Photo by In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images
The BBC is producing its own in-house voice assistant called Beeb, which will integrate with the UK public broadcaster’s website and iPlayer apps on smart TVs. The Guardian reports that the corporation currently has no plans to release its own smart speaker featuring the assistant, but will make the software available to other manufacturers who wish to build it into their speakers. Beeb is currently planned for launch next year.
The announcement of the voice assistant comes as the BBC has started to withdraw some of its content from select third party services. Earlier this year it removed its podcasts from certain Google products, and its radio stations are also disappearing from TuneIn at the end of the month. In both cases, the BBC…