Well it's May and we've got a bunch of new features to talk about with the
Google Assistant including the new read aloud feature, better media controls for
Google Assistants smart displays and better notification settings for the
Google Assistant and a lot more. So let's go ahead and dive in and first let's
talk about the new read aloud feature with the Google Assistant. Now at the
time of this recording do note that this feature as of now only works on Android
devices. You can ask the Google Assistant to read aloud a web page just get a web
page or article in Google News open and then trigger the assistant and ask it to
read this page. Google Assistant "from The Verge, Roomba maker iRobot's lawnmower bot is
indefinitely delayed because of Covid 19 by Ashley Carmen. The company also laid
off five percent of its workforce. iRobot the company behind the autonomous
Roomba vacuum says it's scrapping its plans to release its lawn-mowing robot,
the Terr,a because of the pandemic." So far in my experience, this works pretty much
with all the news articles I've tried it on in the Google News app. However this
feature will not work on articles that require a subscription like the New York
Times or Washington Post and this is true even if you have a subscription for
those publications. This feature will also work on a lot of websites, for
example, I've gotten it to work on TheVerge.com and Wikipedia, which is
actually one of my favorite uses for this feature. There are some
inconsistencies with what sites this feature will and will not work on, so do
keep that in mind but overall I think it's a great feature ad for the Google
Assistant. Moving on, let's next talk about updated media controls for Google
Assistants smart displays. Google has tweaked the media controls so when you
swipe down from a Google Assistant display and select media you now see a
nice list view of all of your speakers and speaker groups in your home and any
of your devices or speaker groups that are currently playing media. This view
makes it really easy to see what's currently playing and to pause media.
They even added a really nice pause all button to pause anything playing on any
of the devices in your home. Next up, notifications. Google has recently
revamped how notification settings work for the Google Assistant. When you go
into Assistant settings, what used to be called email
notifications is now just called notifications. When you click on it
you'll see new categories for notifications that either go to your
email or to your phone like extended responses, help with tasks, and tips and
tricks. Clicking on each category will open up a new page where you can toggle
on and off different notifications. Now do note, I haven't yet seen this update
on the Google Assistant app on my iPhone, so if you're an iOS user you may not see
this roll out just yet. Now another feature that Google just literally
rolled out as we were filming this is the sensitivity settings for the wake
word for your Google Assistant devices. Basically what the setting allows you to
do is change how sensitive each of your Google Assistant devices are to hearing
the wake word, so for example if you have your assistant device behind an object
or in a place where it's hard for it to hear the wake word you can go ahead and
adjust the sensitivity to be more sensitive for that device. Google says
this feature will be rolling out gradually and I've seen it on my iPhone
before my Pixel so it'll likely be rolling out to you in the near future.
Next up let's talk about privacy. Google has recently expanded the responses that
you'll get from the Google Assistant when you ask it questions around data
privacy. You can ask Google questions like "how do you keep my data private?"
Google Assistant: "Google uses your information to make Google services more useful and
personalized for you your privacy is important and Google works hard to
protect your data and keep you in control of how it is used. To learn more
about how Google handles your data go to go/assistant/your data. I've also
sent a link to your phone." Or, "are you saving my audio recordings?" Google Assistant: "Your
Assistant audio is only saved if that settings turned on.
It's called include voice and audio recordings and you can change it at any
time. I just sent a link to your phone that'll take you there." You can also tell
your assistant to delete everything you said this week where previously you
could only ask it to delete your recordings altogether but not for a
specific time period. Another new feature add for the Google Assistant is for car
chargers and batteries. Google has added support for devices that can charge
others or store energy like electric vehicles, vacuums,
or doing things like asking for the charge level for a device like a smart
lock, so in theory you'll be able to say things to your Google assistant like "is
my car plugged in?" or "how much time until my car is done charging?" Now I haven't
gotten this to work with my Tesla Model 3 just yet so we will be on the lookout
for brands that start to integrate their products with the Google Assistant in
this way. Besides cars and devices that can charge others, google has added new
device types that they support now within the Google home
app like carbon monoxide detectors, media remotes, sensors, set-top boxes,
televisions, water purifiers, and water softeners. Lastly if you have Nest
cameras in your home, Google has started to roll out the Nest cam events into
your Google Home feed, so be on the lookout for that rolling out in the next
few weeks. Alright ,well that's it for the updates for now. Google typically
does announce new products and Google Assistant features during their I/O
Developers Conference, however this year because that conference has been
canceled due to Covid 19, it's a little unclear when we're going to see those
new products and Google Assistant features announced. Now we have just seen
the new Google Pixel Buds, those were just released this week so we'll be
doing a video on those, but we're still also waiting for a new Google Pixel 4a,
new Google Chromecast rumored to include a remote this time, and then of
course some new Google Assistant features as well, so make sure you're
subscribed to the channel to stay up to date on all the latest for Google
product announcements and Google product feature updates, and if you liked this
video and found it helpful hit that thumbs up button below. Well thank you so
much for watching, for 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder.