electronics
Amazon and Google: two language assistants at the same time
Logos for apps from the US Internet companies Google, Amazon and Facebook on an iPhone. photo
© Stefan Jaitner/dpa
Both Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant can now be addressed simultaneously on a speaker series from the hi-fi brand JBL. That solves a problem.
Amazon and Google are making their voice assistants usable on one device at the same time for the first time. On a speaker series from the hi-fi brand JBL, both Amazon’s Alexa as well as Google’s Assistant can be addressed. Some actions such as music playback, timer or alarm clock can also be started with one voice assistant and stopped with another.
This solves a problem that the co-existence of assistance systems in a household with several people brings with it. For example, if a family member starts the music with a voice assistant and leaves the room, other residents don’t necessarily know if it was through Alexa or the assistant. The universal commands were invented for such situations, said Amazon manager Mark Yoshitake.
However, the language assistants did not exchange any other data with each other, emphasized Marissa Chacko from Google. If music playback was triggered via the assistant, Alexa only found out that there was an activity that could be stopped – but not which song was being played. The respective personalization functions of the voice assistants – such as recognizing users by voice – are still available.
A microphone system in JBL speakers
The two voice assistants share a microphone system in the JBL speakers. Accordingly, Amazon and Google had to find a solution for situations in which people in a household address them at the same time – or two actions are triggered at the same moment. Software therefore ensures that the assistants are activated one after the other in such cases.
It was initially unclear how quickly both assistants will be available in parallel on other technology. It’s a good experiment to start with and they want to see how it goes before expanding the combination to more devices, Chacko said.
The parallel work of the two language assistants also places certain minimum requirements on the performance of the electronics and storage capacity of the devices, which can be a hurdle for some manufacturers. Amazon and Google also optimized their software so that it uses fewer resources.