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JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Welcome to "Assistant on Air,"
where we have conversations with people that
build for Google Assistant.
I'm Jessica just.
And I'll be your host.
Today we'll be chatting with Allen, who's a Google Developer
Expert for Google Assistant.
Welcome, Allen.
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: Great to be here.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: So Allen,
tell me a little bit more about you.
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: So I am a developer.
During my day job, I help my clients
understand new technology, where they're
going with it, best ways to use it, and what to do with that.
And I am also a Google Developer Expert.
So I help other developers understand the technology,
understand how to develop for it,
and bring it into their applications,
their needs, their communities.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: That's awesome.
That's awesome.
And you've been a GDE for a very long time.
[LAUGHS]
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: Sure feels that way, yes.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: But would
love to learn more about your experiences,
but before Assistant, specifically
about your experiences with Glass.
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: Yeah, so we've
had Glass now for six years.
It was first introduced in 2012 at I/O then.
And in 2013, we, as developers, first got our hands on it
and first really started experimenting and playing
with the potential that a new form
factor and a new integration mode could bring us.
Glass was very much the forerunner of the Assistant.
Many of the concepts that we have
in the Assistant today, the invocation trigger phrase,
for Glass, it was, "OK, Glass."
And we've seen how that's evolved.
The interaction with Glass, again,
very similar to what we have today,
a lot of voice-driven commands, a lot of audio responses,
video, where it was appropriate and where it's useful,
but largely an ambient computing notion.
So there's this notion that we are using our computers,
using our technology while still engaging
with the world around us.
And that was a very important concept for Glass.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, definitely.
So what are the concepts or lessons
learned from development on Glass
that you think translate to voice and to the Assistant?
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: I think the biggest
is this notion of ambient computing,
that we need to be careful how we're designing our technology,
how we're designing our interaction,
because people are doing things beyond the machine itself.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Yeah.
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: So in the past,
we've had a notion of being behind our terminals
or being behind a video screen or being
behind a mobile device.
And now, with ambient computing, with Glass, with the Assistant,
with similar technologies, we are using our computers
in the kitchen.
We're using it in the living room.
Our computers are there, but they're not the focus anymore.
Our lives are the focus.
And the Assistant is there to help us live our lives.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, that definitely
reminds me of 1970s sci-fi TV shows or movies, where things
are happening in the show.
And they just talk to the computer,
and things magically happen.
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: It feels that way.
It does feel like we're living in that kind of a future,
doesn't it?
I almost think that we've got something even more powerful
than we envisioned in those TV shows and movies.
A lot of those were very non-conversational,
very synthetic, very rough, and not very personal.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: No, they weren't.
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: No.
The Assistant is truly a personal assistant.
And I think increasingly, we're going
to be giving it our personal information
and trusting in with our personal information,
because what we get in response is very personal,
very personalized information, and a very personal way
that it reacts and works with us.
We didn't see that in the TV shows.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: No, no.
It was really robotic and like, just do the thing.
And yeah, it was just a statement, do it,
and that's it.
And it wasn't as helpful.
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: No, it wasn't.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Yeah.
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: I think that's a great focus
about the Assistant, is it's really focused on you.
It is literally your Assistant.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, that's awesome.
So Allen, if we could look into the future,
and we didn't have any constraints on technology
or any of that, what do you think would be the cool thing?
Or what would you want to see in the future
when it comes to the way people interact with technology?
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: I always like to think about how we--
kind of the same as what I've said,
how we are taking the notion of interacting with things
on a very personal level.
So how do I talk to my documents?
How do I talk to my car?
How do I talk to my spreadsheet?
How do I talk to my shopping list?
What does that feel like to say?
What does it mean when I talk about talking to a document?
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, what does that mean?
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: What does it mean?
I don't know.
And in some ways, that's what I'd
like to explore, what I want to help other people explore,
because I want all of us to lend our own perspectives to what
that means.
And let's figure it out.
When I started with Glass, we had certain notions
about what it would mean.
And we've learned since then.
We've figured some things out.
We have other we haven't figured out yet.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, that whole customization
and how you would talk to a document
just makes me think about how we interact just
with technology currently.
My terminal and my tech centers are set up differently
than I'm sure yours will.
So I wonder, even the way you talk to your document
might be a little different than the way I talk to my document.
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: Oh, I imagine it wouldn't be.
And I think the great thing about a personal assistant
is that it would learn what our habits are,
what we mean when we ask for something.
And that would be very different than how you do it.
And that gives a great deal of power.
We talk about personal computers used
to be big things that sat on our desk.
And then we thought about, well, the phone
is the ultimate personal computer.
And I don't think that's true.
I think the Assistant is really the next generation
of what a personal computer, what personal technology
really is.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: That's awesome.
Well, Allen, thank you so much for chatting with us.
Really appreciate it.
ALLEN FIRSTENBERG: Thank you for having me.
It's been a pleasure.
JESSICA DENE EARLEY-CHA: So we hope
that you liked today's show.
And if you have any suggestions for future episodes,
please leave a comment below.
And follow us on Twitter so you get updates
into the new episodes.
I've been Jessica.
Chat with you next time.
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