Alexa and Google Assistant Want to Watch the Oscars With You
The Academy Awards are on Sunday and Google Assistant and Alexa are offering ways to prepare for the ceremony. Both voice assistants have special commands centered around the event, perfect for those who somehow didn’t get invited this year.
Oscar Gold Predictions
Alexa and Google Assistant can both answer basic questions about when the Oscars take place and how to watch them. They can also share the nominees for each category. Where it gets more interesting is when you ask the voice assistants who they think will win. If you ask Google Assistant which film will win Best Picture, the voice assistant says it is rooting for Parasite, specifically because it would be the first foreign film to win. The voice assistant isn’t consistent on the subject though. It will occasionally hedge its bets by saying that “it’s hard to pick, there are so many great movies.”
Alexa is even more cautious, pointing to “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “1917” as the front runners, but not coming down on one or the other side as an official prediction. That may be because Alexa missed last year when it predicted that “Roma” would win the award, but instead it went to “Green Book.” Pointing out front-runners is a bit safer.
Red Carpet Questions
You can also test your knowledge of the Oscars in What Happens Next, a new trivia game on Alexa created by Entertainment Weekly. It’s not just about who took home a statue, the questions cover the gamut of memorable Oscar moments, including the big mistakes like the erroneous announcement of the best picture winner or John Travolta’s difficulty with Idina Menzel’s name.
If you think you deserve an award, Google Assistant can act as a home MC. Ask Google to give you an award and the voice assistant will celebrate your own talents with a special award like Best Actor in a Dialogue with the Google Assistant. You have to wonder, with so many new voice technologies making the AI sounds human, how long will it be until a voice assistant is up for an Oscar itself.
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