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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.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 08 2019, @02:03AM (1 child)
I don't have any constantly running apps that even have the capacity to read from it, much less the permissions. The ones that are only occasionally open I grant or deny permission as I see fit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Knowledge Troll on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:37AM
Eh that's still software gating the microphone which I don't like. That all requires operating system security and those terms are oxymorons.
Though not having apps reduces the surface area of attack at least.