Google Assistant

In some ways, I am fairly familiar with computers and high tech stuff. In other ways, we're definitely a little behind the times.

For example, we didn't own a "smart" phone until our son donated his old iPhone 4s to us just over two years ago. And of course the iPhone 4s was ahead of it's time when it came out in 2011... but by mid 2015, the time we started using it, technology had already surpassed it.

But I easily saw the potential benefits of owning a "smart" phone for travel. And so when the old iPhone went bad (what? Apple products can go bad?) while we were in Spain last February, we made the decision to buy a new Samsung smart phone... a brand new model with all the latest gizmos.

Half of which, I probably don't have figured out yet. I learn new stuff all the time!

But the most amazing new thing I learned recently is Google Assistant. Voice recognition software has come a long way in the last couple of years! iPhone has it's own version of this, called Siri. But the Android phones use Google software that most reports say is more user friendly than Siri.
And this technology is still fairly new... we are at the stages in voice recognition software where the Wright Brothers were with airplanes!

Remember Star Trek's Captain Kirk talking to the computer? Google Assistant is really close to that!

It types out on your screen exactly what you say. And it "learns" to recognize your voice and how you talk. Very cool. Check out this short video I made of it setting the alarm clock. Turn up your volume...

And it does tons of other neat stuff. Want to know when your next flight is? Just ask "when is my next flight please" Isn't it funny that I say please? Must have been my upbringing!

Ask for directions? Translate a word or phrase? Just ask. No typing required.

Fun stuff too if you ever get bored. Want to hear a joke? Just ask Google Assistant to tell you a joke...

Bah! She's actually pretty funny!

This technology is going to improve a lot over the next couple of years. And provided you don't have any unfounded paranoia about google knowing everything about you, it's a lot of fun to use. The system obviously needs to know your location and have access to your emails and a variety of other information to be able to give you correct answers to some of the questions you may ask.

Anyhow, I figured that if all this stuff is fairly new to me, that there might also be some of you who don't know about it yet! I think it's really cool, and can't wait to see what the future holds. 

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