The new games and activities on the Google Assistant will work on Android smartphones as well as the Google Home speakers.
Google is making the Assistant more fun to use for children by adding over 50 games, activities and stories to the digital helper's library of tricks and skills. The Google Assistant can now be used on Android phones or Google Home speakers to play children's games such as science trivia, musical chairs, freeze tag, Disney themed games and more. Kids can also ask the Google Assistant to tell them a story. So if a child says, "Hey Google, tell me a story," the Assistant will repond with an age appropriate tale. It can even help children with their homework or be asked questions like, "what's my Justice League superhero?" or "play Mickey Mouse Adventure."
The new addition of kid-friendly skills to the Assistant seems like a smart move by Google to attract younger crowds. "Get them early," as they say. Kids, of course, are extremely open to experienceing new technologies and talking to a machine is right up there with having a make-believe playmate.
Not only has Google added more play for children, it has also given Assistant the ability to differentiate between a child's voice and that of an adult. Voice Identification for children allows the Google Assistant to customise its responses to children. However, to use this feature, children will need a Family Link account.The parental control app that allows parents to manage app downloads, set screen time limits and more on their kids' Android devices was made public in the US in September, but is still not available in India.
Google Assistant is one of the best digital assistants as of now and is competing head on with Amazon's Alexa, with Apple's Siri still on the backfoot. The Google Assistant has started deploying the company's WaveNet neural network to create more natural sounding speech, but currently WaveNet is only being used to generate Google Assistant’s voice in U.S. English and Japanese.
The Google Assistant recently gained the ability to control Chromecast devices and take screenshots through simple voice commands.
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