Google announced a pretty neat little feature that is going to make reading web articles on phones a lot easier. The feature, called ‘Read it’, can be used to make the Google Assistant read articles out load that are open on the Chrome browser, Google Search or the News app.
The feature is especially useful for people who have difficulty with reading, visual disabilities or is simply finding it difficult to digest a dense article. To use it, once the user opens up the webpage, they can say “Hey Google, read it”, “Hey Google, read aloud” or “Hey Google, read this page” and the Google assistant will read the contents of that webpage. Google will also allow users to change the reading speed to suit their needs and even select from different voices.
The feature will be supported in 42 languages, which includes Indian languages like Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Sinhalese, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. It will be available from today for all users worldwide and can be made available on any app, provided the developer enables it using Actions on Google.
Commenting on this feature, Yossi Matias, Vice President, Engineering, Google said:
We are constantly working towards developing new products and features that remove language barriers and help a wide variety of people access information from the web more easily. This new feature is our attempt to make the Google Assistant even more helpful for all kinds of users across the globe.