One of the promises of Windows 10 is the ability to unite various platforms and streamline the user experience across the PC, mobile devices and even gaming consoles in your living room. Today Microsoft announced the public beta of Cortana for Android to extend that cross-platform functionality to the number one mobile device system in the world. Ideally, Microsoft would prefer that you enjoy that cross-platform experience on a Windows Phone device but it’s willing to co-opt Android as well. The reality is that Windows Phone has barely enough market share to even register as a competing mobile platform and Microsoft has been not-so-subtly hijacking Android from the inside for a while now. Microsoft plans to make Cortana available as an app for iOS as well, but the closed, proprietary nature of the iOS platform will make it much more difficult for Microsoft to subjugate the primary operating system or replace Siri. Android, on the other hand, is an open source... More