The internet is filled with smashing written content, but sometimes, you just don't have the time to read everything yourself. That's where a handy merely rather hidden Google Banana feature comes in. When you lot invoke the Assistant while looking at an article and say something similar "Read it," "Read this page," or "Read it to me," it volition give you an audiobook version of the content you're seeing. Y'all tin even endeavor that with the text right here.

While the voice command is all you demand to know if yous desire to jump into the characteristic real quick, there are a few things yous should be aware of if you're interested in using Read Information technology extensively.

Features

When y'all say the command, you're thrown into a custom browser built specifically for the reading feature. In it, you lot'll run into the commodity in the peak two thirds of the interface and playback controls at the bottom. The website automatically scrolls along as it's being read to you lot by default. Yous tin bound dorsum and forth via the rewind buttons adjacent to the play push button or by tapping the paragraph you lot desire to listen to. Information technology'south besides possible to adjust the reading speed down to a tempo of 0.5x or upward to 3.0x. I personally think one.2x is the sweet spot, only that comes down to your preference.

When you tap the iii-dot overflow menu in the superlative right corner, yous're presented with a few more options. Y'all take a broad selection of alternative voices, and it's also possible to turn off text sync if yous don't want the commodity to roll along equally it's being read. And if you come up across strange text or you lot'd adopt to mind to an English language article in your native language, yous can utilise the third entry to translate text into or from dozens of languages. With recent advances in Google Translate, you lot could nearly remember whatsoever you're existence read was translated past a professional person.

Media controls with skipping backward and forward option.

Read It becomes especially magical once you plough off your display or open up another app while it's reading your article. Similar with whatever audio player, you tin can pause, finish, and skip back and forth via a notification. When you tap information technology, you can too return to the text itself, should you want to follow along with what'south currently being read.

Limitations

There are also some limitations. The feature only reliably works in Chrome — if Firefox is your preferred app for surfing, y'all'll need to re-create and paste URLs over to Chrome. It also looks like a issues that we first ran into a year ago nevertheless prevents you from invoking the Assistant in some Chromium-based browsers like Vivaldi and Dauntless, so Read It doesn't work there.

Similarly, Read Information technology doesn't piece of work for all apps. I tried it on the New York Times, CNN, The Guardian, Medium.com, and Feedly, merely they all aren't compatible — you'll need to open the corresponding websites in Chrome to get going. That's because developers have to add together some extra lawmaking to support the feature, and apparently, nobody seems to be also interested in information technology. Since the implementation doesn't seem to be that complicated, the demand likely just isn't there. At least it works with Google News and Google's new custom Search browser.

Left & Heart: No ads cheers to Coil, which doesn't carry over to Read It. Right: No luck at all with NYT, for instance.

Paywalls are likewise a problem for Read It. That's because it'south basically a separate browser with its own cookies, logins, and history, then even when yous're logged into a website like the New York Times in Chrome, Banana will tell you that it tin't read text from websites that require a subscription. The aforementioned is true for Roll, the service that removes ads from some websites like ours for a modest monthly fee. You'll take to endure ads while the article is read to you. Similarly, you'll encounter cookie privacy notices, fifty-fifty if you've already agreed or disagreed in your default browser.

In that location yous have information technology — while Read Information technology is a joy to employ when it works, there are some rather odd limitations, even a year afterward it starting time launched. If Google wants the feature to be more widely available, it needs to exercise a better chore at making information technology hands discoverable for users and make it desirable to add for developers. Permit's hope the company does that sooner rather than later.

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About The Author

Manuel Vonau (1601 Manufactures Published)

Manuel is a tech enthusiast and Android fan based in Berlin. When he'southward non writing articles for Android Police, he's probably out and near as a videographer.

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