The battle over whose "talk" is better is heating up, with a new advertisement from Microsoft hitting hard at Apple and Siri.
The commercial launched by Microsoft over the past weekend plays out as a showdown of sorts between the virtual assistants featuring Windows' Cortana and Apple's Siri, and undoubtedly ends in Cortana's favor.
While the commercial is somewhat comical, it does attribute to Siri a number of what analysts say are fake responses and illogical retorts, but it's an ad. Microsoft's ultimate goal is to show users that its software is superior to Apple's.
Titled "Siri vs. Cortana - Happy Anniversary", the video ad has also been published on Microsoft's Windows Phone Youtube.com channel. It shows the Cortana software running on Windows Phone 8.1 and Siri on the iPhone 5s, both companies' flagship devices.
Cortana is touted as having humanlike abilities, including the ability to learn new things and to understand more natural language commands.
In a back and forth of questions that end with Siri, of course, losing the battle, a user begins by asking Cortana to set a reminder concerning a person instead of a time or location, which Siri then admits that it cannot do. 1-0 Microsoft.
The user then asks both virtual assistants to remind him to pick "roses" whenever near a flower shop, to which Cortana says "Sure, I will remind you", while Siri responds saying it cannot do this either.
Finally, when the user says that "it's going to be a great night," Cortana takes it as "Time to leave" for the meeting scheduled that night, and presents live traffic information, while Siri finally surrenders by saying, "Now that is a smartphone," referring to Cortana and the Lumia 635.
It is the latest battle over virtual technology, and with Apple's upcoming launch of the iPhone 6, companies are beginning the attack ads against the company that remains at or near the top of the tech world's pecking order.
It also comes on the heels of Nuance Communications, the software maker for speech-recognition such as Apple's virtual assistant Siri, reportedly discussing with Samsung Electronics and other interested firms a possible acquisition or sale, Tech Times reported in June. It is unclear if a deal has been finalized.
Nuance, which has its base in Burlington, Mass., creates voice-powered technology that is often used in televisions, mobile handsets and GPS navigation devices. Its most popular voice product technology is Apple's virtual assistant Siri.
Here's a video clip of the Microsoft ad:
