What if your child could simply ask for a bedtime story from their deployed mom or dad every night and one would play?
Now, thanks to Google's My Storytime, that can happen.
When military spouse Jennifer Oliver's husband was deployed, she found herself downloading audio files one by one and casting them on their Google Nest Mini to play to her kids. She knew there had to be a better way. She posted on message boards looking for guidance and, when there wasn't a solution, Google asked her and her daughters to come to Portland to help develop one.
"We helped them design something called My Storytime -- a new Google Assistant Action that makes it easier for pre-recorded stories to be played back home for loved ones," Oliver shared in a blog post for Google.
"No matter where you are," she wrote, "you can visit MyStorytime.com to create a private account for your family and begin building your library of recorded stories. And once shared with the parent back home, all they have to say is, 'Hey Google, talk to My Storytime' to hear your personal stories."
With 100,000 military parents deploying annually and leaving 250,000 kids at home, United Through Reading estimates that roughly 40 million bedtime stories are missed each year by military children. UTR has done an awesome job of bridging that gap by enabling deployed parents to record videos of themselves reading.
With My Storytime, Google Nest will also help close that divide, allowing families spending time apart to feel that much closer.
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