Google Assistant

There has been an explosion in smart home appliances in the past years but the most common kind has been smart lighting and smart locks. The latter has sometimes proven to be a bit controversial, considering their security implications. Wyze's smart lock, however, has been criticized for a different flaw, one that prevented it from connecting to Google's nearly ubiquitous smart home platform. That has finally changed, however, and the Wyze Lock now finally speaks Google Home's language so that you can lock or unlock your door with the power of your voice.

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Google Assistant has always revolved around voice interactions but Google was able to give it a face in the form of smart displays. Now falling under the Nest smart home brand, Google has provided some visual feedback to augment Google Assistant's capabilities in your house. Not all smart Assistant features are available yet on those smart displays, however, and one upcoming addition will make booking tables at restaurants a breeze. At least when Google Duplex does finally arrive on the Nest Hub Max and its kin.

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Google has revealed its new true wireless earbuds, the Pixel Buds A-Series, cutting the price to under $100 in the process. Following on from the 2020 Pixel Buds, the new Pixel Buds A look much the same as their predecessors but - like the Pixel 4a did in phones - brings the tech in at a lower cost.

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There was a lot of attention given to Android Wear last month, mostly because it finally showed signs of life after a long period of stagnation. That said, when it comes to wearables, especially ones oriented towards fitness and health, the Apple Watch and Fitbit's wide selection still dominate the market and people's minds. Fitbit's future under Google and Android Wear is a bit uncertain, despite assurances, but this latest update to its two smartwatches puts it ahead of some Android Wear smartwatches that still lack one popular biometric.

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Google's smart AI-powered virtual assistant has definitely gotten a lot smarter over the years but there seem to be some simple things it still can't do. One of those is apparently the ability to turn off your phone using just your voice, which does sound (no pun intended) redundant considering there is a power button. It turns out that Google Assistant might gain exactly that feature in Android 12 and precisely because it will be able to commandeer that power button for its self.

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As expected, Google revealed a lot of new things that users' can look forward to on Android's various forms as well as Google's myriad services. One platform that binds many of those together is Google Assistant whose smartness still needs a bit of work here and there. For I/O 2021, Google is introducing new ways for developers to harness those smarts and enable users to jump right into the content or section of an app they need without saying much.

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HMD Global isn't just making Android phones with Nokia's name on them, it is also making feature phones with Nokia's name on them. The company has been reviving Nokia's most iconic handsets and nothing probably gets more iconic than the clamshell form-factor that is always depicted on TV and movies back in the days. That revival arrived with the Nokia 2720 Flip back in 2019 and that same phone is finally arriving in the US as the Nokia 2720 V Flip, courtesy of Verizon.

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If you're a Google Assistant user in the United States, you can now have the voice assistant sing you a somewhat cheesy, cringy jingle about the COVID-19 vaccine. The tune is available with the request for a song about vaccines and it is, mercifully, quite short in nature, meaning your friends won't be able to use it to drive you too crazy.

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Google is adding new Assistant features and tweaking some existing ones to make them more user-friendly, including expanding its Broadcast system. The new Family Broadcast takes the existing functionality - where you can pipe your voice through multiple Google smart speakers and smart displays in the house, useful for announcing meals are ready or reminding people it's time to leave - and enhances it for smartphones and replies.

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Smart assistants sound almost magical in what they're able to do at our command but they are all powered by computers and code behind the scenes. Unfortunately, computers can actually be quite dumb sometimes, especially with things we take for granted because they come so naturally to us humans. That's especially true with the names we give to our friends and acquaintances. Unsurprisingly, that has also been one of Google Assistant's weaknesses but Google will soon let you fix that by teaching it how those names really sound.

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Saying 'Hey Google' for every small thing can get annoying, but the hotword serves an important purpose: it lets the voice assistant know when you're addressing it. For this reason, completely eliminating the hotword isn't practical, but shortcuts may prove useful in certain limited cases. That's the idea behind a feature in testing codenamed 'Guacamole,' but it's still in testing.

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Google is adding four new Assistant features, aiming to streamline how its AI interacts with the smart home, helps with takeout orders, and even helps hunt down a lost device. A new "Hey Google, find my phone" feature works with all Nest smart speakers and smart displays - including the most recent Nest Hub 2nd Generation - to track iPhones and Android devices.

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