[jasonallen]

Amazon lost the phone and tablet wars, so they shifted their focus to the voice assistant market, and are now ahead of competitors with their Alexa skills SDK. It's great to see Google now step up too. I expect Microsoft and Apple follow suit.

It's pretty easy to imagine how one could port simple 'voice command' apps between platforms ('hey, order a pizza/uber/etc...). Over time, however, these platforms should emerge into substantial AI. To be useful they will need to remember and understand more subtle contexts. "Hey, what's the score of the game" will have to remember that I like the Seahawks and Sounders, but only the Sounders are playing live right now, etc...

I like Google's choice to include a "conversational" model to the application design. "Let me talk to <x>" is pretty natural and allows <x> to then have full control of the interaction. Alexa's "ask <x> to <command>" model makes it easier to fire off simple commands, but awkward for deeper ones.

[jaxondu]

> I expect Microsoft and Apple follow suit.

Apple already has SiriKit since iOS 10. I believe you can order an Uber ride with Siri, never tried, I don't use Siri.

https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/content/docum...

[maxerickson]

Google Now is about 95% of the way there on the sports thing (it is always showing me information about a couple of teams it knows I am interested in, including game status).

[Pfhreak]

I'm finding the opposite -- it's always showing me information for teams I'm not interested in.

I'm interested in games that are significant cultural events -- my city's team making the playoffs, the cubs winning the World Series, etc. Outside of those times, I have no interest. Yet despite ignoring stories, I get frequent updates about players, teams, and events I have zero interest in.

Also, despite searching regularly for e-sports events, I see no updates on the teams in the LCS, or in Starcraft II's various tournaments. Or EVO. The sports events I do care about seem to have no support.

[disillusioned]

There's an option you can select in Google Now to specifically disregard these teams, either through the action menu on the card, or in the preferences section of the Google Now app. Merely ignoring or swiping away the cards doesn't change Google's estimation of your preference of the teams.