Google Assistant

Home automation is an idea straight out of an 80’s sci-fi TV show. Now, with Google Assistant, we can simply ask our phones or Google Home to turn on the lights or turn off a fan. The biggest issue with smarthome products, though, has long been their upfront cost. Thanks to the intelliPlug, a product currently being funded on Indiegogo, this might not be as much of a problem going forward…

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At I/O 2017 last month, Google announced that Home would launch in six more countries over the course of the summer. The first of those will be Canada on June 26th, with Google Assistant seeing a similar launch in both English and French for the device.

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At I/O 2017, Sundar Pichai noted that computers are getting better at understanding voice input, with Google having achieved “significant breakthroughs” in speech recognition. In fact, Google’s machine learning systems are now nearly on par with humans.

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Google I/O is a developer event and that focus was in full force earlier this month. Of course, for the consumer, it can be a bit hard to be interested by the laying of groundwork for future functionality.

However, compared to previous years, I/O 2017 was wildly exciting for the slew of updates that Google quickly rolled out to one of its existing products. A year after its introduction, the Assistant received new features that notably make it more useful and reaffirm how important it is to Google’s future.

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While typing support in Google Assistant only began rolling out last week at I/O 2017, the feature is already seeing its first update. The initial iteration kept Gboard’s native suggestions row, but Assistant now uses a customized bar that lists full search phrases.

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This past week at I/O 2017, Google finally introduced a long-awaited and requested feature for Google Assistant: keyboard input. Although it is already quick and easy to trigger Assistant with your voice and ask a question, you couldn’t use it when in a quiet environment. Now that keyboard should be rolling out to all, which form of input do you prefer using?

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As we noted in a past teardown of the Google app, IFTTT integration was in the works for Assistant. That functionality has now popped up on one of our devices, and it allows users to easily make new commands and manage existing ones.

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Announced at yesterday’s I/O keynote, support for typing in Google Assistant is beginning to rollout to some users, with a new keyboard icon appearing in the bottom left corner. Additionally, Actions on Google with new Explore and Your Stuff tabs are rolling out.

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Google Assistant’s various commands can really come in handy, especially when it comes to casting content to the TV or controlling smart home products. However, some of those commands can become pretty long and tedious, especially if you say them a lot. Now, Google is making it easier to perform commands with shortcuts.

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Following an announcement from GE earlier today, LG is the latest appliance manufacturer to announce integration with Google Home and Assistant for a new lineup of connected appliances. The company made the announcement during the opening day of the Google I/O 2017 developer conference.

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At Google I/O 2017 today, Google revealed that it was working with several new partners to release a handful of third-party, Google Assistant powered devices. One of the devices comes from one of Google’s Chinese partners — Mobvoi, in the form of the Tichome Mini.

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Google Assistant is getting a bunch of new updates today at Google I/O and one of the most requested features is finally here: keyboard input. Now, instead of only being able to communicate with Assistant with voice, you can also type your queries…

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At I/O 2017, Google has announced a slew of new features for their Home connected speaker. Major new features include hands-free calling, Bluetooth support, and visual responses.
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Google Assistant was slow to kick off in terms of availability, with only Pixel users in the US officially supported. Over time, that’s changed with Assistant now available on just about every Android phone, an official SDK out, and more on the way.

Today at I/O 2017, Google has announced that the Assistant is expanding even further, with support for more new languages…

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At I/O 2017, Sundar Pichai announced Google Lens, a set of vision-based computing capabilities that can understand what you’re looking at and provide actions to interact with the world around you. It will first launch on Google Assistant and Photos…

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Google Assistant is a big deal for Google this year, and we’re expecting the company to announce quite a bit regarding its AI at I/O 2017, starting tomorrow. Personally, there are a few things I’m hoping to see, let me explain…

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[Update: Bloomberg corroborates the report, stating the planned I/O launch as a specific plan rather than merely a possibility.

Google’s artificial intelligence software is already inside Android phones, smart speakers and watches. At the Google I/O conference this week, the Alphabet Inc. unit plans to bring it to at least three more places: iPhones, coffee tables and kitchens […]

The Assistant app will integrate with other Google apps on the iPhone so a user could ask to see a video and it will begin playing via YouTube.]

Google Assistant has expanded quite a lot over the past several months since its debut on the Google Pixel, with the service moving to Google Home, Allo, and the majority of Android phones on the market today. Now, it seems that Google is planning another expansion, with a potential debut on Apple’s iOS.

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Google Assistant first launched as a preview inside Allo in September of last year. Support was initially limited to English, but it has since been updated with more languages. Starting today, a number of Allo’s smart features will work in two new languages.

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