What happens if you take Google’s smallest smart speaker, and stuff it inside an old-fashioned rotary-dial smartphone? That… is a question that honestly never occurred to me. But now we have an answer anyway, and it’s actually kind of cool. Redditor Movieman_75 took a Google Home Mini, put it inside a rotary phone, and even […]
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4 Comments on Google’s “Interpreter mode” turns your phone into a Babel Fish (real-time voice translation)
Google’s “Interpreter mode” turns your phone into a Babel Fish (real-time voice translation)
4 Comments on Google’s “Interpreter mode” turns your phone into a Babel Fish (real-time voice translation)Google has added real-time voice translation to Google Assistant for smartphones. Just ask Google to act as your translator or help you speak a language, and it can help you communicate with someone who speaks a different language from you. Google’s “Interpreter mode” could come in handy if you’re ordering food or asking for directions while […]
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Hands-on with the Lenovo Yoga Smart Tab (with Google Assistant)
The Lenovo Yoga Smart Tab is an Android tablet that also doubles as a sort of smart display. At first glance, it looks like a funny-shaped Android tablet. But it has a 3-microphone array for far-field voice recognition, and built-in stereo 2 watt speakers so you can hear Google Assistant reply when you’re talking to […]
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Report: Google’s Nest WiFi mesh routers will double as smart speakers
Google is holding an event October 15th where the company will officially launch the much-leaked Pixel 4 line of smartphones. But the company could also use the event to introduce other new products… like an update to its Google WiFi line of mesh networking routers. According to a report from 9to5Google, the next version of […]
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Google’s Nest Hub Max smart display now available for $229
Google’s second Google Assistant-powered smart display is now available for purchase. The $229 Google Nest Hub Max is bigger (and pricier) than the company’s first model, which launched a year ago. It has a larger display, more powerful speakers, and unlike the original, the Nest Hub Max has a camera for making video calls. The […]
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Lenovo Smart Display 7 with Google Assistant coming in October for $130
Lenovo is fleshing out its Smart Display lineup with a new model sporting a 7 inch display and a brand new design. When it launches in October, the new model will sell for $130. That makes the new Lenovo Smart Display 7″ a little more affordable than the company’s 8 inch or 10 inch models, […]
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Lenovo’s $80 Smart Clock with Google Assistant now available
Lenovo already offers a line of smart displays that are basically the company’s answer to Amazon’s Echo Show or Google’s Nest Hub. Now Lenovo is going after the Amazon Echo Spot. The Lenovo Smart Clock is a small device with a 4 inch touchscreen display, a speaker, and a microphone. It’s basically a Google Assistant-powered […]
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Google Assistant is getting up to 10x faster thanks to on-device language processing
Google Assistant has historically relied on cloud-based services to recognize your voice and respond to your requests. But Google says it’s managed to shrink its voice recognition model to about 500MB, allowing it to be stored on a phone for on-device processing. Since there’s no round-trip to the cloud required, that means Google Assistant can […]
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Google’s Android Things is now aimed at OEM partners building Smart Speakers and Displays
1 Comment on Google’s Android Things is now aimed at OEM partners building Smart Speakers and DisplaysWhen Google launched the Android Things platform a few years ago, the idea was to offer an Android-based operating system for Internet of Things gadgets as well as a platform that anyone could use to build IoT projects using Google’s SDK and popular devices like a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. Now Google says it’s […]
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Project Alias hacks your smart speaker so it’s only listening when you want
There’s something kind of magical about saying “Alexa” or “OK Google” to get a weather forecast, recipe, navigation directions, or to play music or control your smart home appliances. There’s also something a little creepy about it since you need to have an always-listening, internet-connected speaker in your house to do those things. Sure, Google […]