On your child’s smartphone, laptop, or desktop, you can limit content and set bounds but the virtual assistants and smart home devices in your house are somewhat of a loophole. You’ve undoubtedly found your kids viewing videos while it’s homework time or asking odd questions to voice assistants. The good news is that Google is fixing this security weakness by adding parental controls to Google Assistant.
With these new restrictions, you may create a time limit that applies to all family devices that are shared, and it will limit content and functionality depending on who is requesting. For non-explicit songs from Spotify, for instance, you may limit your kids’ access to YouTube Kids. Additionally, you may prevent them from making phone calls or hearing podcasts and the news.
Fresh voices
In order to make Google Assistant friendlier to kids, the search giant has created four additional voices that favor the kids to provide some variety to the assistant. Google Assistant is extremely enthusiastic about these because they are specifically built to represent a varied variety of dialects, to show different groups, and to also reflect different styles of talking. These voices really talk a little more slowly and expressively to aid in storytelling and aid in the comprehension of the message by children.
Compared to the Assistant voices that we are used to, the new voices have a softer, more calming, and less artificial tone. Kids only need to tell Google to activate the new voices. Children frequently ask queries, but the replies provided by Google Assistant may be difficult for them to comprehend.
Long, unfamiliar terminology and in-depth explanations taken from the internet might be difficult. Google is launching a Dictionary made for kids as a result. It’s a condensed, kid-friendly lexicon that works on loudspeakers, smart TVs, and other devices. Google Assistant will provide an explanation and illustration that is suitable for kids in response to your child’s questions about a word’s meaning.
Made for children
All of the new options and functionalities will be made available to users in the US. On Android and iOS, they may be set up via Google Home, Home Link, and other Google Assistant applications. You may opt to bring over existing settings for items like Downtime from a profile you’ve previously created for your children to Google Assistant on the family’s devices. When you enable Voice Match for your children, Google Assistant will automatically apply the limits you’ve specified, talk to them using their preferred voice, and provide terminology from the Kids Dictionary.
Families should find it simpler to customize material and device access thanks to these new options. For instance, my smart speakers and displays are now configured to play music and videos from my Spotify or YouTube account, this implies that your kids may interrupt your Spotify podcast on your phone if they ask for a song on the Nest Hub in the kitchen. This should be avoided by the ability to link particular services to your child’s voice or to forbid them from making music requests at particular times.
Although it might be beneficial to take specific actions based on the person speaking, doing so also raises privacy issues because it allows Google to better comprehend the requests made by kids using its platform. It is possible to examine and erase the voice recordings generated by Google Assistant and stop them from accumulating in the future if you selected stored audio when you set up your child’s account, but you will need to go through a few hoops. You could be concerned about how virtual assistants will affect children’s psychology. But a start would be to give parents a bit more power and give kids a little more thought.
Voice recognition technology and voice help will only advance. They’re coming up in a time where those things are just going to become better. Google Assistant is determined to ensure that those initial interactions are fulfilling, enjoyable, and beneficial for both parents and children.
