While Siri has made quite a splash in its years of operation, the impact of this voice-driven personal assistant hasn't been lost on Apple (News - Alert)'s competitors. To that end, Microsoft has been working on its own answer to Siri for some time now, even naming it after one of the biggest elements of one of its biggest video game franchises: Cortana from the “Halo” series. Now, Cortana is about to make its appearance on the Windows Phone (News - Alert) 8.1 update, and new information has come out about how the system will ultimately work.

The current reports suggest that Cortana will be quite a bit like Siri in several ways. Not only will users be able to decide how Cortana refers to said users—nicknames will even be available, so for those who want the phone to address the user as “Master Chief”, that's well within the realm of possibility—but users will also be able to save information from Cortana to a Notebook system. This act allows Cortana easy access to a variety of data points from locations, personal and contact information, assorted reminders, and even standard user behavior points that should in turn make Cortana overall more powerful in a user's daily life.

Beyond the Notebook, however, Cortana can get information from other sources as well. Cortana is capable of tracking flights, or following notations in email, which gives it the ability to create notifications similar to those seen in Google (News - Alert) Now. It can also draw data from places like Foursquare and Bing, among others, so as to give it a context-based system.

Cortana's visual aspect, meanwhile, will be toned down significantly from its “Halo” equivalent. No holographic female avatars here, but rather a circular icon that animates when it's either speaking or thinking. There are even some reports that suggest that “Cortana” may not ultimately be the system's name when it goes into action, but reports further note that Cortana—whatever name it ends up with—will get its public unveiling at the Build conference, along with a developer preview of Windows Phone 8.1 to be released at the same event.

It would be a good idea to keep Cortana, really; Microsoft (News - Alert) could stand a bit of a halo effect in the name recognition department, and taking a chance to get the Xbox fans moving away from iPhones and Android devices into Windows Phone by offering up Cortana on a plate would likely give Windows Phone sales a desperately-needed boost. Offering a slice of that “science fiction future” certainly couldn't hurt, and if Microsoft can tap a nearby market like Xbox gamers, it would certainly offer the kind of help needed to really make Windows Phone a fully-realized competitor in the two-horse race that is iOS and Android (News - Alert).

But it's not just about the image; Microsoft can't just piggyback off “Halo” and hope for a win. It needs to ensure that the service itself is easy to use and offers quite a bit of power so that people stick with it after the novelty of “talking to Cortana” has worn off. The “Halo” connection would likely get users in the door. But the value of Cortana as a service will likely do the job of keeping these users. Only time will tell, ultimately, how Cortana does in the market and how well—if at all—it drives sales of Windows Phone devices.