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by Raphael Knecht
Google Guacamole: could Voice Assistant become more powerful than ever before?
26.4.2021
Translation: Patrik Stainbrook
Google is constantly expanding the range of its voice assistant’s capabilities. Interestingly, a new feature is looking to make AI interaction more natural for short commands. The Guacamole feature hasn’t been officially introduced yet, but it’s already appearing in the settings menu for Android 11 users.
Google is known for rolling out unfinished features to selected users and having them act as glorified guinea pigs. And according to 9to5google, a new Voice Assistant feature will be our newest plaything.
As you see, a new option has appeared in the settings menu for some Android 11 users in the most recent Google app update: Voice Shortcuts now displays a slider for activating Guacamole.
Guacamole?
Google’s Guacamole feature is supposed to enable voice control without a hot word. This means that users should be able to give their Google Assistant verbal commands without the standardised addresses «Hey» or «Okay Google».
This way, you might soon be able to silence your alarm clock or timer with a simple «Stop». Or answer incoming calls by simply proclaiming «Accept» or «Decline».
Although the feature is already visible to certain users, it doesn’t seem to be active yet. There haven’t been reports confirming that the slider could be moved or the function activated as of yet. However, the following is already apparent: an opt in to the terms of use is required before use. This probably has to do with the fact that without hot word activation, the assistant has to pay attention to other triggers when communicating with the user.
Natural communication through shorter voice commands
The California-based tech giant has been working on making interaction with Voice Assistant-enabled devices more natural for some time. As far back as 2019, Google Home and Google Nest Hub alarm clocks in English-speaking countries could be disabled with a simple «Stop».
The Verge suspects that Google will probably only officially introduce the feature at their I/O developer event this year.
The conference, where the latest products from Google developers are presented, will take place virtually this year. If you want to follow up on the new Guacamole feature and Google’s I/O Developer Event right away, check out this link.
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