CES 2020: Google Assistant to get longform reading in more human-like voice, deeper smart home integration

tech2 News StaffJan 08, 2020 10:22:41 IST

At the ongoing Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at Las Vegas, Google made a few important announcements about its smart assistant. Google says that Google Assistant is now used by 500 million monthly active users. Google also previewed a few features that will be coming to the Google Assistant in 2020.

Google says that this year, the voice assistant will get a new voice that will read articles and web pages aloud in a more natural and human-like voice.

Google Assistant on Pixel 3

Google Assistant is also getting a new feature where saying “Hey Google, read it” or “Hey Google, read this page” will trigger it to read or translate text from an article or webpage into 42 languages. Initially, this longform reading feature will only be available for articles and websites, however, according to a report by VentureBeat, it may soon be expanded to reading your emails.

At the electronics show, Google also said that it wants more TV manufacturers to uses microphones for far-field voice recognition so that functionalities similar to smart speakers can be added to the, like voice commands to play music, check the weather, or ask a question.

Google also announced that later this year, the smart assistant will also get 'Scheduled Actions', which will allow it to turn on/off or start/stop a smart device at the time of your choosing. Essentially, it's a feature a lot of you IoT devices' apps offers, however, with Google Assistant integration, you will be able to do the same with just a command.

Google Assistant will also be getting a few security features like saying "Hey Google, that wasn't for you" will trigger deleting a mistaken recording. Additionally, saying “Hey Google, are you listening to me?” will automatically trigger a deep link to privacy settings to the user in the Home mobile app so user don’t have to look for the same.