Please Google!

Should the smart assistants be politely asked to do a job and when the task is done, should they be thanked for the same? There are varied opinions among users regarding this. However, now it has at least been made an option in the Google Assistant, with the company introducing a similar function like that in Amazon’s Alexa, wherein children are rewarded when they are polite to Alexa.

The new functionality in Google Assistant is named Pretty Please, which has been added as part of including better list-taking functionality and more family-orientated games and stories. Pretty Please is an optional feature which will reinforce polite behaviour in the smart assistant. If users say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ to Google Assistant, they’ll be rewarded with what Google is calling ‘delightful responses’. This means that the Assistant will acknowledge the user’s politeness and respond in a kind manner. For example, if the user says, “Hey Google, please set a timer for five minutes”, the Assistant will reply: “Thanks for asking so nicely. Starting now.” The feature will be automatically enabled for all voice-matched users and the company says that the feature will work with both smart displays and smart speakers.

Along with Pretty Please, Google is also rolling out a bunch of small features and changes. These include a talkback feature for integration between Google smart displays and Nest Hello video doorbells, allowing the user to speak to guests before letting them in, and an update to Assistant’s note- and list-taking functionality. With the update, users will have the ability to manage multiple lists in one central place using Google Assistant.

A bunch of new family-orientated features have also been included in the Google Assistant. These include new read-along stories from Disney, including Mickey’s Christmas Carol, and upcoming stories from films like Frozen, Aladdin, Mulan, and The Lion King.

A few of other updates include a new feature to the screen and camera-enabled smart displays, which make it possible to set alarms and share photographs more easily. To set the alarm, the user just needs to swipe up from the home screen and tap the timer button, and to share photographs the user needs to say- “Hey Google, share this photograph with Tom” to send it to someone in your contact list.