Engaging with the Google Assistant

Audio and Photo Credit:  CBS Studios

DevFest Bronx

21 Sep 2019

Allen Firstenberg

Software developer / Consultant

 

Google Developer Expert for Assistant, IoT, Wearables, Identity

 

http://spiders.com/

http://prisoner.com/

 

http://prisoner.com/ubi/

Twitter: @afirstenberg

Tell me about you

• Frontend or backend?
• Mobile or web?
• Audio? Video?
• Other fields?
• Alexa or Assistant?

• Kirk? Picard? Sisko? Janeway? Archer?

What are we talking about?

Photo Credit:  CBS Studios / Paramount

Voice and Beyond

Photo Credit:  CBS Studios / Paramount

What is the Google Assistant?

A conversation

between you and Google that helps you get things done

in your world.

What are Actions on Google?

Actions on Google is the API

that lets you engage in conversations

with other services

through the Google Assistant.

Where Actions Run

Photo Credit:  CBS Studios

Where Actions Run

Photo Credit:  Google and CBS Studios / Paramount

Where Actions Run

JSON reply

• page URL
• data update

HTML, CSS, JavaScript replies

Photo Credit:  Google and CBS Studios / Paramount

What can you do?

• Modern Chrome
• Media - audio and video
• WebGL and WebAssembly
• Network connections
• Firebase database

Photo Credit:  CBS Studios / Paramount

Bonus features

• Still a voice conversation
• Speech marks (start/stop)
• State update events

Photo Credit:  CBS Studios / Paramount

Limitations

• No pop-ups
• No local storage
• Not a lot of memory
• Voice still goes through the network
• Games only (for now)
   
• Design for simple touch interaction

Photo Credit:  CBS Studios / Paramount

Photo Credit:  CBS Studios / Paramount

https://actions.google.com/design

https://developers.google.com/actions

Twitter: #AoGDevs

Reddit: /r/GoogleAssistantDev

Stack Overflow: actions-on-google