Google Assistant

Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day and Google is marking the occasion with several mobile features. One-tap Assistant Action Blocks are launching today on Android, along with new features for Live Transcribe and Sound Amplifier.

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There’s a Google Assistant speaker at this point in every shape and size, and to suit every need or price. Back at CES, Belkin showed me its new Soundform Elite Assistant speaker, the very first one to include wireless charging built-in. Now, I’ve spent the past couple of months using it, and as great as it is, I have a tough time figuring out who it’s for. Let’s talk.

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Google Assistant is a powerful tool that makes the company’s Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max smart displays so great. Now, though, Google is testing out new smart displays designed to be “easy” for customers who aren’t as tech-savvy.

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Routines in Assistant let you invoke multiple actions using a single command. These macros can already be automatically scheduled, while Google at CES 2020 previewed an upcoming “Scheduled Actions” capability. Google Assistant now looks to be readying a “Bell Schedule” feature.

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Google’s long-term vision for Assistant in Stadia is as a guide that can suggest YouTube walkthroughs when you’re stuck. Until then, you can use it to open games on your Chromecast-connected televisions. Google Assistant also works to launch games directly on Android phones and Chromebooks.

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Last week, Google announced that the highly-awaited ability to control “Hey Google” sensitivity was beginning to roll out. As of today, the new setting is more widely available for first and some third-party Assistant speakers and Smart Displays.

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Google Assistant smart speakers are a handy way to stream music and for people who like to listen to music before they go to sleep, the voice-based commands can be excellent. Now, though, the handy sleep timer function of Google Assistant that turns off music after a set period of time is broken for some users.

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One of the coolest, if underused, features of the Google Wifi and Nest Wifi routers is that you can control parts of your network through the Google Assistant instead of fiddling with a configuration page. Now it seems the capability for Google Assistant support is opening up for developers to put into more routers.

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Last September, Google briefly described an upcoming Assistant feature that would help reduce unintentional hotword activations. Introduced as a privacy measure, you can tune how sensitive Smart Displays and speakers will be to “Hey Google,” with the feature now rolling out.

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Smart Displays and speakers are communal devices with Google able to recognize users for personalized results. Assistant is now updating Voice Match’s setup process to require full Hey Google phrases.

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With search queries about COVID-19 surpassing even those for weather and the news, Google in recent weeks has worked to compile that information together. In Google News, there is a new COVID-19 hub, while Assistant and Podcasts have similar experiences.

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Google Assistant’s predecessor was generically known as “voice search” and activated with the “Ok Google” hotword. Despite being several years old, the capability still exists today in the Google app on Android. However, the most recent beta removes that old voice search UI.

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In February, Google Assistant began testing revamped notification settings for Android devices. These unified controls for the sprawling number of alerts that Assistant sends to phones and tablets is now rolling out.

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The new Google Assistant launched with the Pixel 4 last October and has expanded to more users since then. A look into Google app 11.3 reveals work on “Assistant Shortcuts” to let you create voice macros for supported apps.

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Wherever you happen to be, you’re now potentially working from home. It’s a strange and interesting new experience for many of you out there who have never done so before, we’re sure.

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Huawei just launched its P40 series of smartphones and, as expected, it ships without any Google services. That includes the loss of Google Assistant, so Huawei created its own voice assistant by the name of “Celia,” with the unintended consequence of also waking nearby iPhones.

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