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One of the best features of the Google Pixelbook is the built-in and dedicated keyboard key for Google Assistant.  As I put in my review of the Pixelbook, the Google Assistant integration works great and it has proven to be a far more handy feature than I expected it to be when I first got the Chromebook.

By default, the Assistant keyboard button opens up with the default interaction as the keyboard.  In other words, typing your request to Assistant.  Google does this because it has also designed the Pixelbook to respond to “Hey, Google” (assuming you have enabled it).  But sometimes, having the keyboard key configured to accept voice commands can be handy.  Think of it as being similar to when you tap and hold the Home button down on your Android phone.

In this How To, I’ll show you how you can configure the Assistant keyboard key to open up and listen for your voice commands instead of typed inputs.

Today at Mobile World Congress, Google has announced the expansion of the languages supported by Actions for Google Assistant, the SDK that allows developers to leverage Assistant in their apps and solutions.  The new languages, which go live today, include:

• Hindi
• Thai
• Indonesian
• Danish
• Norwegian
• Swedish
• Dutch

These languages join English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Russian which are already supported.  The new languages are fully supported in development tools too, like DialogFlow and, of course, the Actions SDK itself.

Today at Mobile World Congress, Sony announced the much anticipated Sony Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact.  The two new devices mark a significant departure in Sony’s previous phone designs with far smaller bezels and 18:9 ratio displays.

Internally, the two devices are virtually identical.  They are powered by the Snapdragon 845 SoC, have 4GB of RAM and have 64GB of storage built-in.  That storage can be expanded up to 400GB thanks to the MicroSD card slot.  Both have a 19MP f/2.0 rear camera that can shoot an incredible 960 fps slow motion video, and a 5MP f/2.2 selfie camera on the front.

At Mobile World Congress today, Lenovo has announced an expansion of their education ready Chromebooks.  The company introduced the 100e, 300e and 500e devices with the entry level 100e starting at just $219.  All three devices are ruggedized and two of the models have touchscreens.

The 100e is the entry level model and is the only non-touchscreen device.  It is powered by a dual-core Celeron N3350 CPU with 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and an 11.6″ display.   It has two USB 3.0 ports as well as two USB-C ports for charging.