Play Content on Google Home

If you have Google Assistant enabled smart speakers or display devices, like the Google Home, you probably already use them with various commands to play content and control your connected devices. On this page, I will list voice commands that you can use to play audio and video content on these devices.

You can start with the conventional voice command "Hey Google" or "Okay Google" to activate the Google Assistant.

Google Assistant-enabled Devices

First a little bit of a build-up. There are several Google Assistant-enabled devices nowadays. The Assistant may be on your phone, speaker, Android Auto-compatible car, TVs, wearables and other devices. A list of devices available in the market can be found here: https://assistant.google.com/platforms/phones/

The commands listed here have been tested on a Lenovo Smart Display that runs the Google Assistant.

Play News

To play news from various online sources on your Google Assistant-enabled device, activate the assistant by saying "Hey Google" or "Okay Google" followed by the keywords in the headings below. For example, you could say, "Hey Google, play the news" or "Hey Google, play technology news". Optionally, if you want to hear the news from a particular source, you could say something like, "Hey Google, play PBS" or "Hey Google, play BBC". At any time if you want to skip the current news source just say, "Hey Google, play next". The source of the content will depend on the new sources currently participating with Google:

Play the News

Plays news from your default sources on Google News (How to set your default news sources?)

Play the latest news about <topic>

Plays news about a topic of you choice. For example, "what is the latest news about India" will play news about India.

Play Technology News

Plays technology news on Google News from various sources like TechCrunch, Wired Security, Engadget, The Front Row Entrepreneur, Wired, WSJ Tech News Briefing, NPR Technology, Cheddar, CNBC Tech Check.

Play Business News

Plays business news on Google News from various sources like CNBC, CNBC Markets Now, Yahoo! Finance Daily, Bloomberg Market Minute, Marketplace Minute, Bloomberg P&L, NPR Business, SoFi Daily Podcast, The Indicator from Planet Money, Transport Topics.

Play Sports News

Plays sports news on Google News from various sources like ESPN Radio, NPR Sports, Fantasy Football Today, CBS Sports Radio Minute, The Early Edge, The Leadoff.

Play World News

Plays sports news on Google News from various sources like Reuters, BBC News, Global's News Room, East Coast Radio Sport, RNZ Headlines, East Coast Radio Newswatch, Daily News Brief by TRT World, News-Scroll, CBC News World Report, DW News Brief.

Play Entertainment News

Plays entertainment news on Google News from various sources like Billboard News Now, Watch This, IGN, Associated Press, Let Me Google That, Bollywood Hungama, We Hear: Quick Fix, Anchor Weird AF News.

Play Politics News

Plays politics news on Google News from various sources like Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, CNN Political Briefing, NPR Politics, Political Breakdown, Democracy Now! Audio.

Play Science News

Plays science news on Google News from various sources like PBS Newshour Science, NPR Environment, Wired Science, WSJ's The Future of Everything.

Play Health News

Plays science news on Google News from various sources like The Space, NPR Health & Science, NPR Health Care, PBS Newshour Health.

Play Art & Lifestyle News

Plays art and lifestyle news on Google News from various sources like Real Simple Tips, Mom Tips, PBS Newshour Art Beat, NPR Art & Life.

Play National News

Plays national news on Google News from various sources like The Feed on The Official Libsyn Podcast, Air Force Academy News, Early Bird Brief.

Threads launched by Meta Platforms

Meta Platforms launched a new social media platform titled Threads. The new platform is closely linked with Instagram but unlike Instagram it is more focused towards text-based posts. This makes it functionally similar to Twitter and has been referred to as the "Twitter killer" in some circles.

Posts on Threads can be 500 characters long and can contain photos, links and videos (up to 5 minutes length). Twitter which started with 140-character limit in 2006, currently provides 280-character limit for posts. At this point the platform is available as mobile apps for Android and iOS only.

This screenshot shows how the profile page looks like the on the Android app.

The announcement from Instagram is here.

Facebook's press release about the launch is here.

A Visit to the Toledo Museum of Art - Random Travel Instinct

The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio. It houses a collection of more than 30,000 objects. With 45 galleries, it covers 280,000 square feet and is currently in the midst of a massive multiyear expansion plan to its 40-acre campus. The museum was founded by Toledo glassmaker Edward Drummond Libbey in 1901.

We visited the museum several times between 2018 and 2021 and this video is a slideshow of photos shot at the galleries.

If you are unable to play the video directly from this page here is the direct link to YouTube, https://youtu.be/4CvH8UYDlQ0

The official website of the museum is at https://www.toledomuseum.org/

Driving Around Traverse City, Michigan - Random Travel Instinct

This video is a drive around the Traverse City area in the Northern Michigan region. We drive through the roadways of Williamsburg, Traverse City over U.S. Route 31, Michigan highway M-72, Michigan highway M-88, Michigan highway M-37, and Michigan highway M-22.

If you are unable to play the video directly from this page here is the direct link to YouTube, https://youtu.be/0Kg08N_cXQk

A visit to Fort Meigs Historic Site, Perrysburg, Ohio - Random Travel Instinct

Fort Meigs was a United States fortification along the Maumee River in what is now Perrysburg, Ohio during the War of 1812. The British Army, supported by Tecumseh's Confederacy, failed to capture the fort during the siege of Fort Meigs. It is named in honor of Ohio governor Return J. Meigs Jr., for his support in providing General William Henry Harrison with militia and supplies for the line of forts along the Old Northwest frontier. The Ohio Historical Society reconstructed the fort in the late 1960s, and its museum, featuring numerous artifacts uncovered during excavation in connection with the rebuilding, opened in 1974. It is a National Historic Landmark.

This video has some moments that we captured during our visits in 2021 [YouTube].

 The official website of Fort Meigs is here.

Views of the Atal Foot Over Bridge, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India - Random Travel Instinct

The Atal Foot Over Bridge in Ahmedabad in Gujarat is a pedestrian truss bridge built on the banks of the Sabarmati Riverfront on Sabarmati River. The design is inspired by kites. The night view is particularly beautiful will the structure decorated with lights of various colors. The evenings are pretty busy with lots of visitors every day. This video combines short clips that I shot on a trip.

The direct link to YouTube is here.

Windows Killing Cortana Virtual Assistant

In a latest support document, Microsoft has announced the end of support for its virtual assistant Cortana in Windows starting August 2023. Though Cortana will continue to be available in Outlook mobile, Teams mobile, Microsoft Teams display, and Microsoft Teams rooms, this move signals Microsoft's roadmap to tread away from the Cortana ecosystem and venture into other AI-powered tools that it has started bundling with Bing (Chat AI) and Office 365 (Office 365 Copilot). They have also introduced Windows Copilot with its latest preview of Windows 11 in June 2023.

In January 2015, Microsoft announced the availability of Cortana for Windows 10 desktops and mobile devices as part of merging Windows Phone into the operating system at large. In my personal experience an Acer Aspire V 15 V3-574-7481 running Windows 10 was the first laptop that I used Cortana on. It was interesting but I was not impressed as much as the Google Voice Assistant. I have always kept it disabled on my devices since then.

Over the years Cortana has also been bundled in several 3rd-party voice-activated devices like Harman Kardon's INVOKE speakers, ecobee smart-thermostats, Johnson Controls Glas thermostats, Nest smart-thermostats Honeywell's Lyric and Total Connect Comfort smart-thermostats, LIFX smart-lights, TP-Link Kasa smart plugs, and Geeni smart home devices, Philips Hue smart-lights and Wink smart home devices.

In the last few years, Microsoft has removed Cortana from the Xbox, iOS and Android.

Microsoft's 2nd June 2023 statement on their support website is here.

Rich Woods writes about it here at XDA Developers.