Google Assistant Can Now Read or Translate Websites and Android App Content (venturebeat.com) 4
Google Assistant is able to read web pages and news articles on Android devices worldwide today, a company spokesperson said. From the report: You can trigger the feature by simply saying "Hey Google, read it" or "Hey Google, read this page." If you land on a webpage in a language you don't understand, Google Assistant is also able to read and translate 42 languages into your preferred language. Both reading and translation work on Android phones version 5 and above. Google Assistant reading text speaks with a different voice than the average Google Assistant. Members of the Google Assistant team said reading in a more natural voice is important for longform content. In recent years, teams working on Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa have created neural networks capable of generating voices with more humanlike sounds and intonations.
Almost (Score:3)
Opens /.
Me: "hey Google, read this page"
Assistant "got it"
Assistant "sorry, I'm not able to read that page aloud".
That said, it did work on the venturebeat source article linked in the intro.
But not Slashdot (Score:3)
I asked it to read Slashdot.org and Assistant told me it can't read that website.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks! 25 years too late (Score:3)
I grew up watching people have conversations with the computer on Star Trek, so back in 1996 I wrote a program to read web pages (and emails) aloud to me using the cruddy speech synthesizer that came with the Soundblaster cards. I've been constantly annoyed at how Android didn't have this feature. It's like 99.9999% there, but they intentionally cut-off reading after a sentence or two.
Me: "Google, who is the vice-president of Albonia?"
Google Assistant: "According to Wikipedia, presdent Alfred Von Munchausen is the current president of Albonia, and the vice president."
Me: "Google, read me the entire article."
Google Assistant: "I don't understand."
Me: "You totally suck."
Google Assistant: "I'm sorry."