Google Assistant, a virtual personal assistant launched by search giant last year, has now inserted a new male voice option to the menu. Until today, Google Assistant by default had only female voice option but that has changed now. Named as simply ‘Voice II’ this new male voice option will be available across smart phones and also on Google Home speaker.
To choose male voice option, users will have to head to ‘assistant voice’ available in the ‘preferences’ menu option.
Traditionally, sexism has been found rampant in voice-based personal assistants, with most big players like Alexa & Microsoft Cortana clearly opting for female voices. However, Apple’s Siri stands out as it gives option to change the default female voice on IOS devices. The preference for female voice is not without any reason, with many tech companies finding in their studies that consumers tend to have more affinity towards female than male voices.
In a separate development, the Google Home app for Android & IOS has received fresh updates. The latest update has added ‘Night Mode’ option that will allow users to adjust the volume as time of the day, according to report on Android Police. Besides, the latest update cleans up the user interface within the app and henceforth there will be reportedly only two categories: Discover and Browse.
However, the news of Google Home app receiving fresh update has apparently failed to create buzz in the market, since large part of the world is currently too pre-occupied with highly anticipated launch of Google Pixel 2 phone.