Few of the best books I’ve read in the past and you might enjoy. There are in no special order, but if you love good stories start with the first and the last.
I like the 2nd book (Homo Deus) as well and found more things in it that I would like to discuss about with the author. I just need to find the right time and place. Continue reading
It’s not a new hack but it will work well if you have short texts (1-3 sentences) that you wish to convert to speech.
After all, when returning a response to the Google Assistant, you can use a subset of the Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML).
Because you can make your agent’s responses seem more life-like experience.
Open your terminal and try something like this:
curl "http://www.google.com/speech-api/v1/synthesize?lang=en-us&text=actions+on+google+rock" -o aog-rock-hack.mp3
That’s it.
If you want to use SSML and get fancy, it’s also support it in the request: Continue reading
During the holidays, I had a bit of time to do some fun stuff with Actions on Google.
It started with an idea that a runner friend brought up during a long run and the results is “OK Google, Talk to Western State Race“. If you are an ultra trail runner, you are smiling now, right?
Later, it was around another passion – good coffee. I used the templates for Google Assistant to create a fun trivia game. It’s super easy, as you only need to copy a google sheet and update it with your questions and answers.
This year was full with good books.
I got to some books by mistake (e.g. Girl with a pearl earring during a trip to Zion national park) and others after getting a warm recommendation. Here is the list of the ones that I like most. There were at least ~12 other books that I didn’t like and stopped in the middle, but I guess, it’s part of life.
One of the best papers I read this year (again) was “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. The paper is quite short (only 8 pages without the references) but every word there counts and it’s giving a total picture of this powerful invention. It’s much bigger than ‘just’ cash system and in the future we will see this technology breakthrough changing many industries.
OK, let’s jump to the books. Continue reading
When you are using the google assistant for common task on daily basis it’s great to make a shortcut so with one word you can invoke a long ‘command’. One of the first shortcuts I have created is ‘bitcoin’ which is translated to “OK google, talk to bitcoin info about the price”. Let’s see below how you can easily work with the shortcuts inside the Google Assistant. See in the short video below how to create it and use it.
Did you know that your app for the Google Assistant can reach users on millions of devices? Over 100 million devices (and many more in the future) already have the Google Assistant with them so when users wish to use your app, you are already there. There is no friction. In this post we will focus on the methods you can use in order to reach users.
There are 4 ways for users to get to your app for the Google Assistant through:
Let’s go a bit deeper into each one. Continue reading
We are all experts at human-to-human conversation. But conversing only seems easy because it’s familiar, you’ve been doing it since you were born. The key to building a good voice interface is to not fall into the trap of simply converting a GUI into a VUI.
In the slides below, I will cover the best practices to design our Action on Google (and any other Voice UI).
You can also see the top tips in the short video below. Continue reading
I’ve finished reading one of the best books for this year: Principles: Life and Work.
It’s a long book but very well organized. You get a good background on Ray Dalio and how he arrived at where he is today. I have known him for 10 years but was amazed to learn he was broke in the early 80′. In a classic American dream story, he built one of the world’s most significant (and maybe, best) hedge funds that these days manage over $150B.
Things I liked:
In the past few years, the buzz about conversational experiences and digital assistants has increased. As you can see above, eMarketer is predicting that 87% of B2C marketers in the US will use chatbots and digital assistants in their marketing efforts by 2021.
We can see these days that conversational computing and digital assistants represent a new fundamental computing wave that brands can use more.
A big misconception is that the Google Assistant is ‘just’ for Google Home or other smart speakers.
It’s also on mobile (Android and iOS) devices (over 100+ millions devices) and in many other devices.
So your users are there already and you can reach to them without any friction.
The conversations users are having with the Assistant are not just about things that could be answered on Google Search. The Assistant helps with more than getting information – it helps you get things done.
From enjoying music and movies, ordering pizza and making restaurant reservations to controlling your smart devices and calling your best friend, the Google Assistant helps everyone be more productive in their world.
Continue reading
Every year (since 2007) I’m trying to do few marathons.
Why?
Well, it’s a long answer for another post. But the short one (and I guess the main reason) is that it’ a lot of fun and a great sense of accomplishment. I’m sure others, have many different reasons.
In this post will focus on the check list. It’s part of an app for the google assistant that I’ve created last week.
You can use this app to make sure you didn’t missed anything, just ask “OK google, talk to Marathon List And Tips”.
Here is the check list(s) I’m using in order to make sure everything will work as plan. It’s important to remember that in such a long race, things will go wrong. So don’t be surprise, stay calm, slow down and think how to solve the issue. In most cases, there is an easy solution and you already being in similar situation in your long training runs.
Nevertheless, we all like to be as ready as possible and a check list is a great tool for that.
Below are 3 lists I used. In your hand bag are all the ‘must have’ things. The other lists, also contain important stuff, but you can send it in your suitcase.
