You can already get your daily dose of news from The Star from multiple sources – our website, from The Star app, posts on our official social media accounts and StarTV but did you also know that you can have the news read out to you?
So now when you are cleaning, cooking or just giving your eyes a break from reading, you can still keep abreast with the latest news.
All you have to do is access Google Assistant from an Android phone, or even better, from a Google Home device. Do note you can also download Google Assistant from the Apple App store for iPhones but only from the US store for now.
Just say “hey Google, talk/speak to The Star” and it will prompt you with four choices: Latest headlines, Latest news, Top headlines and Top news.
If you say Latest headlines or Top headlines, Google Assistant will read to you the first 10 headlines of the latest and trending news, respectively.
Or if you want to be given the gist of each news then pick Latest news or Top news, and you’ll be read the first five paragraphs of each news, again latest or trending depending on your choice.
If you want to listen to news from a select section, just say the name of the section and what you want – latest headlines/news or top headlines/news. For instance, “Read the latest tech/technology news.”
And if you are a sports fan, and who isn’t, you can request for news on specific sports such as badminton, football, tennis, squash and more.
You can also interrupt Google Assistant at anytime with “hey Google” and follow it up with a command. For instance, if you chose the option to read just the headlines and want to know more, just say “read ‘the title of the story’” and it will read the first five paragraphs of it.
We picked five as we found that to be the ideal length for most people.
You could also say “repeat” to ask it to read the news again, “go forward” to read the next 10 headlines and similarly “previous” to go back to the last 10 headlines. To exit the conversation with The Star, just say goodbye.
If you don’t feel like interacting with the Google Assistant, no problemo. You can also have the news read out to you from The Star app. Launch The Star app and tap on the headphones icon at the top right hand corner and you’ll see the trending news of the day. Tap on the play button to get started.
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