Show HN: Listen to Google Assistant Reading News Posted in Hacker News (opens in new tab)

(javilopezg.com)

15 pointsJaviLopezG7y ago7 comments

7 comments

Interesting bot, but I don't understand why would it show only 3 top stories at the start. And saying "advance" after every paragraph is tiring.

As a side note, most of the Assistant bots I've seen are completely useless. Also I find it strange bots don't typically use the voice defined in Assistant options (why???).

Considering how Google is promoting Assistant as innovational tech, why didn't they create several cool "example" bots or partnered with companies which would profit from that?

JaviLopezGOP7y ago

Yes, I can improve this but there are some restrictions (they are not too strict but they are): 500 characters per post, 2 posts each time, 8 suggestions...

Having these in mind, in which way would you improve it?

Thank you for your feedback.

practice97y ago

Asking user aloud if bot should continue (after hitting a restriction) would be helpful. If I'm not mistaken now it stops reading and doesn't explicitly ask for any input (microphone icon doesn't count). So user has to look at the screen for possible options.

Sometimes I'm doing something else with my hands while listening, so that's one possible use case.

2 more replies

dvfjsdhgfv7y ago

Given the current state of affairs, it's beyond me why anyone would use any new Google data-collecting device. People are doing the opposite - trying to degoogleize their lives. It's hard, very hard. We, the aware part of the society, should educate users and discourage yet another Google data-collection channel.

JaviLopezGOP7y ago

This is a prototype, I was just testing that technology. Using dataflow you can be present in a lot of channels, but all of them are managed by a big company collecting data.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

7 comments

practice97y ago

Interesting bot, but I don't understand why would it show only 3 top stories at the start. And saying "advance" after every paragraph is tiring.

As a side note, most of the Assistant bots I've seen are completely useless. Also I find it strange bots don't typically use the voice defined in Assistant options (why???).

Considering how Google is promoting Assistant as innovational tech, why didn't they create several cool "example" bots or partnered with companies which would profit from that?

JaviLopezGOP7y ago

Yes, I can improve this but there are some restrictions (they are not too strict but they are): 500 characters per post, 2 posts each time, 8 suggestions...

Having these in mind, in which way would you improve it?

Thank you for your feedback.

practice97y ago

Sometimes I'm doing something else with my hands while listening, so that's one possible use case.

2 more replies

dvfjsdhgfv7y ago

JaviLopezGOP7y ago

This is a prototype, I was just testing that technology. Using dataflow you can be present in a lot of channels, but all of them are managed by a big company collecting data.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse