Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
AI Google Software

Google Announces New Google Assistant With Huge Boost To Speed (theverge.com) 21

Google has announced the second-generation version of its Google Assistant software, which promises new capabilities, a design overhaul, and a noticeable boost to speed. From a report: That last upgrade means the new Assistant can launch and return answers to queries much faster than before. The service is coming first to Pixel phones, and Google made the announcement onstage at its Pixel 4 reveal event in New York City on Tuesday. We already knew quite a bit about the new Assistant, thanks to Google's initial reveal back at its I/O developer conference in May, but we also got to see it in action on the Pixel 4 ahead of release, thanks to a flood of leaks that included, among other things, new Assistant marketing videos. Google claimed in May that the new Assistant would be up to 10 times faster than before, and the marketing videos did indeed show a much speedier version of the software retrieving directions and returning answers to queries. (It's not clear if that 10x estimation is for all Assistant features or just certain lightweight ones.)
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Google Announces New Google Assistant With Huge Boost To Speed

Comments Filter:
  • by pr0t0 ( 216378 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @03:29PM (#59311308)

    All that sounds great. When do we get a voice profile that sounds like Majel Barret?!

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Nahh, fuck that silly shite. I want an independent app that access Google assistant for me, anonymously. I web site that anonymises the query based upon open code that can be viewed and checked that incorporates notification of changes to the code. Open web coding, for open web tools, to provide anonymised access to privacy invasive services and sends their marketing messages to the digital void instead of you.

      I can't help it any my I see google employees as https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]. Seriously whe

  • I am still on a Galaxy S5, a great phone (waterproof, replaceable battery, MicroSD slot, headphone jack) but boy is "OK Google" slow. I wonder if I will be able to install the updates however.
    • Doubtful. Unless they upgraded your phone to 10. I doubt Samsung even cares about that model any longer.
    • by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

      OMG I came to post the same thing! The *old* Google assistant from about 1.5 years ago ran great! But with the new one, I can say "OK Google" then it is literally >1 minute before it listens. After about 5-10 seconds the screen border lights up white like "I heard you" then about 30 seconds later the assistant app opens up with the icon showing it is listening, but the equalizer doesn't show it is listening. Then it times out. Then I click the icon, then it starts listening.

      Think about it: How long

      • Which hardware are you using for this?
        • by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

          Same as the OP: Galaxy S5. Almost everything else on the phone is fairly responsive. The only other really slow app is Google Maps, which also takes like a minute to load, and it loads piecemeal - the UI appears but doesn't respond, then it updates some things, then some more things. I've learned not to try and click anything for about 30 seconds to a minute after it starts. It's worse when I'm not on wifi. It acts like they are doing network operations on the UI thread, like Windows Explorer sometimes

    • If you're running the OS that came with the phone it must be a pretty old version of Android and hence I'd wager you won't.
  • This still just seems like a Google search to me.
  • You mean, it will spin its wheels ten times faster? Google Assistant and friends remain firmly in the 'For grins and giggles" section, and little more. Command Google Assistant NOT to give you the weather forecast for today, only to be given the weather forecast for today by said Google Assistant.

    The truth is that, so far, digital assistants do very, very little that is of any use, and most of what they can do you can do faster, better and more conveniently. Maybe one day they will become real assistant; to

    • by Mascot ( 120795 )

      The truth is that, so far, digital assistants do very, very little that is of any use, and most of what they can do you can do faster, better and more conveniently.

      Agree, and disagree. They are nothing like as useful as Google/Amazon/Apple pretends they are, but they do have their uses. Personally, I have one in most rooms and use it frequently. Not for anything I _couldn't_ do otherwise, but there are a number of things where using my voice instead of needing to pick up a device is really convenient. I can ask it how the traffic to work is like while I prepare breakfast. I can tell it to set timers while I'm juggling a handful of items while cooking. I never bother t

      • I can ask it how the traffic to work is like while I prepare breakfast.

        Who cares? You're going to have to deal with it regardless of how good or bad it is.
        BEST case scenario: It's extraordinarily bad one morning and you hustle to leave a few minutes earlier to end up being a few minutes less late than everyone else, to no consequence.

  • This just means that the usleep version calculation uses a factor of 10. This make it APPEAR that each version is 10x faster than the predecessor version, when in reality nothing actually changed other than the version number ...

    Microsoft has been doing this for ages.

  • by mfearby ( 1653 )

    Who even uses these silly things? As if I need a device in my home to say "Hey google, turn up the volume"... I presume it also lets me order things online but there's no way I would trust a brief voice command to order the thing I wanted - correctly - and certainly not at a reasonable price.

    Who cares if a pointless product is faster?

    • I use the assistant as the means to interface with my pixel almost exclusively. It is able to start the map, add stops to it, send texts, read my texts, make my phone calls, play what I want to hear, start apps, etc. The less I have to actually touch my phone, the better.
  • My fiend has an ancient Android phone - one of the free phones back int eh day, and it's so old, Google Assistant will roll any sided di(c)e you wanted.

    But my Nexus 6 and Pixel phone with the latest Android only does up to a d20. Bit of an annoyance when you want a d100 (which nowadays you simulate with 2d10 - one being a tens and the other being a ones (usually a matched 00-90 and 0-9 set, rather than two 1-10 dice, and any good DM has all three kinds)

  • Dude! Get on your pink moped and talk to Google Assistant through your baby blue Bluetooth bicycle helmet (or Siri, whatever) with a pair of bright orange ski goggles (or a set of Google Glass spectacles) on while sporting a Member's Only jacket. I suggest you also wear plaid golf shorts, a raspberry beret, and some half-calf argyle socks, too. Then rick-roll your ass down to play some mini-golf with the other Avon pimps.
  • more speed is good but unless it can do general commands when the internet is down, it really ain't worth it adding or replacing what I already have.

    I have both alexa and google. internet goes down a few times a year. it is a pain to have to get up from my nice comfortable recliner and turn off lights, tvs, change thermostat and such manually when the internet is down. yep, gotten lazy in my old age.

  • In their drive to get the assistant to respond faster, I find it is running with queries before I've completed them about 20% of the time. They have apparently cut way down on the length of pauses in your speech that they allow before assuming you've completed the query.

    I'm betting this will be even worse with the new software.

  • by dwarfking ( 95773 ) on Wednesday October 16, 2019 @07:27AM (#59313752) Homepage

    I installed Assistant on my phone and not long after it started giving me notifications of bills coming due. Turns out that it reads your emails and does this. I did not agree to it and I looked for a way to turn that off. Lots of suggestions on the web but every time there is an update it turns it back on. So I had to ask what else it was doing and who else it was sending notifications to?

    Fortunately I'm on an older phone so I was able to uninstall all updates to the Google App and that removed Assistant, other phones can't remove it.

    Now I don't allow the Google App to update because I won't allow that crap back on my phone.

You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different.

Working...