Google Now is known mostly as the search giant’s Siri competitor. Available on many Android phones and as part of the Google app for iPhone, Google’s service pushes digital personal assistance a lot further. For example: It can send timely notifications to keep you up on your favorite sports team, or scheme to give you traffic information about where you’re going before you even depart.

Now, to help you better understand and use Google Now, here’s our list of nine things, some quite useful and some just fun, that you may not have known about Google Now’s functionality.

1. You can ask specific questions to bring up information cards.

Whether you’re a history buff or a reality-TV junkie, the interactive Google Now information cards that appear in popular search results are uber helpful. Rather than just showing a list of website links as results, the cards Google provides feature the most important info in bold at the top, with relevant links and sometimes an expandable section of extra detail just below.

View photos Google Now screenshot with information about Abraham Lincoln and Honey Boo Boo More

Asking Google Now more specific questions, as long as they’re not really obscure (example above), will yield the best card results.

2. You can say, “Hey, Google” to launch the app.

Google Now’s voice command prompt can actually be launched by speaking, “Hey, Google,” instead of the traditional “OK, Google.” These voice cues work from your home screen or from inside the Google Search app, depending on which phone you have. In the past, Google has reportedly toyed around with enabling other launch phrases, one being “OK, Jarvis” in reference to the Iron Man movies, but the two above commands are the only ones we know of that work currently.

3. Google can learn your relationships to contacts.

Google has the capacity of knowing who your brother, mother, boyfriend, wife, and cousin are. To set these, just tell Google Now a command, like, “Text my girlfriend hello.”

View photos Google Now screen asking 'Who is your girlfriend?' More

A card will then pop up asking you to Pick contact to designate as your girlfriend. After tagging a contact once, Google will remember your relationship and, from then on, you can text, call, or email that contact by simply saying “mother,” “cousin,” “wife,” and so on.

4. There are plenty of fun tricks and Easter eggs.

These fun voice commands may not do much to show the true practicality of Google Now, but they are clever! One of our favorites is asking Google Now to “beam me up.” It of course replies, “I cannot do it, Captain. I do not have the power.”

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