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posted by martyb on Monday January 07 2019, @11:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the Siri-ous-Alexa-competitor dept.

Google Assistant will soon be on a billion devices, and feature phones are next

As CES kicks off, Google has a massive presence: monorails, a booth that's three times larger than last year, and likely a giant pile of news to announce. But ahead of all the actual product news, the company wants to beat its chest a little by announcing some numbers. By the end of the month, it expects that Google Assistant will be on 1 billion devices — up from 500 million this past May.

That's 900 million more than the number Amazon just gave us for Alexa. But just like Amazon, Google's number comes with caveats. In an interview with The Verge, Manuel Bronstein, the company's vice president of Google Assistant, copped to it. "The largest footprint right now is on phones. On Android devices, we have a very very large footprint," he says. He characterizes the ratio of phones as "the vast majority" of that billion number, but he won't specify it more than that. Though he does argue that smart speakers and other connected home devices comprise a notable and growing portion.

[...] For Google, the next billion devices will come in emerging markets, specifically on feature phones.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Tuesday January 08 2019, @01:55AM (4 children)

    by Appalbarry (66) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @01:55AM (#783515) Journal

    I have no interest in shouting commands at TVs, phones, or "smart" speakers. I am very happy to use buttons or type.

    Plus, I've never found voice recognition to be more than half-ways reliable. Maybe I need a SoCal accent?

    What I haven't managed to do is just kill off the endlessly popping-up Google Assistant screen. I even went so far as yelling "Fuck off Google! I hate you" at it, but it didn't work.

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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by takyon on Tuesday January 08 2019, @01:58AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday January 08 2019, @01:58AM (#783518) Journal

    I have no interest in shouting commands at TVs, phones, or "smart" speakers.

    I sense... a brainwave scanner in your future. :-)

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:37AM (#783567)

    [...] Plus, I've never found voice recognition to be more than half-ways reliable. Maybe I need a SoCal accent? [...]

    An Albanian accent works best.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @09:42AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @09:42AM (#783603)

    I shout at computers and TVs and phones and i don't even have any kind of smart speaker or similar feature (atleast not enabled) in them.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:47PM (#783669)

    I get so sick and tired of Siri misunderstanding what I say, and I think it's because I don't speak in patterns that Siri really understands. (And don't get me started that it cuts me off mid-thought thinking I'm done). The other day I was sending a simple one sentence message (replacing the recipient and the message to protect the guilty.)

    Me: "Text Mr. X"
    Siri: "What do you want to say to Mr. X?"
    Me: "Blah blah blah..."
    Siri: "OK. I'll tell Mr. X Blah blah boom. Ready to send it?"
    Me: "Change it."
    Siri: "OK. What do you want to say?"
    Me: "Blah blah blah..."
    Siri: "OK. I'll tell Mr. X Blah bling blah. Ready to send it?"
    Me: "Change it!"
    Siri: "OK. What do you want to say?"
    Me: "Blah blah blah"
    Siri: "OK. I'll tell Mr. X Bibbidy bobbidy boo. Ready to send it?"
    Me: "CHANGE IT YOU PIECE OF SHIT!"
    Siri: "OK. I'll tell Mr. X You Piece Of Shit. Ready to send it?"
    Me: Sigh.
    Siri: "OK. There it goes!"