Google Assistant Books Cinema Tickets on the Web

Buy movie tickets with the Google Assistant on Chrome (via Google)

We’ve come a long way since “Mr. Moviefone”: Google’s AI-powered Assistant now completes tasks online—including buying cinema tickets.

On Android phones, the virtual secretary can help purchase tickets to the latest films with just a few taps.

Whether you’re joining the nation for its favorite post-Black-Friday-shopping past time, or just need a break from the family this holiday season, Google Assistant’s got you covered.

Simply say something like, “Hey Google, showtimes for Ford v Ferrari in Manhattan Saturday,” and your weekend plans will be sorted.

Or manually search for movie times directly from the Google app.

After selecting your preferred theater (from more than 70 locations) and time, the Assistant will prompt you to “Buy tickets” via services like Fandango, MovieTickets.com, AMC, and MJR Theaters in the US, or Odeon in the UK.

The digital gofer will automatically open in Chrome to guide you through the purchasing process: Choose number of tickets, select seats, confirm payment details.

“Thanks to Duplex-on-the-web technology, the Assistant will be able to navigate the site and input your information,” product manager Dana Ritter wrote in a blog announcement.

Google last year unveiled Duplex, a system for conducting natural conversations to carry out specific tasks over the phone.

Unlike the choppy, emotionless voice assistants we’ve come to know and love, Duplex sounds organic; the system barely betrays its robotic side, speaking as smoothly as anyone with a firm grasp of the English language.

At its core, Duplex is a recurrent neural network, trained on a collection of anonymized phone conversation data; the RNN uses the output of Google’s automatic speech recognition (ASR) tech, as well as other features.

A built-in self-monitoring capability allows Duplex to recognize tasks out of its purview—scheduling an unusually complex appointment—and tag teams a human operator.

“To continue to help you get things done with the Assistant on your phone,” Ritter said, “we’ll expand this feature to other tasks. Up next, car rentals.”

More on Geek.com:



from Geek.com https://ift.tt/2KFf6cm
via IFTTT

0 comments:

Post a Comment