Google tries new approach
with voice on Pixel phone
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[October 29, 2016]
By Julia Love
(Reuters) - About six months ago, people
working on hardware and the voice-activated Google Assistant for the
Pixel phone started sitting next to each other at the company's Mountain
View, California headquarters, hammering out minute details of its first
phone.
The new seating arrangement illustrated a much larger shift underway at
Alphabet Inc's Google, which crashed Apple Inc's smartphone revolution
eight years ago by giving away its Android software and letting handset
makers do the rest.
Google software now runs on 85 percent of the world's smartphones, but
as voice control threatens to replace touch as the primary means of
using a hand-held device, the company is experimenting with a different
approach - more akin to Apple's tight integration of hardware and
software.
The Pixel's hardware and Assistant teams gather for happy hour every
Friday and have already received a prototype for the camera on next
year's phone, said Brian Rakowski, vice president of product for
Google’s Android operating system.
Their ambition: to make the company's voice-powered digital assistant
better than rivals such as Apple’s Siri and Microsoft Corp’s Cortana.
“We really wanted the Assistant on the phone to feel like a natural
extension of the ways you ask Google for information,” Rakowski said in
an interview.
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LEAF FROM APPLE'S BOOK
The fusion of hardware and software is key to that goal. Certain
specifications are crucial for a high-performing assistant, such as a
well-placed microphone and a powerful processor to crunch reams of data.
Creating an app isn't enough; that requires a few clicks for users to
get to it.
The hardware and software teams worked closely on details such as the
graphics that appear when users call up the assistant, settling on a
flurry of colorful dots, which Rakowski called a "whimsical touch to
give a little bit of life to the home button.”
The Assistant is always at the ready on the Pixel phone and can be
summoned by pressing the home button or saying the words “OK Google.”
By integrating the Assistant into the Pixel, Google “doesn’t have to do
negotiations with another handset maker – they can make it as tight as
they want,” said Charles Jolley, chief executive of Ozlo, which offers a
digital assistant by the same name.
To make sure users get the best possible experience, the Assistant will
live only on Google products such as the Pixel, at least for now.
In the long term, however, it is unclear whether Google will keep it
that way, or return to its original phone strategy and try to push the
product out to the millions of smartphones running on other
manufacturers' Android phones, at the risk of offering a slightly
lower-quality experience.
Rakowski said making sure the Assistant works well on other phones would
require a close level of integration with handset makers, beyond the
typical work that happens on the Android operating system.
"We want all these features of the Assistant to work well and work
quickly and be nicely integrated so it gives the right idea of what the
Assistant can do," he said "We don't want it to feel limited or bolted
on in any way."
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![](../images/102916pics/busine97.jpg)
The Google Pixel phone is displayed during the presentation of new
Google hardware in San Francisco, California, U.S. October 4, 2016.
REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach
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He admits it could be challenging to execute the Assistant on some current
Android phones.
"You can't do some of the always-on 'OK Google' detection on some phones because
they don't include the right hardware to do that," he said. "In some cases, the
microphone is not in a great position."
SAMSUNG GOING IT ALONE?
Whatever Google decides, there are already some signs that its Assistant may not
be welcome on all Android phones.
Samsung Electronics Co, the world's top selling smartphone maker and the leading
Android manufacturer, recently acquired Viv Labs, an artificial intelligence
startup founded by the creators of Siri, and plans to weave the assistant into
its phones.
Having already ceded their operating systems to Google, Android manufacturers
may be reluctant to delegate the digital assistant as well, people in the
industry said.
“If we get to the point where the face of the brand is the assistant itself,
that is totally a differentiator,” said Babak Hodjat, co-founder of artificial
intelligence company Sentient. “They will be relegated to just pushing
hardware.”
Google is coy about its plans. “Over time, we want to bring the Assistant to as
many people as possible,” Steve Cheng, product management director for the
Assistant, said in an interview, without giving details.
Analysts expect that eventually Google will try to make money by taking a share
of transactions brokered by the Assistant - such as when a user buys flowers
from a store the Assistant just located.
Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai appeared to hint at that possibility during
the company’s earnings call on Thursday.
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“The Assistant team talked about conversational actions as a way by which we can
integrate third parties into the voice experience,” he said.
But he did make clear, whether on its own or others' hardware, the shift from
touch to voice-controlled assistants presents a prime opportunity for Google.
"As we went from desktops to mobile, it’s not like one replaced the other... It
expanded the pie,” he said. “I approach this the same way.”
(Reporting by Julia Love; Editing by Bill Rigby)
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