Update 31-01-2008

Due to personal and work commitments I have not fully tested the current version in time to release it now. I will aim to complete it ASAP. Thank you for your patience.

Pocket Cortana

Pocket Cortana is a new .NET CF 2.0 application designed to answer your phone when you can't. The idea originally idea came from not being able to respond to SMS messages and phone calls when driving or in meetings. The idea is that anyone with a windows mobile based phone can have a true personal secretary who can take messages, arrange and reschedule appointments or answer basic queries. All this via SMS, E-mail or voice. That's the plan. Here is the 'marketing tagline'.

Revolutionary software turns any windows mobile based phone into an automated personal assistant who can take messages, arrange meetings, even give you some time off for lunch. And make sure your best friend is there to share it with you.

Turning PDAs into personal digital assistants.

Marketing line (ignore)

So how realistic is this?

In short, very realistic, check the FAQ at the bottom of the page for some questions answered, if you have any more just mail pocketcortana%veebs.com and I'll add it. At the moment the current software release is called PocketCortanaSMS and it is undergoing stability testing before I make any binaries available online. I imagine there will be two editions: PocketCortanaSMS, PocketCortanaVoice.

Features

Currently implemented features for Cortana Personal Agent:

  • Automated SMS responses based on status
  • Basic syntax interaction
  • Agent access control by contact / appointment categories.
  • ... Lots more little things

FAQ

History

  • Why write something like this? - Mostly because I can, and I wanted to. But even better I think it will be useful to lots of people, specially in the business world.
  • So... Cortana... Is this part of Bungies world domination plans - Absolutely not... well not officially. The name Cortana comes from the popular video game originally fro Bungie (but now owned by Microsoft). She is the artificial intelligence character who looks after the player during the game, in a similiar way that PocketCortana will look after your appointments and contacts as you go through the day. Aliens not included!
  • What platforms will it be available on - PocketCortanaSMS is being targetted at .NET CF 2.0 and will be tested on WM5 and WM6 devices. When I say WM5 devices... I the emulators... unless I can get my hands on some hardware.

So ....?

  • Have you heard of SharpNLP/some other NLP system, why don't you use that? - I have heard of SharpNLP and there is a working copy of PocketCortanaSMS using SharpNLP. The problems with NLP are two fold: Very CPU intensive so SLOW on a pocket device (also bad for batteries if you get a lot of texts), and there is a difference between simply deconstructing text and finding out what someone wants to achieve with the text.
  • Will it be open source at any point?
    • - I hope to follow the same route as Paint.NET has followed and release the source code to the application in due course. Be aware that developing for windows mobile is not possible on Visual Studio Express editions. So you will need to invest some money in development tools to get any benefit.
  • What will PocketCortanaVoice be able to do?
    • - Initially PocketCortanaVoice (in addition to SMS services) will offer simple answerphone services for incoming calls. Which can then be followed up with SMS communications.
    Later this will be extended with text to speech and speech to text technology to allow IVR style systems so people can book appointments, view contact information and all the other things you can do over SMS. But this will take time, and I am currently working on getting SAPI running on mobile.
  • Can I help? - Thank you! Initially you can help by sending suggestions and testing released binaries. I hope the project will grow greatly over time and I hope there will be other people enthusiastic about the possibilities and want to come on board.

Is that all?

Pretty much for now, but look out for the download by the end of February. Thank you for your interest, let me suggest some fine reading for those interested in development or windows mobile affairs:

  • Visual Studio Home page - You'll want to buy this to develop anything mobile
  • SharpNLP Home page - ShapNLP is an open source .NET based natural language processor.
  • Proxem Antelope - This is a commercial, but free for evaluation and research, text to speech and speech to text engine designed for mobile devices.