Steve Downes , the voice of Master Chief, says he and Jen Taylor were almost dropped from Halo 4.

Microsoft Cortana - the virtual assistant that picks the outright winner of every NFL game on Bing - had its best week of the season, correctly picking 13 of the 14 outright winners in Week 8.

Master Chief actor Steve Downes has revealed he was originally recast during the production of Halo 4 in 2012.

Cortana was unveiled in 2014 as a virtual assistant for Windows phones. It was named after the advanced artificial intelligence guide in Microsoft's then best-selling Halo game series. Three years ...