Tired of reading things yourself? Google is rolling out a new reading feature for its simplified ‘Go’ browser, utilizing "natural language processing and speech synthesis AI" to recite passages of online text.
Since launching in 2017, Google Go has accrued millions of users by offering a stripped-back browsing experience for those with limited internet speeds or device storage.
The speech feature hopes to enhance the browser’s convenience – and no doubt, its user base – by reading articles and web pages aloud, using a dedicated algorithm to pick out the most important information on the page.
Google Go will be able to translate articles across 28 languages before reciting them to you in your preferred tongue. Google Go is only 5MB in size for download, and will even be able to run the feature on 2G connections.
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The blog post from Google sets out the convenience of hearing a recipe aloud while cooking at home, or catching up on news on your way to work.
It’s not hard to see the overlap with Google’s smart home devices, with Google Assistant already offering news catch-up features and adding new capabilities all the time. Only last month, users gained the ability to stack up to three voice commands through their Google Home.