With the announcement of new devices for the Google family with the Smart Displays, we’re getting even more ways of consuming content and also accessing them in a more convenient way. Google News was also launched, or rather, re-launched, a few months back, and with this latest development, these two are a great fit. Now you’ll be able to catch up with the latest news visually and aurally, especially when you’re busy doing something else and you just want to listen to what’s going on in the world.
Lenovo is the first to launch a Smart Display with Google but there will be more coming our way. One of the things you can do with it is to say “Hey Google, what’s the news?” and it will give you the latest news from your choice of national and local broadcasters. It can offer you both video and audio news, depending on what it is that you’re doing while trying to watch or listen to the news. Sources include CNN, CNBC, Cheddar, etc and topics covered are headlines, sports, politics, entertainment, etc.
If you want to go beyond the headlines and deeper into a specific topic, you can ask Google Assistant, “What’s the latest on the protests in Bangladesh?” or “What’s the update about this weekend’s soccer games?” If you’re using a Smart Display, Google will find relevant videos from YouTube. If you’re using smart speakers like Google Home, it will read out excerpts from your preferred publishers.
Your mobile devices that have the digital assistant will also have this new feature. It will also soon come to Android Auto and even headphones that have Google Assistant support. However, it looks like it’s only rolling out for those with Google Assistant in the US but hopefully, it will expand to other territories globally.
In the meantime, those outside the US can still use Google News but more for reading about the latest news as it won’t automatically bring you videos or read stuff back to you.
SOURCE: Google
