Google Update is a Potential Threat to Reading Solutions
Several DAISY Members and Friends are leveraging smart speaker technologies to provide simplified access to their libraries of audio and accessible text titles. An easy-to-use smart speaker (such as Amazon Echo or Google Home) can be a convenient way to listen to a newspaper or favourite books. They can be especially helpful for people who are less confident with smartphones and computers.
However, some of the features in the Google Assistant platform are being withdrawn, and some of our members are concerned about how their smart speaker services will be affected. The DAISY Consortium has formally written to Google and the relevant team is now aware of the issue. We are promised a response soon. In the meantime, if you are concerned about the planned sunset of Conversational Actions then please write to rorme@daisy.org and we can keep you updated with our discussions with Google.