Skip to main content

The Google Assistant is now bilingual 

The Google Assistant just got more useful for multilingual families. Starting today, you’ll be able to set up two languages in the Google Home app and the Assistant on your phone and Google Home will then happily react to your commands in both English and Spanish, for example.

Today’s announcement doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, given that Google announced at its I/O developer conference earlier this year that it was working on this feature. It’s nice to see that this year, Google is rolling out its I/O announcements well before next year’s event. That hasn’t always been the case in the past.

Currently, the Assistant is only bilingual and it still has a few languages to learn. But for the time being, you’ll be able to set up any language pair that includes English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese. More pairs are coming in the future and Google also says it is working on trilingual support, too.

Google tells me this feature will work with all Assistant surfaces that support the languages you have selected. That’s basically all phones and smart speakers with the Assistant, but not the new smart displays, as they only support English right now.

While this may sound like an easy feature to implement, Google notes this was a multi-year effort. To build a system like this, you have to be able to identify multiple languages, understand them and then make sure you present the right experience to the user. And you have to do all of this within a few seconds.

Google says its language identification model (LangID) can now distinguish between 2,000 language pairs. With that in place, the company’s researchers then had to build a system that could turn spoken queries into actionable results in all supported languages. “When the user stops speaking, the model has not only determined what language was being spoken, but also what was said,” Google’s VP Johan Schalkwyk and Google Speech engineer Lopez Moreno write in today’s announcement. “Of course, this process requires a sophisticated architecture that comes with an increased processing cost and the possibility of introducing unnecessary latency.”

If you are in Germany, France or the U.K., you’ll now also be able to use the bilingual assistant on a Google Home Max. That high-end version of the Google Home family is going on sale in those countries today.

In addition, Google also today announced that a number of new devices will soon support the Assistant, including the tado° thermostats, a number of new security and smart home hubs (though not, of course, Amazon’s own Ring Alarm), smart bulbs and appliances, including the iRobot Roomba 980, 896 and 676 vacuums. Who wants to have to push a button on a vacuum, after all.



from Gadgets – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2LI16fH
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mother's Day 2020 gift ideas: 18 gadgets and gizmos for tech-savvy Aussie mums

Raising a family is not an easy job, and the women who care for us each and every day deserve to be told how special they are each and every day. While we tend to forget to do that, Mother’s Day reminds us we need to celebrate the women in our lives, whether they’re our own mothers or our wives and partners helping us raise the young ones. Mother’s Day 2020 is fast approaching (with under two weeks to go), and there’s a pretty good chance you won’t be able to take her out to her favourite restaurant this year, or even get to a store to shop for something she might like. So we have to get creative, and TechRadar’s Australian team has put together this little list of great tech gift ideas that you can buy online and have delivered in time for May 10. But you will need to get a wriggle on as delivery supply chains are under strain with more people shopping online. Whether she’s a whiz in the kitchen, loves to cosy up with a book or entertain at home, we’ve got a gadget or gizmo that’s s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Amazon Australia has specials on Bose products all this week

December may have just begun, but the world's largest online marketplace is already feeling the Christmas spirit.  To kick off the month’s festivities, Amazon Australia is celebrating  ‘7 Days of Deals’ with Bose's superb audio hardware discounted each day. To begin with, the very popular (and rightly so) Bose QuietComfort 35 II and the more expensive Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 are available for less. To sweeten the deal, Amazon will throw in an Echo speaker as a bonus as well. When you purchase the superb Bose Headphones 700, you will receive a free Amazon Echo Show 5, or if you’d prefer the Bose QuietComfort 35 II, you’ll receive a complimentary Echo Dot. The offer is valid until December 8, or while stocks last. You can buy the same bundles, for the same price if you make the purchase via the Echo Dot or the Echo Show 5 product pages on Amazon. Just make sure you select the bundled headphone in the 'add other items' section on the right. Best noi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Valentine's Day flowers: the best online flower delivery services

February 14 will be here before you know it, and if you, like many others, are searching for that perfect gift, then placing an online order for Valentine's Day flowers is always an easy and romantic option. You can order a beautiful floral arrangement in minutes from a variety of online retailers, including; 1-800-Flowers, Amazon, ProFlowers, Teleflora, and many more. To help you sort through all the Valentine's Day offers, we've rounded up the best online flower delivery services in both the USA and the UK and listed their current promotions. We've also included delivery charges and made sure to mention if you can allocate specific days for delivery. There's a fantastic range of bouquets and gifts available from our selection of florists below, and online delivery from a specialist means you don't have to worry about the usual hassle of buying from a store and getting them home safely. We'll be updating this page as we get closer to the big day so you...
Post a Comment
Read more