It’s Google calling…

Smart home speakers and other robotic assistants are becoming increasingly popular. According to reports from RBC Capital Markets analysts released in December, the presence of Amazon Alexa and Google Home devices in US households doubled over the previous year, to 41%. Such impressive growth indicates a willingness on the part of consumers to delegate mundane tasks such as turning lights on and off, and playing music, to these digital assistants.

Google has now taken the process another step further, extending it to businesses in the real world. Google Duplex was announced last year, as a “new technology for conducting natural conversations to carry out ‘real world’ tasks over the phone.” The first type of businesses targeted are those that book appointments over the phone, particularly restaurants. It’s supposed to work like this:

Using Google Assistant (the software built into Google Home and available for most mobile devices), a person requests a reservation at a particular time and place. If the business subscribes to an online reservation service, Assistant will book the reservation online. Otherwise, it will call the business on the phone and conduct a “conversation” with a human to negotiate and complete the reservation. It then reports back whether or not it was successful. You can watch this video demonstration.

Available now

Google announced this week that Duplex is available now for Pixel phone users and soon for other Android and iOS devices in 43 states, including California. Businesses can opt out of receiving Duplex calls by editing their Google My Business listing (at Info > Google Assistant calls). For now it’s a simple checkbox but presumably more options will show up over time.

If you receive a call, you'll hear the reason for the call and that the call is from Google. You can expect the call to come from an automated system or, in some cases, a manual operator. In the US, calls from 650-203-0000 or 650-206-5555 will be from Google.

I’d be very interested in hearing the experience of anyone receiving one of these calls.

WWW Anniversary Feedback

A response to last week’s newsletter:

Wow, were we naive! Especially myself and the crew at the Electronic Frontier Foundation when I wrote that hopeful guide. Today more than ever, we are looking at a utility with incredible potential but real and immediate danger. The Net really is an information superhighway. A place where you need to look out for speeding trucks, petty thieves, and those who would do harm to others. And your best safety device is real knowledge.

Robert Gelman (BGAmedia, CyberArts International, author of “Protecting Yourself Online”)

Keep the feedback coming! Until next week.