What does it mean when a software company obsessively focused on innovating the way we use our mobile devices to see and communicate with the world adds virtual voice agents? Possibly e-commerce magic, with a powerful layer of augmented reality.
Smartglasses maker Vuzix made a big splash at CES 2018 with the inclusion of Amazon's Alexa voice assistant among the AR superpowers of its consumer-centric Blade smartglasses.
Microsoft's new voice-enabled virtual assistant, Cortana, is a lot like a blend of Siri's personality and Google Now's predictive capabilities—but the best part is it's baked right into the taskbar in Windows 10.
The Google Assistant is great about understanding what you actually mean, so you don't have to issue exact commands like you do with Amazon Alexa, for instance. But even though it's a master of colloquial speech, it could still be better, and that's where shortcuts come into play.
The world around us keeps getting smarter. Not only do we have advanced AI services like the Google Assistant, but now we've got the Internet of Things connecting physical objects to the digital world. It's amazing when you think about it, but the real sci-fi stuff starts to happen when these two technologies intersect.
Despite a rocky start with plenty of feature disparity, the Google Assistant now provides a pretty consistent experience regardless of what device you're using it on. Be it Android, iPhone, or Google Home, the AI behind the Assistant is virtually identical — including its quirky commands and funny responses.
Before Google I/O 2018, the Google Assistant for Android and iOS had only two available voice options to choose from — a robotic female and male voice. But there are now six additional voices, and these ones sound way more natural than any other mobile voice assistant (plus, John Legend's voice is coming later this year).
One feature of Samsung devices that's less useful than I had expected is S Voice, the voice assistant that ships with all new Galaxy devices. The voice is annoying, the features are lacking, and it's an all around subpar product. With Google Now, Siri, and now Microsoft's Cortana, Samsung needs to really step up their game—even on the new Galaxy S5.
The Google Assistant that powers search on Pixel devices and Google Home has a lot more personality than regular old Google Search. It gets to know you, it's conversational, and it even has some fun Easter eggs hiding within—including a few magic tricks up its sleeve.
According to Google at their 2018 I/O conference, Google Assistant is now available on over 500 million devices. Now that the assistant is available on iPhones as well, Google has to give iOS users a reason to switch to its assistant over the built-in Siri. Today, Google has eight more reasons for users to do so.
Millions depend on Google Maps for directions, and it's easy to see why. The app comes with tons of features like offline navigation, location sharing, and more. Google is far from done, however, and continually improves upon its navigation app to make it even more efficient and safer to use.
The new Google Assistant is only officially available on three platforms—newer Android phones (Pixels and those running Marshmallow and Nougat), the Google Allo app, and Google Home. However, most of the Assistant's basic functionality is also bundled into the Google app for Android and iOS, which used to go by the name Google Now, but is now referred to only as Screen Search or your Google app's Feed.
Rumor has it that Google Assistant will be coming to an iPhone near you. A "trusted source" broke the news of GA's arrival on iOS to Android Police ahead of Google's I/O conference this week.
The Google Assistant is an incredibly useful tool that's now available for both Android and iOS. You can use plain English to send voice commands that range from turning off your smart lights to answering almost any question — but many of these features won't work properly if you have certain Google activity controls disabled.
Privacy is a hot topic. In the wake of Facebook's data scandal, many want to safeguard their personal info. On the other hand, we all gain a certain amount of convenience by using services administered by huge companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Google Assistant collects plenty of data, but you can easily check what is stored and delete items at will.
Google released its long-awaited Google Now launcher a couple months ago, allowing users to access Google Now with the simple command of the voice. As great as the feature is, it requires that our screens be on, unlike the Moto X's "active listening" service that operates with Google Now, activating through a screen-off state.
On the new Moto X smartphone, the only thing you have to do to activate the virtual assistant is say "Okay, Google Now." That's it. You don't have to press a button or tap on the display at all. It's always ready for your voice commands via its "Active Listening" feature, making it a truly hands-free experience.
While there were many highlights during Apple's keynote address at WWDC this year, the new advancements to the sassy personal assistant Siri in iOS 7 were amongst the most talked about—and something I was eager to test drive myself. Currently, there are ways to improve Siri in iOS 6, like making her play Spotify music or adding more commands, but those aren't easy tasks.
A developer has previewed a pair of potential applications built on ARKit that can be triggered by Alexa, the resident voice assistant of the Amazon Echo.
The rumors have been confirmed by Samsung themselves: Samsung has developed a virtual assistant of their own, named Bixby.
By combining years of web search advancements, natural language processing, and even DeepMind's artificial intelligence, Google Assistant hopes to change the way you interact with your devices. If you're familiar with Google's previous services, Google Assistant is like Google Now, Voice Search, and Now on Tap rolled into one service, with an extra layer of personality added on top. The end result is one central location for all of your Google needs, be it web search, screen search, playing m...
Spotify launched an experimental feature in early-2018 called Spotify Voice, a voice assistant that lives right in the app. It lets you speak to quickly find and play your favorite songs, albums, artists, videos, and podcasts on the music streaming service. Although the feature was initially only available on iOS, it's been ported over to Android so that anyone can take advantage of it.
Google kicked off I/O 2016 by debuting Assistant, a next-level version of Google Now. While you could search the web by voice before, now you'll be able to have a conversational interaction with Google. In short, it's a smart chat bot.
As we've said before, Siri has some major competition moving into its own playground, and Google just announced at its I/O event that Google Assistant is available on the iPhone, starting today.
Having to read a bunch of articles and tweets everyday can be tiresome, but if you can have a sweet-ass personal assistant read them for you, you're pretty golden.
At I/O 2018, Google showcased features that would make the Google Assistant easier to communicate with. While some people were impressed with (and maybe creeped out by) Google Duplex, one feature that was well received was the ability to talk to the Assistant without the constant "Hey Google" before each question.
Google Assistant was just released for iOS today. You may know it as the AI-powered assistant that makes Google Home tick, or perhaps you've heard from one of many review sites about how much better it is than Siri. Well, before you run off to the App Store to install Google Assistant, let me save you some time: It sucks.
Sometimes it's impossible to concentrate — let alone direct your personal assistant Siri — when someone is blasting music on their phone or talking to thin air. I mean I'm loud, but not that loud.
The "Discover" tab in the latest version of the Google Home app has a new tip that says multiple users are now supported. Google Home uses a built-in speaker and microphone combo to give users access to smart search, a personal assistant, and smart home controls. This addition has the potential to make the voice-activated speaker powered by the Google Assistant much more efficient for households with more than one user. However, it seems that Google wasn't quite ready to announce this new fea...
Now that Google Assistant is coming to all devices running Android Marshmallow or higher, roughly one out of every three Android users will no longer be able to access the old Google Now interface. The Assistant, which was previously exclusive to Pixel devices, takes over your home button long-press gesture and completely replaces all of the old Google voice search functionality.
This video will show you what your head voice is and how to sing high notes. Your head voice is a higher range than your normal chest voice, which can only go a certain range. Your head voice is the voice that occurs when your singing and vibration of your vocal chords is felt higher up than your chest, in your head area. This tutorial will show you how you can find this head voice and demonstrates a good method for exercising your voice so that you will be able to more efficiently sing highe...
In 2017, Google introduced a new feature called Fast Pair. This made discovering and pairing Bluetooth devices completely stress-free, as it eliminated the need to fumble through settings. Google has now made it even easier, so Fast Pair is a must-have feature for your next headphones.
In this tutorial, we learn how to sing using your chest voice with Ian Castle. Your chest voice is used in everyday speech, it is turned chest voice that vibrates in the chest voice. If you speak in everyday conversations, you will be able to feel your chest vibrate, which is what your chest voice is. When practicing your chest voice exercise, don't strain your voice too hard. You will want to start out with saying "ahh" voice exercises, from descending to ascending. Change your voice along w...
This video is about singing better by optimizing your voice's resonance.
In about 27% of all car crashes, someone was using their cell phone. You may think texting is the big problem here, but many fail to realize that even the smallest smartphone interaction could spell disaster. Thankfully, Google Maps has rolled out an overdue feature that'll help ensure a safer drive.
Bixby — Samsung's voice-activated digital assistant — has been delayed again because the software still can't recognize English. Although Samsung claims Bixby can execute 15,000 tasks, it appears it's inability to master English is a major obstacle that's preventing its full release in the United States.
If you're not familiar with Bixby, I don't blame you. The Samsung assistant was released two months ago with the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus. While users were excited about this Google Assistant-like feature, they were ultimately disappointed by the limited rollout of only some of Bixby's features. Now, Samsung is hopeful to perfect Bixby using you.
iPhones aren't immune to occasional bugs. But starting with the iPhone X, performing a reboot to fix minor issues has gotten a little more tedious. Thankfully, iOS 13 has a hidden option that makes the process a whole lot simpler.
If your virtual assistant can't assist you, what's the point? Anyone who has ever failed to activate Google Assistant knows the frustration that error screen can be. But there are solutions for this problem — "The Google Assistant isn't available for this account" is one message you can actually avoid.
Your new Samsung Galaxy S4 is fast, but it can definitely be faster. One issue that carried over from the Samsung Galaxy S3 is Home button lag. Instead of it being an instantaneous response, it takes a split second for the action to take place—and a split second is enough to irritate the best of us. The culprit here is S Voice. The built-in voice assistant is great, but whether or not you use it, one of its features remains persistent—its strenuous use of the Home button—where you double-tap ...
