The Google Pixel 3 event on October 9th will likely bring a new Google Home Hub smart screen as well. Today a leak revealed the new device, "Google Home Hub," complete with a touchscreen and Google Assistant interface. This device will apparently allow the user to "see your life in one view, and get things done hands-free." The description of the device suggests that you'll be able to "make the most of moments at home."
A connected speaker, smart or not, is only as good as the number of things you can stream through it. In some cases, owners are limited to an OEMs own music service. Google, however, opts for giving users choice. That choice expands today with the addition of two more services, letting users access Pandora and Deezer on their Google Assistant devices. Provided they have a premium subscription to those services, of course.
Smart assistants are supposed to be smart at helping us be more productive but they have so far fallen short of that. They have not yet reached a point where we can trust them with our schedules, appointments, and routines, secure in the knowledge that they will take action at the right time. Google Assistant has taken one step closer to that goal with the rollout of scheduled routines for Google Home. That is if you’re lucky to live in the US.
Lenovo Smart Display is a product looking for a market - just like the Amazon Echo Show. It rolls with the Google Assistant voice search and assistant service, and it has a big 10-inch display to deliver all the visual delights the user could ask for. But what's the big deal here? Why would someone want something like this when they didn't know it existed yesterday?
Ready for another summer sale? Google has kicked off one of its own over at the Google Store, dropping prices on a number of devices. It hasn't quite discounted everything, but there are some decent deals to be found nevertheless, especially if you've been thinking of picking up one of the company's various Home smart speakers or the Pixel 2 XL.
There's an easy way for the Google Assistant to overshadow Amazon's Alexa, one analyst has suggested: simply give every home in America a free Google Home Mini. The coast-to-coast giveaway might cost Google a pretty penny to achieve, or so the idea goes, but it could more than make up for it with search profits.
As we reported earlier today, many Google Home and Chromecast users experienced an outage today that left them unable to use their devices. Google Home smart speakers warned impacted users that "there was a glitch," advising them to try again. When the user tried again, though, the same issue surfaced. Chromecast devices, meanwhile, failed to stream content to displays.
Google Home and Chromecast are both down, with widespread reports from users that their smart speakers won't work and their streaming adapters won't stream. Saying "Ok Google" to a Google Home speaker, for instance, gets the response that "there was a glitch, try again in a few seconds."
Google has updated its Google Home smart speaker with a new major ability: Spanish. With this, Assistant via the Google Home device can understand voice requests made in Spanish, rather than just English, greatly expanding the device's appeal for many families. The speaker doesn't jump straight to Spanish when it hears a command in that language, though. Here's how to enable the feature.
Conversations with the Google Assistant will involve less "Hey Google" and more chat moving forward, with one of the big features previewed at I/O 2018 arriving on smart speakers today. Continued Conversation allows users to have multi-part interactions with the voice-driven AI, without having to say the "Hey Google" or "Ok Google" trigger each time.
Alexa isn't eavesdropping on your every conversation, secretly sharing them with whoever it likes, but even if it was there's an easy way to avoid that. The latest controversy over smart speakers and the Internet of Things comes down to privacy, as is so often the way, with Amazon's Echo accused of playing impromptu postwoman with a private chat recorded and shared.
Google Home has overtaken Amazon's Echo in smart speaker shipments for the first time, it's claimed, with the Google Assistant edging out Alexa in sales. Although there have been several contenders in the smart speaker wars, two rival platforms currently lead the market.