Cortana speakers may be cool, but this DIY powered Cortana hologram is much cooler

The recently announced Harman Kardon Cortana speakers are indeed very cool, but have you ever wanted to bring Cortana out of your electronic device and into real life? Well, one very skilled developer has done just that, creating a holographic Cortana appliance that is his own imagined version of the artificial intelligence sidekick from the Halo franchise.

Seen above, a YouTuber going by the name of Jarem Archer, built a fully working concept Cortana appliance which he calls a “vision of what Microsoft’s version of Alexa or Google Home would be like if they were to use they used holographic AI sidekick from the Halo franchise.” The hologram (which is animated based off the YouTuber’s wife,) nonetheless, uses Windows 10’s native Cortana experience and is powered by a Windows 10 device with 4GB of RAM, and a built-in Arduino used for controlling the platform lights.

Software for the hologram comes in two parts, a Unity 3D app to animate Cortana, and a proxy service that parses data to and from the native Cortana web service. Impressively, there is also face tracking by way of a front facing camera which moves the rendered version of Cortana according to a user’s head position.  According to the video, the device can be used for knowledge-based queries, as well as home automation and music tasks.

Microsoft recently announced the Cortana Skills Kit, so it’s safe to say that this DIY Windows 10 powered Cortana hologram will only get much smarter in the coming months. Do you think this is something Microsoft should consider building? As always, let us know your thoughts by dropping us a comment below.

Further reading: Cortana, Hologram, Windows 10