strike up a chat with XiaoIce by asking Cortana China, aka Xiao Na.

August 13, 2014
Use Cortana with these Windows Phone 8.1 apps

Cortana, your virtual personal assistant available with Windows Phone 8.1, can also work with favorite apps including Twitter, Skype and Foursquare. Apps like these integrate with Cortana’s listening capability so you can ask her to perform tasks within those apps using just your voice.

July 14, 2014
Cortana to get an advanced degree this fall

This fall, Cortana, the personal assistant for Windows Phone 8.1, will be smarter than ever with academic data powered by Bing. This addition to Bing will make that service even more robust — and will help make Cortana the best personal assistant for researchers.