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We reported a while back that Google was secretly developing a very advanced voice assistant for Android devices, to rival and out-do Apple’s Siri for iOS.
‘Assistant’, as it’s currently known, has been under development and testing in Google’s top-secret labs for a while now. With Android OEM’s such as Samsung and LG creating their own custom voice software and Apple enhancing Siri’s capabilities in iOS 6, it seems that Google has been forced to speed up its development somewhat.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Google Assistant – also known as ‘Project Majel’ – had just been slapped with an urgency sticker, with the team working on it being fast tracked to get it out ASAP. WSJ is usually pretty good for insider info, and it claims that its source for this information is ‘extremely reliable’.
Voice control is one of the latest tech buzz features, with many smartphone companies trying to out-do each other with their own version. Apple’s Siri has almost become a household name despite technically being beta software, and Google wants to change that. Android had voice control features long before Siri, but now it seems that people want software that is extremely accurate and will let them do everything on their devices.
Google is ramping up for its annual I/O developers conference, set to take place between June 27th and 29th. While rumours indicate a new version of Android in Jelly Bean 4.1 and a Nexus tablet from Asus, there’s still every chance that we could see at least a demonstration of Project Majel.
Android fans, watch this space!
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