Google keeps experimenting with what it is, courtesy of Alexa (and they should be thrown into a fight), the best artificial intelligence assistant in the mobile world and the connected home. Assistant continues to evolve as its creators add more and more layers to how it works.
A few Google I/Os ago, Google surprised us by letting Assistant call a restaurant to book a table as if it were a full-fledged human. But there are other functions that are much more useful on a daily basis, such as keep me from politely telling telemarketers to leave me alone. I’m talking, of course, about the Assistant call filter.
Blocked entire desktops from spammers with Assistant
It’s a fact, I can’t remember what it was like to hang up on those who decide that lunch (and nap) time is good to call you and offer you a change of place. telephone operator without you asking. Or electric company. Or for you to change banks. I don’t remember why now Google talks to them
A while ago, I decided it was a good time to stop beating around the bush with brands in the Android ecosystem and went back to the source. To Pixels. With a Pixel 5. I came back several years after putting my Nexus 5 in a drawer and found a diaper much cleaner than I remembered. And meet me with features like assistant call filterwhich will hopefully soon be available for the entire ecosystem.
I hope that Google will eventually publish it because thanks to it I succeeded in blocking, number by number, entire offices of spammers. Numbers that called you once, put Google in their ear and hung up. And they c alled back from the same number, identical but only changing the last number. A number on the board next to the previous one, or a different output of the same standard. Ramón and Paco, Paco and Ramón, they are the same.
By letting Google answer calls for me, I was able to gradually reduce unwanted calls to the point that now they don’t call me more than once a week. And that I’m on the Robinson list. But Google was the definitive solution. Because since I’ve been using it, I’ve only received one transcript. Nail. And yes, it was from a salesperson who wanted me to contract the light with another company.
My mom no longer watches ads from her Pixel
Although it is usually said that “like wood, like wood”, in my particular case, that of technology, it should be “like wood, like wood” (A good film with Dudley Moore, I recommended). Because it’s my mother who uses me as an adviser, the one who buys what I tell her and the one who fell, of course, into the Pixel ecosystem. With a Pixel 6, why not say so.
While eating at a certain restaurant a few weeks ago, she saw me divert the call to Google while we were talking about other things, and when I explained what I was doing, her eyes lit up with happiness . “Can I do this? he says. I explained to him how to do it on his Pixel and voila, since he makes the sellers, carriers and other companies speak to an artificial intelligence which transcribes what they say to him. Again, not a single transcript was received. They all hang up first. And she, like a good mother-trainee, blocks them automatically after hanging up.
So yes, I hope Google decides to remove its answering machine via Assistant from the Pixel as it did at the time with the anti-spam filter. Hope more users can enjoy such feature that freed me from a stuffy commercial world that doesn’t listen to the Robinsons or “please don’t call me again” requests. Ultimately, the ads aren’t to blame because they call out where they’re told. But it was in my hands, for a long time, not to pick up the phone. And boy does it work. Wonderfully.
Cover Image | RawPixel on Freepik
