The opening of Brad Molen’s Endgadget piece about Microsoft’s human-ish digital assistant, which is based on a scantily clad video-game character:

“She was modeled after real-life personal assistants. She is the product of two years of work, and a large team of scientists and product managers. She has video game origins. She is Microsoft’s response to Siri and Google Now. She is Artificial Intelligence and proud of it. She is Cortana.

It seems odd to refer to smartphone software as a ‘she,’ but that human element is exactly what Microsoft is after with its new Windows Phone digital assistant. Cortana, named after her fictional counterpart in the video game series Halo, takes notes, dictates messages and offers up calendar alerts and reminders. But her real standout characteristic, and the one Microsoft’s betting heavily on, is the ability to strike up casual conversations with users; what Microsoft calls ‘chitchat.’ Next to Apple’s Siri, Cortana is the only other smartphone assistant to come with a baked-in personality. And it’s hard not to see the parallels between Cortana and the affable, Scarlett Johansson-voiced AI in Spike Jonze’s film Her.”