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Google Home and WiFi launch in the UK on April 6th
Google's Home speaker is coming to the UK on April 6th, the company said today. Hosting an event in a makeshift London home, the search giant unveiled its hardware plans for Europe, confirming that the smart speaker will cost £129, undercutting the Amazon Echo by £20. That's not all, though: Google WiFi is also coming to the UK on the same day, starting at £129 for a one pack and £229 for two modules.
'Zelda' fan creates an ocarina-controlled smart home
In the real world, an ocarina is a lot less functional than the magical one Link has in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. As Nintendo 64 lovers know, the Hyrulian hero can use his instrument to do things like manipulate the rain and switch between night and day. In our realm, ocarinas just sound nice. Allen Pan, better known as Sufficiently Advanced on YouTube, decided he was tired of playing his ocarina without mystical results. So, he did what any Zelda fan with the technological know-how would do: create a smart home setup controlled by an ocarina.
LG sweetens its G6 deal with a free TV
LG wants you to take a look at its upcoming G6 smartphone so badly that it's partnered with Sprint and Verizon to offer a fairly ridiculous deal. When you pre-order the G6, each carrier will give you a free big screen TV. That's in addition to the free Google Home already on offer.
OK, Google: Don't put ads in the Google Assistant
Given how genuinely useful so many of its products are, I sometimes forget that Google is, above all else, an advertising company. The vast majority of Google's money comes from ads, and it has made a business out of finding ways to integrate them into its services. Search, Maps and Gmail are just a few Google services that integrate ads without compromising their utility. However, Google outdid itself yesterday when it dropped an advertisement for the new Beauty and the Beast film into Google Home and the Google Assistant. The device has a feature that allows you to ask it to tell you about your day, and it responds with weather, traffic, your agenda and news. In the middle of that, Google Home informed users that Beauty and the Beast arrived in theaters and made a cutesy joke about the film. The whole thing lasted about 15 seconds, but it was nonetheless an unexpected intrusion that made users remember how often they are the product that Google is selling.
Google: 'Beauty and The Beast' message wasn't meant to be an ad
That didn't take long. Shortly after Google told us that its Beauty and The Beast ad being read by Assistant was not in fact an ad, the search juggernaut has reversed that stance. "This wasn't intended to be an ad," a Google spokesperson told us. "What's circulating online was a part of our My Day feature, where after providing helpful information about your day, we sometimes call out timely content." Okay, sure.
Google Home is playing ads for 'Beauty and The Beast'
Whether you care about the latest Emma Watson film or not, Google Home will tell you all about it. Recently, the smart speaker's users have noticed that the disembodied Assistant will give you a rundown of the upcoming, live action Beauty and the Beast when you ask for a summary of your day's events. It seems widespread beyond the folks who pointed it out on Reddit and appears regardless of if you've shown interest in the movie. One of our staffers heard it as well and at least one Redditor says it's also appearing on their phone. On our house Google Pixel, it didn't however.
LG lures G6 shoppers with a free Google Home
LG is giving away a $129 Google Home music-playing assistant to anyone who orders its flagship G6 device (arriving in stores on April 7th) from T-Mobile, AT&T and other carriers prior to the end of April. The handset will be one of the first non-Pixel handset to get Google Assistant, so the promotional push does make a certain amount of sense -- buyers will be able to use the AI helper on either device.
Finding the perfect soundtrack with Google Home is a bit easier
Paralysis of choice is a real problem, and to help mitigate it, Google has updated the app formerly known as Chromecast. Next time you open Google Home, you'll see a new "Listen" tab at top of your device's screen. A post on The Keyword blog says that the idea is to pull in curated playlists from apps like Google Play Music and Spotify into one place so you always have the perfect soundtrack to beam to your connected speakers. Fewer choices, more freedom. Pandora and the semi-redundant YouTube Music apps are pulled into the fray as well. All told, it's a minor update, but it shows Google's ambitions for the app: becoming a hub for all your digital media needs.
Google Home works with eBay's ShopBot to price your stuff
RJ Pittman, eBay's chief product officer, has demoed an interesting Google Home feature at the tech titan's Cloud Next conference. He asked the speaker if he could speak to eBay, which activated the e-commerce company's shopping bot that's aptly named ShopBot. "Hi, I'm eBay," the speaker replied, "I'm the world's price guide. You can ask me what something is worth." eBay originally launched ShopBot for Facebook Messenger last year. But unlike the Messenger version, Home's seems to focus on helping you price goods you might want to sell instead of finding more stuff to buy.
Google Home is coming to the UK this spring
If you've been waiting for Google to bring its smart Home speaker to the UK, you may only have to hang on a little bit longer. A Google spokesperson confirmed to Engadget today that the contoured cylinder will make its journey across the Atlantic in the second quarter of this year, giving the Amazon Echo some much-needed competition in the process.
Google Assistant now helps with your shopping on Google Home (updated)
Amazon's Echo and its Alexa virtual assistant had a big head start before Google debuted Home, but the company has regularly announced new features to try and make up ground. Today, Google revealed a big addition and will it close to home for Amazon: shopping. You can now use Google Assistant on the company's connected smart speaker to order goods from its Express shopping service.
Amazon Echo and Google Home want to be your new house phone
Right now, you can order a pizza, manage your to-do list and call an Uber on Amazon Echo and Google Home. The latest development from the smart speakers would give us yet another reason to leave our phones in our pocket. The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon and Google are considering adding telephone functionality to their devices, but it won't be easy.
Google Pixel's Assistant AI upgraded for smart home control
At Google I/O last May, the tech giant announced its own voice-powered hub to rival Amazon's Echo: the Home, which would be powered by their AI helper, Assistant. The Siri-like software was promoted as a standard feature on the search titan's first phone, the Pixel, which came out later in fall. But Google announced a plan weeks ago to bring the hub and the help back together, promising to bring some of Home's connected device control to the company's smartphone line. Today, they started rolling out Home Control for some versions of their mobile platform, allowing users to use voice commands to fiddle with their network of connected home devices.
SoundHound wants to take on Google and Amazon in voice AI
When it comes to voice recognition software, SoundHound is definitely not as big a name as Google or Amazon -- yet. SoundHound has raised $75 million in support of its efforts to create artificial intelligence systems capable of recognizing complex human voices and commands, Bloomberg reports. Samsung and Nvidia, two companies that have previously partnered with SoundHound, were among the investors.
Use Google Home to control WeMo and Honeywell connected devices
Since Home arrived a few months ago, Google has been regularly adding new features to the compact speaker and its virtual assistant. Today, the company announced that the connected device can now be used to control smart home gadgets from Belkin's WeMo line and Honeywell. This adds more options for controlling lights, switches, thermostats and more with a simple "Ok Google" voice command.
Google Home support coming to LG's Music Flow speakers
LG's Music Flow speakers are based on Google Cast (now "Chromecast built-in") and on its site, LG specifically shows a home with a multi-room setup. Yet, while both Sonos and B&O products work with Google Home and Google Chromecast Multiroom, so far, LG's Google-specific models do not. However, it looks like that's changing soon: An LG representative said on the company's product forums that both Google Multiroom and Home support are coming "before the end of February.
Vizio devices now take voice commands from Google Home
Vizio's living room devices already play nicely with Google services, but wouldn't it be nice if you could use Google voice control as well? You can now. All of Vizio's SmartCast-equipped devices, including recent TVs, soundbars and speakers, just got support for Google Home. If you want to watch a movie on Netflix, you don't even have to wake your TV -- say the right words to Google's smart speaker and it'll start playing on your set. You can also pause, skip songs and tweak the volume without touching a button.
Sony's flagship soundbar kicks out room-filling audio
CES is filled with Dolby Atmos-spitting audio equipment, but Sony's HT-ST5000 stands out. Sony has improved this model with the ability to scale audio properly no matter what size your room is. Just adjust for the height of the ceiling and where you're sitting (using its onscreen GUI) and it can provide impressive positional audio.
Two Google Home bots engage in a duel of words
A team of Twitch streamers have pitted one Google Home against another in bot showdown that has attracted 777,000 visitors to date. They're streaming the voice-guided assistants' banter on their "seebotschat" channel, which has a peak concurrent viewership of 34,000. According to a Twitch spokesperson, the two robotic speakers are running separately and are having a true conversation. "The magic comes from intercepting those messages and altering them to keep things fresh and fun," he said.
The Google Assistant is coming to Android TV
Google has talked about bringing its AI assistant to as many places as possible since it was revealed at the company's I/O developer conference back in May. Right now, it's in the Pixel smartphone, Google Home device and the Allo chat app. Today, Google announced that its next destination will be Android TV devices, including the new NVIDIA Shield (as NVIDIA just confirmed at its CES press conference).
