An anonymous reader quotes CNET:
For years, smart speakers from Amazon, Google and Apple have traded data back and forth with other devices in the home. This is how their voice assistants turn on the smart lights. But in early 2019, something changed: Amazon and Google began requiring continuous status-change updates from devices — requiring, for instance, partnered smart bulbs to send…
Tag: Google Assistant
Google Assistant Can Now Read or Translate Websites and Android App Content
Google Assistant is able to read web pages and news articles on Android devices worldwide today, a company spokesperson said. From the report: You can trigger the feature by simply saying “Hey Google, read it” or “Hey Google, read this page.” If you land on a webpage in a language you don’t understand, Google Assistant is also able to read and…
AT&T TV Will Be a Tough Sell in a World of Endless Streaming TV Options
AT&T has launched its newest video service brand, called AT&T TV, and it could be the beginning of the end for AT&T’s DirecTV offering. From a report: That’s because AT&T TV is like DirectTV in many ways: It allows you to watch more than 100 live TV channels, but whereas DirecTV requires you to have a satellite dish, AT&T TV only…
Google’s Heart-Warming Super Bowl Ad Called ‘Evil’
“I had an uneasy feeling about the Google commercial,” writes Larry Magid in his column for the San Jose Mercury News. “But I couldn’t put it into words until I read a blog post from tech strategic adviser Shelly Palmer.” In the post Palmer describes Google’s Super Bowl ad as “a three-hanky, heart-tugging spot that has us eavesdropping on an elderly…
Have a First Aid Question? Don’t Ask Siri Or Cortana.
AmiMoJo quotes Mashable: A new study from the University of Alberta, published Tuesday in the medical journal The BMJ, tested smart assistants Siri, Cortana, Alexa, and Google Assistant on their ability to respond helpfully to first aid questions. While Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa way outperformed Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, the results as a whole were underwhelming. The researchers asked…
Google Assistant Passes 500 Million Users
One day after Amazon announced that it has populated the world with over 100 million Alexa-powered devices, Google decided to take the opportunity to tout some of its numbers. At CES 2020 on Tuesday, the company said that the Google Assistant is now used by 500 million monthly active users. VentureBeat reports of the new features coming to the digital assistant…
Google Disables All Xiaomi Device Integrations Pending Security Review
New submitter jasonbuechler writes: Related to the Xiaomi post the other day, Google has entirely disabled Google Assistant/Home integration with Xiaomi devices pending further testing. Google issued the following statement: Hi everyone, Late night on January 1st, we were made aware of an issue where a Reddit user posted that their Nest Hub was able to access other people’s Xiaomi camera…
Google Assistant Can Now Interpret 44 Languages on Smartphones
Kyle Wiggers, writing for VentureBeat: In January during the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Google debuted interpreter mode, a real-time translation feature for Google Home speakers and third-party smart displays like those from JBL, Sony, LG, and Lenovo. The tech giant said at the time that interpreter mode would eventually come to mobile devices, but it didn’t set a…
Microsoft Winds Down Its Bigger Plans for Cortana With Mobile App Shutdown
At Microsoft’s Ignite conference this month, the company announced a new vision for its personal productivity assistant, Cortana — one which aimed to make it more useful in your day-to-day work, including email, but one which also saw Microsoft scaling its ambitions back from Cortana as a true Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant competitor. Now, the other shoe has dropped, as…
Amazon Is Poorly Vetting Alexa’s User-Submitted Answers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, and Cortana can answer all sorts of questions that pop into users’ heads, and they’re improving every day. But what happens when a company like Amazon decides to crowdsource answers to fill gaps in its platform’s knowledge? The result can range from amusing and perplexing to concerning. Alexa Answers…