海角大神

Google's releases: latest round of smartest gadgets yet

Google Home will have access to the company's search engine, but will the speaker deliver on its promise of being a 'personal Google for each and every user'? 

First Look

Google has taken a page out of the Apple playbook.

The search engine giant announced a series of products on Tuesday, including a speaker and smartphone, that integrate Google鈥檚 software and hardware, similar to what Apple has done over the past 15 years with its iPods, iPhones, and Macs. And because Google can easily access nearly all the information on the internet, its hardware will be able to deliver a 鈥減ersonal Google to each and every user,鈥� according to Chief Executive Sundar Pichai. 聽

The announcements, then, mark a shift in how Google seeks to get information to users, which it hopes will pay off in the long run.

鈥淪earch has been Google鈥檚 golden ticket for the past 20 years on the internet,鈥� Gartner analyst Brian Blau told the Associated Press, 鈥渁nd now they are hoping artificial intelligence will become the next golden ticket.鈥�

Google鈥檚 digital voice assistant drives most of these products in this new series. Much like Apple鈥檚 Siri, Microsoft鈥檚 Cortana, and Amazon鈥檚 Alexa, the Google concierge will be able to answer basic questions. It will be able to tell you what your commute will be like, read you the news, and 鈥�,鈥� writes Quartz鈥檚 Mike Murphy.

One of the embodiments of the voice-activated assistant will be Google Home, a speaker that rivals Amazon鈥檚 Echo. At $129 ($50 cheaper than the Echo), Google Home will be available in November, much later than comparable speakers. But it has , writes PC Magazine鈥檚 Tom Brant.

鈥淕oogle already knows everything about you and pretty much everything that鈥檚 on the Internet,鈥� writes Mr. Brant.

If you ask it to tell you about your day, it will list the weather, your commute, what鈥檚 on your calendar, and a news briefing. All that information is pulled from Google products you already use, including Gmail, Calendar, and Maps.

Google has also stockpiled 70 billion facts in a database it calls a 鈥渒nowledge graph.鈥� Google Home will have access to this stockpile, as well as the ability to quickly scan the internet to retrieve a specific piece of information. The artificial intelligence programming is also designed to learn more about the person using it with each interaction, according to Google.

If your Google Home is connected to other smart devices in your house, it will also be able to turn down the thermostat, turn up the lights, and power on the TV.

The digital assistant will work best if you buy a Google Home on top of the company鈥檚 new smartphone, Google Pixel, as well as the other devices it announced Tuesday. 聽

鈥淭he combination of all these devices, taken together, is really compelling. Home works with the $35 Chromecast and Chromecast Audio for multi-room streaming, backed by a high-quality mesh router system,鈥� wrote Daniel Conrad, a former project manager on Android, in a post on Medium about the new devices. 鈥�.鈥�

鈥淭he big question with Google Home, other than how it stacks up against Echo, is whether or not you're comfortable with giving it so much access to your digital life,鈥� writes Mr. Brant at PC Magazine. 鈥淕oogle says you'll be able to prevent Home from accessing certain information sources, but then you'd be robbing the speaker of much of its functionality. Google knows so much about your life anyway that allowing Home to offer that information to you in spoken form probably won't increase your risk of snooping or identity theft.鈥�

Then there鈥檚 the price point. In a perfect world, Google recommends installing several Google Homes, several of its new Wifi routers, its smartphone, a Chromecast Ultra, and a regular Chromecast. All that adds up to $1,439 (before taxes).聽

This report contains material from the Associated Press.聽