[MUSIC]
Welcome to Alphabet City I'm your guide is x hard and you are the most amazing audience in the world including these people here.
Today we're delving into the world of Google Assistant.
Joining me to talk about that is Shannon Morse.
You may have seen her on hack five threat wire and her YouTube channel youtube.com slash Shannon Moore.
She's an expert in technology and internet security.
Thanks for being here.
Thank you for having me.
I'm so excited.
Now Google made some improvements to Google Assistance during the show.
Let's go one by one.
There're scheduled actions.
Instead of telling the system to do a task right now, you can say something like, make coffee at 6am.
Sharon, what do you think about that?
It's something that I can actually use.
I'm very excited about this.
Yeah, I mean like sometimes I have to say, okay, I'm leaving.
So do this thing now.
->> Yeah.
Instead of going.
Do it later.
So I love that you can finally do this with so many multiple different products, especially with their partners and everything so you can actually program it to work with all these different devices in your household.
It's gonna be very useful for people.
Next up, you can leave a virtual sticky notes on smart displays.
Smart displays also have the ability to have household contacts that means anyone in the home.
Can call a contact, no voice match necessary.
Shannon, do you think this is gonna move Google Nest Home Hubs products because they added this new sticky note feature.
Actually, I was thinking about this on the way over here.
I would love to get myself one and get my husband one, so both of us have devices on our desks.
[LAUGH] Because he hates it when I bother him while he's working, but I can send him sticky notes.
Now, I could just like send them over to his be later.
Don't forget to feed the cat that's make sure you empty the litter.
I go find milk.
So you're using Google, I could keep going as a passive aggressive tool, basically.
Okay.
All right.
So Google rep that's Home app as well.
Now if you set up a device using the app, You'll get a push notification from the Home app that lets you automatically input your information.
Now I think streamlining like that process is really useful.
I was not a fan of bouncing between apps and diving the settings and linking accounts.
I think that was a nightmare.
I think this is gonna be huge.
I absolutely agree.
I have very long passwords.
I have very long credentials that I usually have to put into these devices to set them up.
I would love to get just a push notification that says, Are you ready They set up this device, yes.
It's gonna save a lot of time and it's gonna be a lot easier for consumers to set up devices.
It might help them sell a lot more too.
Yeah, and Google was saying when people buy a smart device they just kind of want it immediately to work with their Google device, and making that easier is, I think, a huge deal.
Because otherwise you're like, okay, I got this bulb, how do I make it talk to the assistant?
What do I do here that This, I think, is gonna be, this actually should have been there the whole time.
How many times have you opened up a device in a product box, and not read the guide?
Cuz you just wanna go?
Yeah, you just wanna go.
You just want it to work, it should just work!
You just wanna plug it in, and let the thing go.
Now, I also had the chance to talk to Scott Huffman, VP of engineering on the assistant.
Now, I've been trying to get an answer from Google about a particular question for months, I got nowhere.
My question is basically this.
Why does Google Assistant not work exactly the same in every device.
To expand on that, you can do things on the phone that you can't do on the speaker or smart display.
You can make a phone call on everything, but you can't text on everything.
Now Scott was gracious enough to explain, essentially, he said that Google assistant shares a common core, then more is added based on the device.
It's natural to make calls and text on a phone.
So I asked if those sticky notes, one of the new assisted features, would be available on some kind of audio version for speakers, Scott explained, the feature would be on smart displays only for now, although it seemed intrigued by the idea of an audio note, full disclosure, I was thinking about how Amazon speakers That's what I'm talking about Amazon can give you a notification using this light and when you ask It'll speak it to you.
Shannon, what do you think about assistance not being exactly the same everywhere?
Making your user interface the same everywhere is going to help people be more acclimated to the process whenever they purchase something new.
It's kind of like upgrading your operating system or upgrading the firmware on your phone.
Usually the gestures and everything are very, very similar to the previous versions, but once you upgrade, there's only a few things you have to change.
When you're going between partners that are all using the same core backend and the interface is different, that's gonna confuse folks.
So it's a lot easier when they use the same type of gesture controls and the same type of Speaking voice activation assistance for those devices across the board, no matter which one you purchase.
I mean, I just want assistance to work every which way.
I shouldn't have to say.
I don't want to pick up my phone because I want to send a message, but I can't send a Hang Outs message to this other thing.
I don't want to have to think about that.
And one of the reason why I'm so salty about this is because, Google Home uses even make a phone call with it using Google Voice.
Yeah.
And you can link it to Google Voice your number shows up.
The Google Voice also does texts, but you can't text through it and I'm I still don't get that,
that's a good points
and weird little thing.
I think they should totally fix that.
I think I hope.
When we're gonna do it?
I'll ask God again.
Okay One last thing as I was as we were talking about Google Assistant and every device was I wanted it everywhere.
The VP started listing off items were assistant that live he said speakers watches and more interestingly he said classes now I'm pretty sure he did not mean Google Glass.
I talking bit about that.
What do you think about that?
Now, do you think that Google may be working on an existing version of glasses?
I mean, Amazon's got one.
Okay.
I'll be straight with you.
If they are, I usually wear glasses, except for not at CES, but I usually wear nice glasses.
If they do go down that road, please, I implore you, make them stylish.
Please.
Yeah.
[CROSSTALK]
That's my thing.
You don't want like the Google Glass version.
Like we've tried that out.
[CROSSTALK] Yeah.
It was cool.
Well, I mean, I thought it was cool.
[LAUGH]
Okay, I don't know if it was cool looking.
I don't think like normal people.
[CROSSTALK]
Why was it cool?
Looking.
No.
But the implementation was cool.
[LAUGH]
Conceptually, I think it was a great idea, and especially seeing what Google's done with AR especially in maps.
Yeah.
When you hold up the map you can have arrowws and stuff that say, you go this way, that way.
That's great.
Yes.
If it's on your glasses or even if it's speaking to you through the, I guess the arm of your glasses-
Yeah.
Something like-
Like bone induction or something like that?
Yeah.
Amazon's got their Echo frames, and I'm like that's a good idea.
Yeah.
If I could Not that I won't have Google on my face but I wouldn't mind having Google on my face because I would like to be seen.
Especially if they like partner up with some known brands that make really nice glasses, something that is comfortable so it doesn't like make your ears ache.
Wouldn't that be cool?
I didn't even think about that idea.
Yeah.
I was in Google going whole hog and going, we're making this ourselves that are going on.
We don't know what we're doing.
We should be talking to the companies that are I don't know how to do that.
Let's just buy a glasses company.
They'll be like, Okay, you guys yeah, we own you now please put speakers into they bought Fitbit, so why not?
Yeah, but I mean, we're gonna see how that turns out.
I hope that turns out okay, Sam.
Also I have a Fitbit and it's got Alexa on it is Scott.
Well, how long will I Alexa be on this device, asked him when they're gonna kill it.
He was like, I can't speak to that.
I assume it won't be very long.
[LAUGH] Okay.
Shannon Morse, thank you so much for chatting today.
Thank you.
Where can people find your work online?
I am @snubs, S-N-U-B-S, on Twiiter.
Else, you can go over to youtube.com/shannonmorse, M-O-R-S-E.
Thanks again.
Thank you.
And hey, by the way, we had hands on with the new Samsung phones.
Check that out over here.
And if you wanna know more about the S11 because I've been covering this crazy, check this out.
If you've enjoyed your stay enough with the city, please don't forget to like and subscribe, if you've got any questions, comments or ideas hit me up on Twitter.
I'm @Iyaz and I'll respond really.
Am Iyaz Atter I'll see you online.
