Over 21,000 people want Microsoft to keep Cortana, Windows Phone's upcoming virtual assistant

Lastweek, we reported a curious incident including a Lumia 920switching hands through eBay. But that wasn't just any Lumia, ratherit was running an early developer build of Windows Phone 8.1 “Blue”,and the switching of hands resulted in a bunch of insights thatweren't really supposed to leave Microsoft's labs for the time being.

Among the snippets of newinformation around the expected refresh of the OS was a curiouspiece. We, of course, are referring to 'Cortana', Windows Phone'supcoming virtual assistant that is expected to take Google Now andApple's Siri for a spin.

Named after beloved AI character from theHalo series, Cortana's appeal to the masses of FPS-loving Halo fanswas to be expected – Cortana has been ensuring life in the Halouniverse continues on since 2001, after all. Having said that, wecertainly didn't expect the mere possibility of a Cortana-namedassistant to send a ripple through the interwebs strong enough toamass over 21,000 votes onWindows Phone's suggestion section in just four short days.

Thesuggestion itself has a WP fan pleading Microsoft to keep the Cortana naming asa marketing tool that may help win people over to the relativelynascent platform, based on the tonsof positive reactions from fans worldwide. Of course, whether Cortanais simply an early codename for the upcoming assistant remains up in the air. We sure as hell hope it makes it through, though!

Thanks for the tip, Anonymous!

source: Windows Phone