How Google Plays Ball

[sirandar]

With Mediamonkey for Android, on my phone I used to be able to say "OK Google" then "Play Fleeetwood Mac Rumors" and it would actually play the right song using MMA.

Because I am curious I tested it quite extensively and although it was far from perfect, it was quite accurate and useful.

Google consciously and with deliberation took this 3rd party app interaction away ..... (yes I complained about it to them, yes they sometimes do listen, no they won't this time)

Google decided that this new style of doing is far far to valuable to just give away and MediaMonkey was kicked off the band wagon ....

When I say "OK Google" "play Fleeetwood Mac Rumors", the friendly Google voice now says "Your default music provider hasn't been set up... click here to set up..."

Guess what ..... only Google Play Music and Spotify are on the list of approved music apps with no ability to add more.

Google's AI has finally reached critical mass and is something they are going to get even richer on..... Cortana is a joke = The prompt on Cortana suggests to ask "Whats the square root of 256" and can't even understand when you ask that question. Ask it the time and it gives it in the wrong time zone even when your PC is set correctly for time zone ....

Amazingly and sadly, with Google Android I can dictate long complex paragraphs accurately and even fix errors ..... It is showing some signs it "understands" what I am saying....

It is obviously the future ..... but I think people who are inviting this into their homes are not really thinking about the implications ......

If MediaMonkey wants in on the Google AI revolution ..... now is the time .... the price is bound to escalate to get on board...

[jiri]

Yes, this is very unfortunate. It's documented at http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=14570 and it seems that currently the only way is to try to request the integration via:

Google App
Menu button > Send feedback

Jiri

[sirandar]

Yes, this is very unfortunate. It's documented at http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=14570 and it seems that currently the only way is to try to request the integration via:

Google App
Menu button > Send feedback

Jiri

Hi Jiri

If you are a MM dev it would be useful to know how much Google wants to charge your to get in on Google Voice AI.

[sirandar]

An interesting development that further shows how Google plays ball .....

After an update you can no longer say "OK Google" and then say Play "Fleetwood Mac Dreams" and have Google play the right song with MMA (Mediamonkey Android). MMA is not on Googles approved list. This used to work perfectly with MMA before the update.

However if when playing a song with MMA you ask "OK Google, What song is currently playing?" Google Android will absolutely blow you away with the quality of its annunciation of the Artist and Song Title. Even classical pieces and people's names. It is uncanny. Google know exactly what song MMA is playing and can say it perfectly.

Google now speaks better English than many human beings.....

The downside is that Google is obviously secretly listening to every track played with MMA and building a database, probably in an anonymous manner.

So Google uses MMA for demographics on what people are listening to, but doesn't let voice commands work with MMA ...... pretty bad behavior IMO. Since probably many Mediamonkey users have the highest quality music libraries on the planet it is doubly bad behavior on Google part.

[rovingcowboy]

Google wants you to use their player they are like M$ and want to control your software use.
Yes jiri is one of the original developers

[sirandar]

As Google usually does they finally seen the light of day and decided to reverse their bad decision to exclude other apps from voice AI. As of the latest update you can now say OK Google and it works great with MediaMonkeyh

[Peke]

Hi,
Can you give us steps and screenshots of possible on how your setup looks like, I'm unable to select MMA as Default app in Assistant.

[sirandar]

Ironically it's just too simple. All you need to do is say "play song name with MediaMonkey" to OK Google and it will remember it forever.

It's frighteningly accurate.....

It's also interesting that Google now speaks better English than most people. That is slipping silently under the radar.

[MMuser2011]

Just to be sure:
Every command you speak to "OK Google" travels from your Android Phone to a Google data center, will be "translated" in a command which is executed on your phone on your home network with your local running MediaMonkey and music collection?

There is no transfer of music in this process other then from your local source (own music files) to your phone, right?
Do you know if some kind of music metadata will be transferred from your files to Google?
Do you know what exactly Googles collects (beside your obvious command "Play Fleetwood Mac Dreams")?

[sirandar]

Just to be sure:
Every command you speak to "OK Google" travels from your Android Phone to a Google data center, will be "translated" in a command which is executed on your phone on your home network with your local running MediaMonkey and music collection?

There is no transfer of music in this process other then from your local source (own music files) to your phone, right?
Do you know if some kind of music metadata will be transferred from your files to Google?
Do you know what exactly Googles collects (beside your obvious command "Play Fleetwood Mac Dreams")?

Hi M2011

Probably a handful of people fully understand Google AI process ...But your initial assessment is probably correct.

When you say OK Google your following request for information is digitized and sent to a Google Server. There the voice command is translated and subjected to semantic premapping to roughly figure out what kind of request it is.

If the premapper detects that it is a request to play music from a local music library it then sends the information to a second premapper that figures out which parts are artist and which parts are song .... it does this by cross referencing to their own database of songs and artists. The finished request is then sent back as both a command to play a track directed to the MM apk AND a command and voice data to say which song and artist was chosen.

Actually this could be made (but isn't actually) a 2 step communication process with the premapper identifying a request that may be a request for playing a local music track. Then Google sends a request to search the local Android catalog for Artist and song .... based on my use it seems that this would be the only way the premapper could with certainty identify a request to play a local track. But certainly is not required so Google just parses it's own song database and wings it.... It is usually right...

Google may also build a in house database entry of the songs on any device that uses Android ....... for their own purposes .... All songs on a device are cataloged by Android and all that would need to be sent was this catalog for them to know what you have ...... but the logistics of using this for Google Now are impossible.

Considering the accuracy of this in my hands at least ..... it is a very very impressive feat of AI ..... far more complex than it seems. It is the first mainstream full AI product.

And yes it is full AI ......

The question is no longer "Do computing devices have AI?" It is now "Do computing devices has AI comparable to our intelligence?...

[Lowlander]

This indicates that Google merely sends the command to the app: https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comme ... ent_900919 So the App data is not send to Google as I read.

The voice command of course does go to Google, wouldn't be surprised if they store it too.

[sirandar]

This indicates that Google merely sends the command to the app: https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comme ... ent_900919 So the App data is not send to Google as I read.

The voice command of course does go to Google, wouldn't be surprised if they store it too.

Hi Lowlander

You are almost certainly correct .... It is quite easy to trick Google Now to issue a command to play a track not on your device .... Which probably wouldn't happen if the AI was actually checking the android catalog....