Microsoft is working on a competitor to Apple’s Siri virtual assistant codenamed “Cortana,” it was originally glimpsed as “zcortana,” a software folder seen in screenshots of Beta version of the “Blue” update to Windows phone 8.

Cortana is a codename taken from an artificial intelligence from the popular “Halo” game series for PC and Xbox, capable of learning and adapting to environments, and assisting the main character, Master Chief. It not only allow users to interact with their devices using voice commands -it will utilize cloud technology to connect Microsoft systems across all platforms, including Windows Phone 8, the coming Xbox One and Windows 8 computers.

While Siri pulls information from Wolfram Alpha and Yelp to answer queries, Google Now is capable of using email and calendar data to anticipate queries and present data it suspects the user will find important. Cortana will likely go beyond voice commands like Google now, according to The Verge’s Tom Warren.

If you’re a Windows user and would like to take a sneak peek at the technology behind Cortana, check out the Bing Translator app for Windows. Microsoft is reportedly rolling out Cortana-derived enhancements to that app’s speech recognition system.