New Delhi: While Microsoft is far from extending its digital assistant, Cortana, onto other platforms, a group of Italian hackers took the responsibility of doing just that and bring the virtual voice program to Android.
Voice-based Cortana was introduced following Apple's Siri and is named after the Al companion from the Halo video game series and is restricted to Windows Phone models. The hackers tweaked around the program's internals and were able to bring it to the Google OS.
However, there are certain limitations to the project like the user needs to be connected to the Internet to be able to see Cortana working on their Android device.
Calling themselves OrangeSec, the Italian hackers admit that the project isn't as impressive as the original and currently the assistant, dubbed Portana, can speak only Italian.
Explaining their hack at the Droidcon 2015, the Italians say that for Portana to work on Android, the device must be online because the program is still communicating with Microsoft's back-end servers. It also means that the program can't be used to control or integrate with Android features like the original version, Slash Gear reports.
To bring the Windows Phone-only assistant on Android, the hackers deployed a combination of hardware proxies, custom SSL certificates, and DNS spoofing. Although a tad complication to execute, the hackers acknowledge that it is mostly a proof of concept and there is little scope that their version of Cortana will ever see the light of the day.
Meanwhile, original owner- Microsoft is expected to bring the real Cortana onto PCs and tablets later this year with the release of its upcoming Windows 10 OS.
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