Google Assistant's voice service features get even more exciting with personalization options coming through with its latest software update.
According to Endgadget, Google is releasing an update for users of the assistant feature in the US. This gives them a much simpler interface to personalize their Google Assistant's voice.
This new "colorful" update assigns a particular color to a specific voice option. The color assignment was randomly selected to avoid misappropriation to a certain gender or intonation based on the voice and color.
This should be advantageous for users who have a hard time remembering particular voice selections based only on what they hear. Prior to the update, Google simply labeled the available voices (8 in all) to choose from as "Voice 1," "Voice 2," "Voice 3," and so on.
Thanks to the revamped Google Assistant, it will now be easy to just associate the voice you prefer with a given color.
This new feature is expected to continue rolling out through the week. It's not yet certain though as to when the other countries will begin receiving the fresh new look of the interface.
Google's initiative to include male-sounding voice, other than the female ones, in Assistant is not entirely new. Amazon has followed suit by giving a male sound option to their own Alexa. Meanwhile, Apple caught up with the trend by giving Siri its masculine counterpart only two years since its initial launch.
As pointed by The Verge, these rather subtle changes on how we use technology may bring huge impact in shaping our perception to these "personified software products."
The media outlet further indicated on the possibility that the color-voice personalization idea could still raise gender-sensitivity and appropriation issues. An example of this, as cited by the site, is the color pink getting assigned to a female voice option.
