Heena Sharma Blog

  Slang Labs, the in-app voice assistant company that pioneered the concept of Voice Assistant as a Service (VAaaS), has raised an investment from the Google Assistant Investments programme, along with 100x Entrepreneurs, Velu Murugan, Thomas George and their existing investor Endiya Partners. With this development, Slang Labs becomes one of the first players in the In-App Voice Assistant space globally to be backed by Google. As technology grows more pervasive in people's daily lives due to the ongoing Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, in-app voice assistant is a promising touchpoint for e-commerce and other interactions online. Through this technology, consumers will be able to do online transactions in their apps through the power of their voice, and in their preferred language. “This investment by Google emphasises the importance of voice inside apps and highlights the most significant technology trend for this decade - Voice,” said Kumar Rangarajan, Slang Labs co-founder, ...

  Xiaomi’s run for value-for-money products continues as the Chinese technology company forays into categories other than smartphones. After a successful showing in the smart television and smart fitness wearables space in India, the company has now entered the smart speaker segment with the launch of Mi Smart Speaker. The Mi Smart Speaker is a Google Assistant-powered device, with built-in Chromecast for easy content streaming. Besides being a smart speaker, it lets you manage and operate supported internet-of-things (IoT) products through voice commands. Priced at Rs 3,999, the Mi Smart Speaker is an entry-level voice-enabled speaker that promises audio quality better than Google’s and Amazon’s budget smart speakers. But does it live up to its name and promise? Let’s find out: The Mi Smart Speaker is a lot bigger and heavier than its palm-sized peers from Amazon and Google. Its big stature, however, gives it space to accommodate a 2.5-inch audio driver, which is the biggest...

Online retailer Flipkart said it has introduced ‘voice assistant’ capability on its platform, to make consumers’ e-commerce journey simpler and more natural. Introduced in Flipkart’s grocery store, Supermart, the ‘voice assistant’ will enable consumers to discover and buy products easily using voice commands in multiple languages, starting with Hindi and English. The voice-first conversational AI platform has been built by Flipkart’s in-house technology team with solutions for speech recognition, natural language understanding, machine translation, and text-to-speech for Indian languages. These solutions are capable of understanding vernacular languages such as Hindi, e-commerce categories and products, and tasks such as searching for a product, understanding product details and placing an order. The AI platform is built to automatically detect the language spoken by the user, and in real-time transcribe, translate, transliterate and understand the user’s intent to have engag...

German audio giant Sennheiser today announced the launch of Sennheiser PXC 550-II , the successor of its PXC 550 Wireless headphones in India. Priced at Rs 29,990, the new PXC 550-II Wireless is geared towards frequent travelers with its adaptive noise cancellation to suppress the ambient noise. The headphone will be available in India starting from February 12, 2020. The PXC 550-II has adaptive noise cancellation with its Anti-Wind ANC setting. The PXC 550-II Wireless comes with Bluetooth 5.0 compatibility and AAC codec support for superior wireless listening, while a new Voice Assistant button provides one-touch access to voice assistants such as Siri, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. The PXC 550-II Wireless also features a triple microphone array that makes it easy to stay connected. The Bluetooth headphone has a touch pad on the right earcup to adjust volume, play, pause or skip tracks, or to accept calls. Read More

Skullcandy has launched new truly wireless Bluetooth earbuds in India called Skullcandy SESH with up to 10 hours of battery life. The earbuds feature single-button interface for quick access to media controls for music, microphone, calls, and voice assistant. With up to 10 total hours of battery life—3 hours of battery in each earbud and 7 additional hours in the included charging case—Skullcandy’s new earbuds feature IP55 rating for sweat, water, and dust resistance. Sesh is Skullcandy’s latest release in the rapidly growing True Wireless category which also includes recent releases Push True Wireless Earbuds and Indy True Wireless Earbuds. Sesh will be available in multiple colorways including Indigo, Deep Red and Fearless Black and comes with the price tag of Rs 5,999. Read More Article Source -> Business Standard

The Blaupunkt BTW-01 are just what you want in true wireless earphones if you do not wish to spend too much, yet don't want to settle on an average audio device. Priced at Rs 5,999, the ear pods are lightweight (5.5 gm each) and comfortable, and come with a mini charging case that easily fits into your pocket. The Blaupunkt BTW-01 earphones offer touch controls – a feature usually not available in this price range -- and you can control music playback, answer calls, and use voice assistant by just tapping the earbuds. I felt the touch response was quick. The earphones have Bluetooth 5.0, which makes the pairing with phone or tablet really quick. You can also activate Siri or Google Assistant on your phone by tapping thrice on the earbuds. Blaupunkt BTW-01 true wireless earphones The earbuds pair with each other when you separate them from the charging case and can also be used individually as only one earbud needs to be linked to the phone. Blaupunkt BTW-01 justifies ...

At its annual developer conference Google I/O, the company said these six options, which feature both male and female voices, would be rolled out later this year. Technology News  :  Making the competition in  Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered assistants space tougher, Google on Tuesday announced that people will soon have a choice of choosing from six voices, including one of musician John Legend, to talk to “Google Assistant”.At its annual developer conference Google I/O, the company said these six options, which feature both male and female voices, would be rolled out later this year.Company CEO Sundar Pichai said that Google has been working on newer and more life-like version of its spoken AI that features a natural voice that is “closer to how humans speak.” The improvements include more natural pauses “that have meaning” and other subtleties to help create a “more natural dialogue” with Assistant. This new version of the Assistant is built on a tech ...