Google announced yesterday in their Canadian blog the introduction of new Google Assistant experiences for families.  The announcement clearly focuses Google Assistant in a light of family-related activities, especially with kids.

Today, we’re introducing new experiences, designed specifically for families with kids so they can learn, play and imagine together.

Among the new experiences, Google says families “will be able to join The Wiggles,” from the Treehouse TV show and go on a “custom Wiggles experience” commissioned by Google exclusively for Assistant.

News for kids

Google is also introducing news stories appealing to kids through CBC Kids News. It can be invoked by “Hey Google, Play CBC Kids News“. The feature is focused on daily, local, national and international stories that are relevant to Canadian kids with a focus on media literacy. Google Assistant recently launched storytime experiences in partnership with Disney. Along with these new services for Canadian kids, the search giant is shifting a lot of its focus to kids and family environment. Moreover, Reuters also released a report in which one of the main conclusions is that users don’t love news in smart speakers. By shifting to kids consuming news in Google Assistant, the company is setting news consumption in their smart speaker for the future. Smart.

Test listening and comprehension

Another feature the blog post announced is Boukili Audio, an interactive activity that tests listening and comprehension of stories on animals, nutrition, music, travels and a ton of other captivating subjects, all in French. After listening to stories, Boukili Audio puts your child’s skills to the test with a series of multiple choice questions to evaluate their French language comprehension and their memory, all while having fun. Boukili Audio has over 120 interactive books, over 70 of which are exclusive to the Assistant. Available in French only. To Try it out Canadian users can say: “Ok Google, Parler avec Boukili Audio”.

Call Santa

Just in time for Christmas, Google is announcing calls to Santa: “Hey Google, call Santa”. It’s only available in English. Can’t wait for this to be available in the US to see what Santa has to say.

Personalized Google Assistant experience for children under 13

With their parent’s permission, children under 13 can also have their own personalized Google Assistant experience when they log in with their own account, powered by Family Link (Not available in Quebec). Family Link helps parents manage their child’s Google Account while they explore. And with Voice Match, your family can train the Assistant to recognize up to six voices.

Final thoughts

The announcement was in the Google Canadian blog yesterday Wednesday, November 28. It doesn’t specify when the family experiences are going to be available in other territories. Google focus on families and kids in the holidays is very smart. It proves the company is looking ahead and it’s not as concerned to “fix” current users’ view. After all, Generation V is the real protagonists in voice technology.

List of additional commands for family experiences:

• “Play Lucky Trivia for Families”
• “Play Musical Chairs”
• “Play Freeze Dance”
• “Let’s play a game”

Learn 📖 

• “Tell me a story”
•  “Help me with my homework”
• “Tell me a fun fact”
•  “How do you say “Let’s have crêpes for breakfast” in French?”
• “What does a whale sound like?” (try other animals!)
• “What does a guitar sound like?” (try other instruments!)

Entertain 🌟

• “Give me a random challenge”
• “Sing a song for me”
• “Give me a tongue twister”
• “Tell me a joke”

Perfect for the Holidays 🎄 

• “Tell me a Santa joke”
• “What’s your favorite Christmas cookie?”
• “Tell me a holiday fact”

The voice community is amazing to watch as it evolves. I have been very fortunate to meet lots of people who are making an impact on voice technology and conversational interfaces. This episode is special because it features one of those startups impacting voice tech every day, and it is the first time VoiceFirst Weekly show welcomes a guest.  We are very thrilled about how it turned out.

In this episode, I talk to Brendan Roberts, CEO of Aider, The AI assistant for small businesses. Aider is launching now in Australia and New Zealand, with plans for the US in 2019. Aider will help you answer questions like: What’s my top selling product? What’s my revenue today? Who is meant to be working tomorrow and what’s the weather going to be like? All this from your phone bringing your business context into account.

I met Brendan at the Voice Summit back in July after arranging a meet up of folks at the conference from the Voice Entrepreneur Community on Facebook. I got to see Aider first hand and was really impressed by its capabilities. Aider integrates with several SaaS apps that small business users might be familiar with for sales, accounting and client management providing insights and learning from the user’s actions. What I thought was really impressive for an app this type was the ability to keep the conversation across conversational channels through voice or messaging.

Without further ado, please enjoy my talk with Brendan.

You can contact Brendan on Twitter  or LinkedIn . You can also try Aider and sign up for Aider beta access.

A showcase for smart glasses opened yesterday, marking November 12 as the day (per the company) that the first world’s smart glasses store opened. North is the Canadian company who develops futuristic HCI products. The company has raised over 135 million from investors, including the Amazon Alexa fund.

Focals is the smart glasses the company is presenting, exclusively available in their stores in Brooklyn, New York and Toronto since yesterday. The custom made glasses features a display that only you can see, I’m not exactly clear about the technology behind this as it’s not expanded in their webpage, I’m very curious and excited to know more about it.

Focals includes visual summaries, smart text and emojis and voice to text. It also comes with a navigation feature with search, turn by turn and the ability to hail an Uber.

The display is controlled with a Loop, a small finger ring with a tiny, four-way joystick that’s included in the purchase, along with a case that doubles as a battery charger. The glasses sync with the user’s Android or Apple iOS device via Bluetooth.

Alexa anywhere

Focals comes with Alexa built-in. According to the showcase page you can Ask Alexa to play music, hear the news, see the weather, control your smart home and more. I’m guessing you can do anything that Alexa allows you to do.

The glasses also comes with a function to pause it all from when you don’t need them:

Technology that’s there when you need it, gone when you don’t – hidden by design.

Form plus function

The glasses comes in stylish designs, a la Warby Parker, maintaining the idea of keeping the technology invisible for only when you need it. The store is also selling the experience in the shopping process. You have to be custom fitted for Focals.It’s crucial to understand how the technology looks and feels,Adam Ketcheson, Chief Marketing Officer of North said to The Bridge: It’s incredibly important for people to get a hands-on experience, especially at our price point. The entire retail model is so people can immersively understand what it is and get the right fit.

Focals will be offered in a variety of styles at $999.

Smart glasses have been emerging and dying for a while now. Google Glass and Intel’s Vaunt both shut down in 2015 and 2018 respectively.

What makes Focals different? The focus on design and style more than the geek outlook of Google Glasses might be a compelling point. Focals are voice activated, but their first selling point is for the technology to be there only when needed, otherwise looking as regular glasses. They are not advertised as a technology, geeky gadget, more as helping companion.

As it often turns out in technology advancements, timing might turn different for North glasses.

Waiting next time I go to NYC to visit the store and try the Focals. Let me know what you think on Twitter @voicefirstlabs or Instagram at voicefirstweekly. I’m Mari, this is VoiceFirst Weekly flash briefing, have a great day and I’ll talk to you all tomorrow. We have an special episode tomorrow with the first human guest in the show. Don’t miss it. See ya.