Software devs love peppering their releases with a few well-placed Easter eggs, and voice-based virtual assistants on smartphones have been no stranger to this trend: Siri can be goaded into telling knock-knock jokes, and Google Now will engage in some Star Trek dialogue if asked to beam you up. As a result, it shouldn’t be too surprising to learn that Microsoft’s Cortana likes to get in on the fun as well, and this morning we check out one of the first-known Cortana Easter eggs.

Remember Clippy, the on-screen cartoon paper clip “assistant” that would pop up in Microsoft Office with its “helpful” advice, much to the distraction of all but the most novice users? We’ll give you a moment to stop groaning.

As it turns out, Cortana’s well familiar with Clippy, and asking her about Microsoft’s old virtual assistant triggers a number of different responses – we even see Cortana poking fun at how annoying many users found Clippy, chiding him for being “so chatty” on Facebook.

But that’s just the half of it. After bringing up the subject of Clippy, Cortana even swaps out her halo icon for an updated rendering of Clippy (below). Clippy’s back, baby!

Have any of you WP8.1 dev preview users spotted any other funny things Cortana says? Share them with us down in the comments.

Source: WPCentral