Google improves Assistant with many user-friendly features



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Google introduced the new features to selected members of the press in a specially designed San Francisco home with multiple Google Home speakers and smart screens. As you might expect, the event focused on upcoming vacations, and many new features were presented with this in mind.

For example, Google adds a broadcast response feature, which allows you to send a message to all the speakers and smart screens in your home in one action. With the answer, however, those on the other end can finally answer you.

Google has demonstrated with a spokesman claiming that he was out with his phone. He aired on the Google Home speaker, asking if his colleague needed something from the store. The colleague responded by asking him to pick up cranberry sauce on the way home (very appropriate to the theme). The spokesperson then received a notification on his phone, which leads not only to a voice recording, but also to the transcribed text. In the demonstration, Google used a smart display, which indicated the name of the caller, but also worked with smart speakers.

Maybe my new favorite feature however is cooking. One of my personal highlights of Google's smart display is its detailed recipe instructions. Google wanted the opportunity to show them more. Therefore, it introduces recommended recipes, which you can access simply by sliding your finger directly on the home screen.

This list of recommended recipes is personalized according to your preferences and is also highly contextual. In our demonstration, for example, we saw a list of recommended Thanksgiving recipes. According to a spokesperson, in the aftermath of Thanksgiving, this list will turn into recipes for Thanksgiving remnants, which will help you use what's left of the big treat.

Plus, you can now save your favorite recipes in a personal cookbook and retrieve them with Google Assistant. For the moment, this only works with content partner recipes, but Google says it also works for you to enter your own recipes.

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Another feature of Google's smart-home range is the ability to adjust the playback speed of your favorite podcasts and audio books, which you can turn on by saying, for example, "Hey Google, play a speed twice as fast ". Unfortunately, this only seems to work right now with Google's podcasts and Google's audio books.

Turning now to family entertainment, Google also introduces more child-friendly content. Through a partnership with Nickelodeon, he adds a set of Nickelodeon alarms Rise of mutant teenage ninja turtles. This will not only awaken your little children (or not so small) with the signature theme song, but you can even set the vocals of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello or April O 'Neill (No Splinter, unfortunately) to offer jokes and words of wisdom. To activate it, simply say "Hey Google, set up a Ninja Turtle alarm for 16 hours," for example, and then choose your favorite character. Other alarms include characters from LEGO city, Lego Life and Lego friends, with more Spin Master Hatchimals coming later this year. I'm obviously not a child, but I thought the feature was fun during the demos.

Just a few weeks ago, Google announced its partnership with Disney to bring storybook books to life with a new streaming feature that adds sound effects and music when played back. give to your child. To add to that, Google announces the launch of its own children's book titled Ara the Star Engineer, which was written by a Google employee.

If you need a little more, Google adds 25 storytelling titles for the family that do not require a book. These stories are the result of the aforementioned Nickelodeon partnership and include title deeds such as Dora the explorer, PAW Patrol and more.

Finally, Google made us enter the bedroom for some nocturnal features. One of them is the ability to activate the silent mode or do not disturb on your phone with Google Assistant (via your phone or a smart speaker or screen with Google). Just say "Hey, Google, shut up my phone" to do it. Google introduced this feature with a home hub, which also displays phone names on the screen. For now, this feature seems to work only with Pixels, but Google says this solution is operational for this feature to be available on all Android phones.

Google is also introducing a new type of alarm. When the Android update comes up, you will see a setting for "Google Wizard Routines" in the Alarms section of the Clock app. When activated, a series of actions are triggered when you release the alarm. During our demonstration, after the spokesperson cut off the alarm, Google Assistant informed him of the time he was doing and turned on the nearby coffee maker.

With all these improvements, Google is clearly attacking Amazon, which has had a pretty good lead in the field of smart home thanks to Echo and Alexa. However, Google has been opposed in recent years with its own range of rivals Echo, partnerships with several third-party manufacturers and, most importantly, with Google's increasingly intelligent assistant. Google may not have won the smart house wars yet, but thanks to its ubiquity in everyday devices, it is a definite game changer.

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