A New Way of Assistant Activation

Works well if  you are by the device.   Voice too?  Makes sense.

Google Assistant ‘Look and Talk’ Activation Heads Toward Release

ERIC HAL SCHWARTZ on April 14, 2022 at 4:00 pm

Google is beta testing a way to awaken Google Assistant with a glance instead of a spoken wake word on the Nest Hub Max, according to a report from 95o5 Google. Despite early rumors about ultrasound sensors, the “Look and Talk” feature will use the Google Nest Hub Max smart display’s camera to spot and activate Google Assistant when a user is looking at the camera built into the screen.

LOOK AND TALK  ... 

The facial recognition wake word appears to be in beta testing right now, without any formal announcement about when it will become available. Look and See is a new name for what was previously called Blue Steel,  a reference to the signature facial expression of Ben Stiller’s character in the film Zoolander. Turning on Look and Talk would make the Nest Hub Max’s camera a visual version of the “always listening” aspect of Google Assistant. Instead of saying “Hey, Google,” and issuing voice commands, users could simply look into the camera from up to five feet away and just start making requests of the voice assistant.   .... ' 

Quick Phrases for Google Assistant

New efficiency

Google Assistant Planning Quick Phrase Commands Without Wake Word

ERIC HAL SCHWARTZ  in Voicebot.ai

Google Assistant users won’t need to use ‘OK Google’ or other wake words to give commands to the voice assistant, according to a 9to5 Google report. The upcoming ‘quick phrases’ feature is still in development but could mark a big shift in how people issue orders to Google Assistant.

QUICK PHRASES

Quick phrases essentially skip the necessity for a wake word to alert Google Assistant and prepare it to carry out the command. The software lists around 20 commands that can be set up to work without a wake word, with users able to pick which ones are active at any given time and on which devices. The orders relate to setting up and canceling alarms, asking about the time and weather, operating smart lights, controlling music, and communication tools like the phone and message broadcasting. To keep the quick phrases under the control of the device owner, Google Assistant relies on the Voice Match vocal identification tool. The quick phrases feature was discovered by an investigation into the under-development software codenamed Guacamole, with the specific commands that won’t need wake words called ‘salsas.’ The option was called ‘voice shortcuts’ in previous documentation, but otherwise is the same.  ... ' 

Google Assistant Now Broadcasts to Phones

 I have been using the similar broadcast by Alexa for some time. Our family is now small, so not needed as much, but still good to have to get to every corner of the house.  Adding to this to phones anywhere is a good idea. 

The Google Assistant is now a Google messaging service   in ArsTechnica  By Ron Amado 

"Broadcast" now works on speakers, displays, and phones for your whole family.

The Google Assistant's "Broadcast" feature has long existed as a way to blast a message to every Google smart speaker in the house. Instead of hunting down every individual family member at dinner time, put those smart speakers to work by saying, "Hey Google, broadcast 'It's dinner time!'"

In a new blog post, Google called Broadcast "one of our most popular Assistant features" and announced that the feature is expanding to show messages on phones, too, even when they're outside the home Wi-Fi network. That means Broadcast is basically turning into a new Google messaging service.  .... " 

Google and Alexa Voices Skip CES

But they were there nevertheless. Some interesting thoughts on that. 

Google Assistant and Alexa Were Invisible and Everywhere at CES 2021   By Eric Hal Schwartz   in Voicebot.ai

Amazon and Google opted to skip joining the list of exhibitors at this year’s all-digital CES, but their respective voice assistants arguably erased what would normally be a glaring gap in the event’s list. Alexa and Google Assistant each appeared over and over as close to 2,000 companies showcased their new products.  ... '

Benchmarking Voice Understanding

 Good points made.   I have been using Google voice assistant versus Amazon Alexa for a few years now.  Only now and then using Siri.   I see more 'balking' by Alexa (that is she does not answer coherently at all)  than Google assistant, but then more 'understanding'.  Alexa is in general more 'human' in conversation.  After that I don't see adequate contextual understanding from either in general.  It all depends on how important and risky the dependent decisions are.  Google does a good job of multilingual understanding when properly set up.   Here voicebot.ai has taken a broader look that is worth looking at.   Neither in my opinion can understand and answer that I would call 'complex questions'.

Understanding Is Crucial for Voice and AI: Testing and Training are Key To Monitoring and Improving It      By John Kelvie in Voicebot.ai

BENCHMARKING VOICE ASSISTANTS

How well does your voice assistant understand and answer complex questions? It is often said, making complex things simple is the hardest task in programming, as well as the highest aim for any software creator. The same holds true for building for voice. And the key to ensuring an effortlessly simple experience for voice is the accuracy of understanding, achieved through testing and training.

To dig deeper into the process of testing and training for accuracy, Bespoken undertook a benchmark to test Amazon Echo Show 5, Apple iPad Mini, Google Nest Home Hub. This article explores what we learned through this research and the implications for the larger voice industry based on other products and services.

For the benchmark, we took a set of nearly 1,000 questions from the ComQA dataset and ran them against the three most popular voice assistants: Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant. The results were impressive – these questions were not easy, and the assistants handled them often with aplomb:  ... "

Accesibility Update of Google Assistant

Looks to be interesting, will do some testing on my devices.  Such advances ultimately add to accessibility for everyone.

New updates make Google Assistant even more accessible  in Google Blog.   Praveen Chandran,  Product Manager

Becky Tyler is a young adult with cerebral palsy. She cannot speak on her own and has difficulties controlling her muscle movements. But this hasn’t stopped her from doing what she loves. Becky is an avid gamer, she runs her own YouTube channel and loves acting and dancing. She’s also an advocate for equality and inclusion. With the support of assistive technologies for communication from companies like Tobii Dynavox, she’s able to express her creative voice and pursue her dreams.

For International Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Awareness Month, we’re bringing Google Assistant to Tobii Dynavox’s applications and services that will help people like Becky gain even more independence and empower them to do things like control smart devices and appliances around their homes.  

Tobii Dynavox Snap Core First software—available on Tobii Dynavox’s dedicated tablets and mobile apps—has a preconfigured set of tiles for users to communicate about everyday things and is accessible through touch, eye gaze and scanning. By integrating Google Assistant with Tobii Dynavox’s technology, Becky can now easily assign a tile to a Google Assistant action, allowing her to control compatible smart home devices and appliances, like lights, thermostats, TVs and more, that have been set up in the Google Home app. Tiles can also be configured to get answers from Google Assistant to questions like “What’s the weather?” or “What’s on the calendar for today?”  ... ' 

Google Assistant vs Samsung Bixby

We were early testers of Bixby for general appliance assistance.   I see less of it there now.   But have not since experienced it brould on the phone.  Indication of it promoting changes in its broad use?

Google reportedly negotiating with Samsung to push Assistant over Bixby
Google is said to want more prominence for its own services like the Play Store

By Sam Byford@345triangle 

Google and Samsung are in discussions for a deal that would give the US tech giant’s services more prominence on Samsung phones at the expense of those from the Korean manufacturer, according to a report by Bloomberg. The deal would reportedly involve promoting the Google Assistant and the Play Store over Samsung’s own alternatives. ..." 

New Ways to Build Assistant Voice Apps

Look forward to the details on this, any way you can create better intelligence is good.   Note changes in training methods.

Google Assistant Upgrades Action Developer Tools to Streamline Building and Running Voice Apps
By Eric Hal Schwartz in Voicebot.ai

Google announced upgrades to the Google Assistant runtime engine on Wednesday designed to improve the speed and performance of voice apps. The tech giant revealed the improvements along with a handful of new and updated tools aimed at simplifying the process of building Google Assistant Actions.

The new Actions Builder feature sets up a central hub in the Actions console for developing and testing a new Google Assistant Action, showing visually how the AI responds to different conversational prompts and making it easier to train and debug the app. The idea is that the developer won’t have to keep going back from the console to the Dialogflow natural language understanding platform. All of the tools are in the console, making the whole process more efficient.

Google also updated the Actions SDK to assist with boosting that efficiency. The SDK puts every element of the voice app into files that a developer can export wherever they wish. That means the developer could build the voice app without needing to use the cloud, while still enabling them to move training data around. Using the files with Google’s improved command-line interface (CLI) also allows the developer to skip using any interface at all and just write and edit the app with code.
... '

Google Letting You Buy with Voice

This has been  possible directly with Amazon Alexa for a long time, I use it fairly often, but the claim here is that Google Assistant  is much more secure, using a 'voiceprint'.     Security like that might also enable secure business and healthcare transactions as well.  Google assistant already detects the language you are using and adapts the response. 

Google is working on voice confirmation for purchases with Assistant
Buy stuff with your voice.

Rachel England, @rachel_england  in Engadget

Google Creates Transcribe

Had seen and noted this before, likely quite helpful for business applications.  I remember noting its need to be embedded in the enterprise Looking forward to see it on Assistant and  IOS Devices.

Google Translate launches Transcribe for Android in 8 languages   By Khari Johnson

Google Translate today launched Transcribe for Android, a feature that delivers a continual, real-time translation of a conversation. Transcribe will begin by rolling out support for 8 languages in the coming days: English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai. With Transcribe, Translate is now capable of translating classroom or conference lectures with no time limits, whereas before speech-to-text AI in Translate lasted no longer than a word, phrase, or sentence. Google plans to bring Transcribe to iOS devices at an unspecified date in the future. ..... " 

Longer Form Translation for Assistants

Have mentioned some experimentation with real time longer form translation, as it can exist within the framework of voice driven assistants.  Impressive so far.

Google Assistant can now read or translate websites and Android app content   By Khari Johnson

Google Assistant is able to read web pages and news articles on Android devices worldwide today, a company spokesperson told VentureBeat. 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 translate 42 languages into your preferred language. A full list of supported languages can be seen in the video above.  ... "

Goggle Assistant Adds Support for Passive Sensors

As I read this quite interesting, but the Dash buttons of Amazon, now discontinued, did a similar thing.    But this appears to do things with more general sensors.   Look to examine this in more detail with my own Assistant set up.    Pointers to people using this?

Google Assistant Adds Support for Passive Sensors, Laying Foundation for More Responsive Smart Homes      In Voicebot.ai  by Eric Hal Schwartz 

Google Assistant has added native support for new sensors, such as smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, according to an Android Police report. The updated Smart Home Device Type list now includes sensor-only devices, bringing new potential options to the voice assistant’s smart home integration.

Action and Sensing
The new additions to the sensor list make it possible for third-party device makers to integrate Google Assistant into sensor-only devices that can measure air quality, humidity, light, motion, water softness, and other elements. This direct inclusion makes it possible to ask Google Assistant directly about each of those conditions individually. Smoke and carbon monoxide are now their own category of sensor and there is also an update to the security system support allowing the voice assistant to report on each sensor’s status separately.

Google Assistant is built around actions initiated by users. When it comes to smart home devices, people have to ask for changes in temperature, lighting, and other home systems. They can be scheduled out, but it all begins with a verbal request. The updated support list lays out a potential road to passive alerts. The voice assistant could theoretically adjust the blinds based on how much light is coming in, tell you to switch out a water filter, or open a window when a smoke or carbon monoxide sensor is triggered.

Google’s Smarter Homes
The quiet expansion of Google Assistant’s support fits with Google’s ongoing smart home ambitions. The company boosted security for Google Nest smart home products last month and started requiring a Google account when connecting Google Nest products to other smart home devices as part of its effort to bring every smart home device under one software roof. .... "

Advances for 500 million Google Assistants

Seems like good ideas.   Felt that Google was falling behind, even though it AI capabilities seem deep.   I want to be impressed by integrated AI.  To be shown things that are really useful when finding, using and manipulating knowledge from external sources, business information and derived analytical results.   Number of devices now out there among consumers is astounding.

Google Assistant passes 500 million users, will get longform reading and deeper smart home integration in 2020     By Khari Johnson in Venturebeat

Google Assistant is now used by 500 million monthly active users, and today Google is previewing features on the way in 2020 like a new voice that reads articles and web pages aloud to users with a more natural and humanlike voice. Later this year, saying “Hey Google, read it” or “Hey Google, read this page” will trigger the assistant to read or translate text from an article or webpage into 42 languages. In a story told in a VentureBeat exclusive, Google brought article and webpage reading to its lightweight Go app in August 2018.

Longform reading will begin with articles and websites but may expand to areas like reading your emails in the future, a company spokesperson told VentureBeat.  ... "

Value of Using Google Assistance for Translation

What we always wanted, a seamless translation mode. That made us completely indifferent to the language in use.  Hearing and speaking.   Its not quite here yet,  I have tried it and its less than seamless or complete.   But its clearly moving in the right direction.   Its the ultimate assistance need though, so why not?   Will be taking a closer look in the new year.

Google Assistant Can Now Translate Speech Through Your Phone
Interpreter Mode comes to iOS and Android, making it easier to converse somewhat seamlessly across language barriers.Google Assistant Can Now Translate Speech Through Your Phone
Interpreter Mode comes to iOS and Android, making it easier to converse somewhat seamlessly across language barriers.

When I hopped into a cab in Barcelona last year, my taxi driver began asking me questions—you know, small talk. But his phrasing was awkward because English wasn't his native tongue. Cue a kludgy back and forth, with both of us having a hard time really understanding one another. That's when I whipped out Google Translate, and his eyes lit up as my phone conveyed his questions better than I ever could. It wasn't perfect, and he had to repeat himself a few times, but what flowed out was a proper conversation—one that wouldn't have been so easily possible a decade ago.

Translation apps like Google Translate or Microsoft Translator are familiar to world travelers. Now, Google is making it possible to have spoken conversations across language barriers without needing to download an app at all. The company has updated Google Assistant so that it supports translating languages in real time.   ... "

Notable Extensions to Google Assistant: Photos and Notes

Notable the ability to link to note taking capabilities, like Google Keep.  Searching specifics in podcasts also very useful for business application support.    Assistant has also become very good a working with display of photos.  Will take a look.

Google Assistant can now share photos, search podcasts, and make notes with third-party apps  By Khari Johnson in Venturebeat

Google Assistant on smartphones, smart displays, and smart speakers is getting a series of upgrades today, like the ability to create notes and lists with third-party apps and search podcasts by topic.

Google Assistant on smartphones is also gaining the ability to share photos with your voice so you can say “Hey Google, show me photos from last weekend.” Once Google Photos results appear on your screen, you can choose the photos you want to send and tell Google Assistant to send them to one of your contacts. Last fall, Google Nest smart displays got the ability to use voice alone to share photos that appear on the device’s digital photo frame or in voice search results after users say things like “Hey Google, show me my photos from San Diego.”   ...." 

Google Assistant will Play You the News

Interesting next step .....  though every aggregation of news from multiple sources has a pre existing narrative driven bias.    Learned or scripted in some way.     And if we disagree with the aggregation, or algorithm how do we unravel it to find the sources?  This is an 'algorithmic news feed'.      Will be testing it.

Hey Google, play me the news   By Liz Gannes
Product Manager, News in the Google Blog

Podcasting and digital audio are booming, but in many ways the audio web is like the text web of the 1990s. When newspapers first came online, their early sites were hard to navigate and search, didn’t link stories together and often published stories on the web after they went to print. Audio is similar today. It’s an evocative, powerful, massively popular and convenient medium—but because the digital experience has lagged, it’s difficult to find things, especially timely, relevant stories that are meaningful to you. 

At Google, we saw an opportunity to help move digital audio forward by focusing on audio news. By analyzing what’s being said within a given audio file, we can apply our understanding around what text articles are about, how news stories evolve, how topics link together and what might be most relevant to a particular user’s interests. 

Today, we’re introducing Your News Update, a smarter way to listen to the news hosted by the Google Assistant. You can try it today by updating your Assistant news settings.

When you say, “Hey Google, play me the news” on any Assistant-enabled phone or smart speaker, Your News Update will begin with a mix of short news stories chosen in that moment based on your interests, location, user history and preferences, as well as the top news stories out there.

If you’re a Steelers fan who follows the stock market and lives in Chicago, for example, you might hear a story about the latest “L” construction, an analysis of last Thursday’s Steelers game and a market update, in addition to the latest national headlines. Keep listening and the experience will extend into longer-form content that dives deeper on your interests. In between stories, the Google Assistant serves as your smart news host that introduces which publishers and updates are next.  .... "

Smart Speaker Stats

And much more stats at the link:

Amazon sold 10.4 million smart speakers in Q3 2019, three times more than Google’s 3.5 million devices  in Voicebot.AI

Alibaba lead Baidu in smart speaker sales in China with 3.9 to 3.7 million devices sold. Both companies sold more than Google during the quarter. Xiaomi was third in smart speaker sales in China for the second straight quarter.

Amazon Echo devices accounted for 36.6% of smart speakers sold worldwide up from 31.9% in Q3 2018 and up from 25.4% in Q2 2019.  .... " 

Alexa Goes Multilingual

I was brought up in a multilingual household, so the environment has always interested me.  I use Google assistant that way today.  But can I start a sentence in one language and end it in another?  Saw that in our own case.

Alexa now speaks Spanish, including in multi-lingual mode  by Sarah Perez@sarahintampa in TechCrunch

At Amazon’s  hardware event last month in Seattle, the company announced plans to launch multi-lingual modes for its Alexa devices in the U.S., Canada, and India, where the smart voice assistant would be able to speak a combination of English and Spanish, French and English, and Hindi and English, respectively. Today, Amazon says the multi-lingual mode for U.S. speakers is officially live across the country, allowing users of both Echo and Alexa-powered devices to switch between Spanish and English. Alexa can also be set to speak only Spanish in the Alexa app settings.

The new support also means developers can build skills for the platform that target Spanish language speakers.

The experience introduces a new Spanish voice for Alexa, plus local knowledge, hundreds of Spanish skills including those form Univision and Telemundo, and more.

To use Alexa in Spanish mode, U.S. users will be able to toggle to “Español (Estados Unidos)” in the Alexa app. They can then speak to Alexa in Spanish to get news, weather, control their smart home devices, set reminders, and launch skills.

However, the more interesting addition is the multi-lingual mode option, which allows customers to seamlessly switch between Spanish and English.

For example, you could ask Alexa in English for the weather, and she’ll reply in English. But if you speak in Spanish, she replies in Spanish. This makes the device more useful in multi-lingual households where a mix of both languages is spoken. .... " 

Google Assistant Comes to More Chromebooks

I have had a Google Assistant in my smart home suite since their inception.   Connected to several home sensors.   Good especially for multilingual and multi sentence continued interaction ... but like all such systems, needs more work. 

What's new in Chrome OS: Google Assistant comes to more Chromebooks
By Alexander Kuscher in Google Blog
Director of Chrome OS Software

The latest version of Chrome OS brings the Google Assistant to more Chromebooks. It’s starting to roll out now to more non-managed, consumer devices.  The Assistant on Chromebook helps you stay productive, control your smart devices, and have a little fun along the way. To get started, enable the Assistant in your Chromebook’s settings and then try asking or typing some of these queries:  .... " 

Google Assistant Advances Languages

Have now been using Google assistant bilingually for about a year, with multiple voices as I explore them.    Impressive work, everybody needs language assistance. 

Google Assistant gets new voice options in nine more languages
Voice options will be presented as colors, not genders.

By Rachel England, @rachel_england in Engadget

Google Assistant users outside the US haven't had much choice when it comes to voice options -- until now, as Google launches a second voice for Assistant in French, German, Dutch, Japanese, Norwegian, Korean, Italian and English for India and the UK.

The new voices have been built with DeepMind's WaveNet technology to help them sound natural, and will be displayed in settings as a color, rather than as a gender. Users selecting a voice in one of these languages will be able to choose from "orange" or "red," and when you set up Google Assistant for the first time you'll be randomly assigned one of them. According to Google, "We've learned that people enjoy choosing between voices to find one that sounds right to them, and we think it's important to present these voices without any labels." The new voice options launch today. ... "