Google announced today that the voice assistant is getting a new “interpreter mode” that can translate in real time so you can hold conversations with someone who doesn’t share the same tongue. It works, but it’s not magic.
Google Assistant will soon be able to act as your real-life translator in 27 different languages.
You’ll be able to say things like, “Hey, Google, help me speak French,” or “Hey, Google, be my French interpreter,” and Google Assistant will show text across a smart display that translates your words as you speak. Afterward, it will open the microphone for the second person to be able to speak in their language and words will be translated across the screen at the same time. Google Assistant also plays back the words in your native tongue.
You won’t need to tell Google the language you are speaking, it will be able to tell.
Google is making it easier for device manufacturers to integrate with Google Assistant technology, including those times when devices need to respond to voice commands without the benefit — or the expense — of being connected to Google’s cloud. To do so, Google is today launching into preview a new set of tools called, Google Assistant Connect, before making them broadly available to device makers later this year. This is similar to how Amazon’s Alexa Connect Kit is used with various smart devices, like the Alexa microwave.
More on the battle for voice enabled devices. Google is quickly catching up and taking a piece of the market.
Privacy in smart assistants
Voice AI shouldn’t be limited to smart speakers. If you are designing a new product today, you are likely to consider adding a voice assistant. Voice is the most intuitive man-machine interface.
A simulation and posture analysis robot with intelligent speakers
The GazeLab Inc. of Seoul has developed a cute desktop robot named Giiro that monitors the posture of the human at the desk and offers “coaching” on how to sit. GazeLab also has a Giiro-MAT. The user stands on the “special posture measurement mat with chiropractic design,” containing 600 sensors and 1.024 levels of pressure and awaits a decision.
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