We remember noting the Google Assistant SDK Developer Preview back in April and now it’s time for another update. The SDK allows the virtual personal assistant to be embedded to any device with a speaker and a microphone. Google has been working on new features and improvements and now, the Google Assistant SDK adds new languages so more people can speak comfortably whether in English, German, French, or Japanese.
These additional languages are mainly targeted for the locales in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia (English), Canada and France for French, and Japan and Germany. With the Google Assistant SDK, you can configure the API so these languages and locales are can be part of the options inside the app.
Device settings have received more customizations like device’s language, nickname, location, and personalized results. Location settings will make searching for nearest establishments easier. Via the API, you can set the latitude and longitudes so you can easily say, “Okay Google, where is the nearest bookstore?” and Google will tell you based on where you are at the moment.
A new Device Action has been added to let developers build “Actions” into the SDK devices. This way, you can ask the Google Assistant to control the device. You can even set the “traits” the device will support. The idea is to let the Assistant listen and follow more specific queries, thanks to natural language understanding (NLU) and automated speech recognition (ASR) that are based on the cloud. This doesn’t need much code. Simply give the client-side code to fulfill the Device Action.
The Google Assistant SDK now adds text-based queries and responses. This can be useful for people who prefer to type and text instead of voicing out their commands. The feature is based on the voice query and voice response API but this time, it’s text-based.
Device management is made even better and easier with the new management API. This allows the developer to register and manage the SDK devices. This becomes useful especially if you are working on several devices. Feel free to register, unregister, and preview all the devices you have.
SOURCE: Google Developers Blog
