Tag Archives: google assistant

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Natural Language Processing Tools

The powerful thing we got these days is the option to choose the best tool for the job. When it comes to building our new Google Assistant App or any other type of bot, we should use a natural language processing (NLP) tool.

Here are the tools I found for NLP:

  • API.AI – This tool give users new ways to interact with your product by building engaging voice and text-based conversational apps. It also use machine learning to understand what users are saying (NLP) and it got a very nice set of integration you can leverage. You can deploy your bot to: Google Assistant, Telegram, Slack, Twitter, Skype, Viber, Kik, Cortana, Alexa and Facebook Messenger.

Continue reading →

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Ether Info – A New Google Assistant App

Maui beach at sunsetWhat is an Assistant App?

In case you aren’t familiar with assistant apps, it is Google’s conversational software for helping you get things done in your world.

It is the culmination of all of Google’s research in AI, ML and NLP. It runs on various devices, including the Google Home, as well as many Android and iOS devices.

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is a digital currency invented in 2013 — a full 4 years after the release of Bitcoin. It has since grown to be the second largest digital currency in the world by market cap — around $20 billion, compared to Bitcoin’s $40 billion. Btw, here is a short intro video I made on Bitcoin.

Ethereum uses its blockchain to record state transitions in a gigantic distributed computer. Ethereum’s corresponding digital currency, ether, is essentially a side effect of powering this massive computer. To put it another way, Ethereum is literally a computer that spans the entire world. Anyone who runs the Ethereum software on their computer is participating in the operations of this world-computer, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Because the EVM was designed to be Turing-complete, it can do almost anything that can be expressed in a computer program. Continue reading →

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Resources For Action On Google Developers

Here is a list of good resources you can use if you are building a new assistant app or any other Action on Google.
If you love to jump into code and try it for yourself, jump to the code labs section below or just browse (and clone) our samples on Github.

Google Home and Google Assistant Google Home

Google Assistant
Videos about Conversation Actions Building Assistant Actions using API.AI

Introduction to Conversation Actions and building your first assistant app
Documentation and tools Actions on Google documentation

Resources for designers and how to improve you voice design

API.AI – Start with this tool that will save you a lot of work with its NLP capabilities.

Web simulator – When it’s time to test your new app, this simulator will help you a lot. It’s easy to use it and you can try to talk (and not just type) to it and see what will be the results in the real world.

Code samples – You can take some ideas and best practices from these examples.
Ask Questions Stack Overflow (actions-on-google) – We have a great community in Stack Overflow. They are true expert and it’s a great place to ask for help.

Actions on Google Developers G+ Community – This is a growing community (~3k members).
You can share knowledge and keep yourself updated on the rapid changes we see in this technology platform.

@actionsongoogle – Yes! We are on twitter as well. Please don’t be a stranger.
Code labs https://bit.ly/aog-bitcoin-codelab – A code lab that will show you how to leverage API.AI and your own servers (with web hooks). You can also try the code.

https://bit.ly/aog-animal-codelab – A code lab that is short and sweet and as a bonus you might find some good jokes.

https://codelabs.developers.google.com/?cat=Assistant
Samples Actions on Google at GitHub with lots of NodeJS examples.

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Building Conversational Experiences With Actions On Google

Here are the slides that I used this week in two events. It gives you a good overview of what can be done these days with Assistant Apps.

What is an Assistant App?

The Google Assistant is Google’s conversational software for helping you get things done in your world. It is the culmination of all of Google’s research in AI, ML and NLP. It runs on various devices, including the Google Home which launched in 2017, as well as many Android and iOS devices.

Actions on Google is the third-party platform for the Google Assistant, allowing you, the developer to manage a conversation between your service and the user.

An interesting times! Continue reading →

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A New Assistant App – Animal Cool Jokes!

Actions on Google lets you build apps for the Google Assistant. Your apps can help you engage users through Google Home, Android phones, iPhones, and in the future, through every experience where the Google Assistant is available (e.g. Auto, IoT etc’).

One of the nice benefits is that users don’t need to install anything to interact with your apps. When they ask for your app by name, the assistant will connect them with you immediately.

Another benefit is the ability to make money. You can let Google Assistant users on phones purchase goods and services using new or existing payment methods on file either with Google or with your service. But that will be a topic for a future post.

Let’s start with a simple example… Remember that in last April I wrote about “Build you first smart bot for Google Home“?

Well, after few improvements to the quality of the jokes, of course, this assistant app is now live!

You can talk with it by asking “talk with Animal cool jokes“.

Here is what it looks like: Continue reading →

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How To Improve Your Conversation Design?

We’re entering a promising new era of computing, where advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence are creating a resurgence of interest in voice interfaces and natural language processing.

It’s a new way to talk with your users.

For real.

Thus, we need to think on the voice user interface from the start and see how we can do a better job.

In this post, we will go over some of the most common challenges and how to overcome them.

Continue reading →

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Google #IO17 – Actions On Google

The past 3 days were packed with developers, sessions, announcements and good weather at Shoreline.

Here are some of the things that I really liked (and marked myself to try later):

What is new with the Google Assistant.

You can learn why actions on google is great option for developers and what you can do with it in your own hardware.

How to build apps for the Google Assistant

The Google Assistant’s mission is to help users get things done in their world.

This video below will explain how to plug into the Google Assistant services ecosystem. It covers everything from understanding the business use case and high level user interface design to implementation and growing usage. Continue reading →

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Google Assistant Talks At I/O 2017

This Google I/O (less than two weeks!) there are many great sessions that will help you create amazing assistant apps and actions on google. The Google Assistant’s mission is to help users get things done in their world and there is a lot of interesting content on that during the 2017 conference.

Here is a list of all the talks that devoted to the assistant: Continue reading →

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How To Add Users To Google Home

Today, we are adding an important feature to Google Home. The ability to add users, so they could get their own: schedule, email, plans etc’.

You do it in 3 easy steps:

  1. Make sure that you have the latest Google Home app. Then, look for a card that says ”multi-user is available” when you open the app. If you don’t see a card, click on the icon in the top right to see all of your connected devices.
  2. Once you see your Google Home in the list, select “Link your account.”
  3. Now, you’ll teach your Assistant to understand it’s you, not your partner, family member or roommate—and vice versa, based on who’s speaking. For certain features, like personalized music and commute, you’ll also need to set up your preferences within the app.

Continue reading →

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Build Your First Smart Bot For Google Home

In the past few months, I heard someone smart saying that “the future is artificial intelligence first”.

Artificial intelligence, is making computers “smart” so they can think on their own and be even more helpful for us. It’s clear that Google, has been investing heavily in the areas of:

  • Machine learning – Teaching computers how to see patterns in data and act on it.
  • Speech recognition and Language understanding – Meaning, being able to understand you when you are talking with all the little differences and nuance.

These days we can see it all come together in the Google Assistant. It allows you to have a conversation with Google and be more productive. In this post, we will see how it’s all working by building a new Action for Google home. In the same time, we will have a nice bot that in the future we will integrate with many apps. Cool? Continue reading →

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