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Comment by JTon | Hacker News Reader

I think it's a fascinating move on Microsoft's part to integrate a video game character into a users day-to-day reality. I can imagine some nostalgia fueled sales happening as a result. But moreover, I can't help but be reminded of the movie Her. Where the lines between our physical reality and our digital reality start to blur

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> But moreover, I can't help but be reminded of the movie Her. Where the lines between our physical reality and our digital reality start to blur

That's because it's a fallacy from the start. What happens on-line, what's digital, is as real as anything else. It's a mental dead end to think there are two separate things.

Point taken, but I'm still not entirely convinced. I agree that what happens online is just as real. But today, online is still feels like a separate space. It's like opening a window (our devices may literally represent this window but I'm using the term as analogy). I think "blurring the lines" has to do with removing the window from the equation.

To me it's a particularly intriguing move because Cortana's story wasn't a happy one. I know that most of the people aware of that fact also won't be fazed by it (if you've played that much Halo, you can probably distinguish the assistant from the character), but it's a surprisingly deep choice to take a name from a character who faced AI decay and all kinds of other scary techno-ills.

The reference to Her is especially relevant, since in the Halo series Cortana was clearly designed for sex appeal, and romantic tension between Master Chief (the player character) and Cortana was strongly implied.

Yeah that seems kinda edgy, epecially for Microsoft, long one of the blandest companies in tech.

Not being familiar with the Halo games, I did an image search for "Cortana" -- and while not exactly NSFW, I did immediately close the window, haha:

https://www.google.com/search?q=cortana&client=safari&rls=en...

Yes, if you're 13. Why nerds are never really leaving puberty?

The beginning where he talks to Cortana, it totally reminded me of the movie Her. [1] It seemed fascinatingly real. Although that bit might have been pre-recorded, I think we will eventually get there, where a computer's voice and its interaction would seem indistinguishable from a human's.

[1] http://channel9.msdn.com/?wt.mc_id=build_hp [~1:12:50]

The link changed (it was a live stream before). Archived at http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/KEY01. Cortana part starts at ~12 minutes.

Apple began making Siri a character, but this takes it to another level. It's a brilliant UX play on Microsoft's part. Very cool.

Interesting, as well, that Microsoft wrote a love story between Cortana and Master Chief.

Heh. If you ever really stop to think about it, Halo is a love story between a cyborg and an AI, with the backdrop being a war for survival of the species. It probably didn't start out that way, but it surely turned into that.

They were just ahead of their time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film)

Huh no.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Dreams_(film)

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