Google Go Turns Every Webpage Into A Podcast

Google Go now reads aloud lengthy batches of text in natural language on your smartphone. This essentially allows you to listen to massive blog posts as audio while you're driving your car to work. The ability to "Listen to Webpages" is easily one of the most helpful things AI's done for the common user since Skynet. And it's far less violent in the long run, I hope.

Users might recognize Google Go as a different product. In fact, when it was first launched, Google Go was meant to be a "lightweight, faster way to search the web on devices which may have less space or less reliable internet connections." This service expanded this week within the original Google Go browser.

This is not the sort of app everyone will use, and it really isn't meant for everyone in the first place. Instead, this is an extension of an already-helpful service beyond its original intent. That's according to Google's own Next Billion Users VP of Engineering, Yossi Matias, and Senior Product Manager Simon Tokumine.

"Powered by natural language processing and speech synthesis AI, this technology can read aloud billions of webpages in 28 languages smoothly, and in a natural sounding voice, even on 2G connections. It also uses minimal cellular data. This technology relies on AI to determine which parts of a page to read, and which to leave out, so you only listen to what is important."

To attain the ability to have Google read you a webpage, head over to the Google Play app store. There you'll find Google Go, a web browser/search engine that now has the ability to read webpages aloud in 28 different languages. This service is not quite out on iOS just yet. And it probably wont be – not until Apple starts making low-cost smartphones for emerging markets – aka the places in the world where smartphones are just now becoming usable thanks to mobile connectivity encircling the globe.