Windows Phone 8.1: If you have just upgraded to Windows Phone 8.1 and you do not know how to use the voice assistant, Cortana, then Nokia's got you covered. 

Microsoft has really done the Windows Phone platform a great favor when it was included in the 8.1 update. It is not just a way to match up with Apple's iOS and Google's Android, but is also a way to make the mobile platform veer on the 'lighter side' of things. 

While iOS has Siri and Android has Google Now, Windows Phone's Cortana will sure take the platform to greater heights. 

It also helped a lot that the name of the voice assistant came from a very prominent character in one of Microsoft's game titles - Halo. Fans of the franchise would surely want to listen to the sidekick which followed their character throughout the story. 

Unfortunately for some fans, the Cortana voice assistant does not come with visual eye candy, such as Cortana's actual image which shows her reactions, the she talks, gestures, and so on. Oh well, maybe Nokia and Microsoft would include such feature in the near future. 

As for the current version of Cortana, it is indeed a know-it-all application just as long as your smartphone is connected to the Internet. It is also worth noting that Cortana cannot only be used for tasks, applications and reminders. 

In the Conversations Blog by Nokia, people can actually engage in a coversation with Cortana. If you have watched the movie 'Her', it's not like that. Though, it is really exciting to know that people would be able to actually talk with their smartphones in the near future. 

In the blog, some users post that any owner of a Windows Phone 8.1 powered device can ask or tell anything to Cortana, and 'she' would respond in some silly and witty ways. Again, this is a move by Microsoft to make its devices, especially its mobile platform, less serious. This way, its target would shift from entrepreneurs to casual smartphone users, to teenagers. 

If you want to check out some tips about Cortana, here is the link.