Recommended Reading: Google Assistant’s new bag of tricks

Google's Duplex could make Assistant the most lifelike AI yet Richard Nieva, CNET Google has big plans for Assistant, and some of what it showed at I/O this week is equal parts fascinating and worrisome. CNET took a closer look at the so-called Du...

I hope Google won’t nag me about my digital wellbeing

We all know someone who could benefit from a digital time-out. You know the type: phone attached to the hand, posture permanently hunched in a looking-down-at-the-screen slouch, plagued with ailments like phantom vibrations and sleep texting. Most of...

Three days in, life with the Android P beta has been mostly painless

The first public preview of Android P is finally here, and as you might have guessed from the jam-packed keynote, there's a lot going on in this new build. As Google tells it, Android P is centered around intelligence, simplicity and what the company...

Google’s News app is a tool for gaining perspective, not an arbiter of facts

It may have been overshadowed by Android P or a slightly terrifying AI phone call, but Google's new News app was one of the most important things the search giant announced at I/O this year. It relies completely on artificial intelligence to bring yo...

Google’s AI advances are equal parts worry and wonder

I laughed along with most of the audience at I/O 2018 when, in response to a restaurant rep asking it to hold on, Google Assistant said "Mmhmm". But beneath our mirth lay a sense of wonder. The demo of Google Duplex, "an AI system for accomplishing r...