Google launches Google Assistant to take on Siri and Alexa
Look out SIRI. Step aside Alexa, Google has its own voice-based digital assistant: Google Assistant.
While it lacks a proper or even pretty name, this could be the mother of all voice-activated assistants.
This could be the mother of all voice-activated assistants
"Our ability to do conversational understanding is far ahead of what other assistants can do," said Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who announced the new assistant from the Google I/O 2016 developers conference keynote stage on Wednesday. He noted that 20% of all Google searches are accomplished via voice.
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Pichai demonstrated Google Assistant's prowess by first asking it, "Who directed The Revenant?" Google Assistant correctly answered with "Alejandro G. Iñárritu" -- but then Pichai demonstrated how he could continue the conversation without repeating the director's name.
The company also introduced Google Home, a hardware device that will work with Google Assistant and ship later his year.
With Home, Google Assistant will respond to anyone who says, "OK, Google." It will let users manage and access schedules, find out about traffic, track packages, and ask Google Assistant general interest questions.
You can sign up for more details about Home at http://home.google.com/
During the keynote, Google executives noted that there will be a Google Assistant ecosystem, which means it will appear in the aforementioned hardware, on smartphones and in apps, like the new Google messaging app, Allo.
Google Assistant will actually work during conversations and automatically try to help with, for instance, dinner reservations the group is discussing. It will also bring in outside, relevant information like restaurant cards, (the kind you normally see in Google Now and Google search results), and then guide users through setting number of diners, time to dine and making reservations with Open Table.
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Topics Google Google Assistant
Lance Ulanoff was Chief Correspondent and Editor-at-Large of Mashable. Lance acted as a senior member of the editing team, with a focus on defining internal and curated opinion content. He also helped develop staff-wide alternative story-telling skills and implementation of social media tools during live events. Prior to joining Mashable in September 2011 Lance Ulanoff served as Editor in Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for the Ziff Davis, Inc. While there, he guided the brand to a 100% digital existence and oversaw content strategy for all of Ziff Davis’ Web sites. His long-running column on PCMag.com earned him a Bronze award from the ASBPE. Winmag.com, HomePC.com and PCMag.com were all been honored under Lance’s guidance.He makes frequent appearances on national, international, and local news programs including Fox News, the Today Show, Good Morning America, Kelly and Michael, CNBC, CNN and the BBC.He has also offered commentary on National Public Radio and been interviewed by newspapers and radio stations around the country. Lance has been an invited guest speaker at numerous technology conferences including SXSW, Think Mobile, CEA Line Shows, Digital Life, RoboBusiness, RoboNexus, Business Foresight and Digital Media Wire’s Games and Mobile Forum.
