Items tagged with google home
Christmas movie fans will undoubtedly know the classic flick Home Alone starring Macaulay Culkin. Google has teamed up with Culkin to reprise his role as Kevin McAllister in modern times. Google calls the new holiday film it cooked up "Home Alone Again with Google Assistant." The video has Kevin doing many of the same things he did 28 years ago when his parents forgot him at home and went away on a trip. The catch this time is that Kevin has a Google Home packing the Google Assistant to help him spend his days alone. Kevin has the assistant make him a shopping list for the aftershave that gave...
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Google has rolled out some new features for Google Home devices and Lenovo Smart Displays, some of which were announced back during I/O 2018. The new features include Pretty Please, Assistant notes and lists integration, Broadcast Replies, and visual lyrics for the Home Hub. Pretty Please is designed to help encourage good manners, which is a big deal for parents with kids. The way Pretty Please works is by encouraging you to say "please" and "thank you" in your commands. When Google Assistant hears commands with good manners, it will say "delightful responses" and "Thanks for asking so nicely."...
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Rumor has it that the new Google Home Hub may have a few security vulnerabilities. A hacker recently demonstrated that a Google Home Hub could potentially be forced to reveal information about its owner, but Google has now refuted this claim and contends that user information is not at risk. Security researcher Jerry Gamblin noticed that his own Google Home Hub appeared to be using several open ports. He used the command prompt on his computer to reboot his device, disable notifications, erase various settings, and delete the Google Home Hub WiFi network. Gamblin was not able to access user...
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NVIDIA's "do everything" SHIELD TV is an incredibly potent media streamer + gaming platform, and it already features native support for the Google Assistant. However, the current implementation of voice control with the Google Assistant leaves a lot to be desired and is quite limited in its capabilities. NVIDIA is rectifying this issue with a new update that provides "deeper integration" with Google Home devices currently on your network. You can simply call out to your Google Home and tell it to specifically play a movie or a TV show on your SHIELD. For example, you can say "OK Google,...
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Google just can't seem to keep a handle on all the leaks surrounding its upcoming October 9thhardware event. The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL have leaked so much that about the only thing that remains a mastery are the flagship Android Pie phones' price tags. Likewise, the third-generation Chromecast made an early appearance last week when a Best Buy employee sold the unreleased product to a customer (who of course posted about it online). Now, another retailer worker has leaked the next-generation Google Smart TV Kit. The bundle includes both a Google Home Mini and the third-generation...
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We’ve been hearing talks about a Google-branded, display-equipped smart home device powered by the Google Assistant for several months. The rumors really started heating up once companies like Lenovo released its own Smart Display Google Assistant-based device (read the HotHardware review here). Now, we’re getting a look at what are allegedly the first images of Google’s upcoming product courtesy of MySmartPrice. The device is called the Google Home Hub and features a 7-inch touch screen. As far as appearances are concerned, it looks a Google Home...
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A new study published by Adobe Analytics that looks at the market for voice devices such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home. The study surveyed 1,000 consumers in the U.S. and looked at how people use the devices they own and what they use them for. According to the study, the most common use for voice assistant devices is music playback with 70% of owners using their device for that task. Weather forecasts came in a close second with 64% of owners using their device for figuring out what the weather will be like for the day. Asking fun questions was a common use for 53% of people along with conducting...
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We all know someone who uses their smartphone a little too often, whether it's a relentless barrage of selfies sent through Snapchat or an inability to log off social media in general. To combat this, Google introduced its Digital Wellbeing initiative at its most recent I/O event. It mostly consists of providing tools for users to monitor how much time they spend on their phones and watching YouTube videos, and some of the features are headed to Google Home and the Google Assistant. "We’re dedicated to building technology that is truly helpful for everyone. We’re creating tools and...
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When Amazon trotted out its Echo Show smart speaker with a display built in, almost everyone speculated that competitors in the AI smart speaker market would be bringing out similar products. That proved accurate at CES 2018 in January, when LG, Lenovo, and JBL all rolled out their own smart speakers packing a display. The company conspicuously missing from the smart display segment at CES was Google. The odd part is that Google is one of the biggest names in the entire smart speaker segment currently with its Google Home device.. In September we learned Google was working on a product for...
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More people are purchasing Google Home devices than Amazon's competing Echo products when shopping for a smart speaker, according to estimated data sales compiled by market research firm Canalys. Google now sits in the top spot of the worldwide smart speaker market in terms of growth, and appears to benefiting the most from what has become a boom market. The smart speaker market grew a staggering 187 percent the second quarter of 2018, with shipments reaching a combined 16.8 million units, compared to 5.8 million units in the same quarter a year ago. Google's Home smart speaker line accounted for...
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If you are wondering why companies like Amazon and Google put so much time and energy into smart speakers, just look at the numbers. Sales of voice-activated speakers will add an incremental $1.6 billion to the US technology industry through 2019, in part because they tap into the growing smart home market, according to data by The NPD Group. “While many new households will explore the smart home experience in the next two years, propelled by the growing ownership of voice-activated speakers, the biggest and best opportunity for retail may remain in encouraging the installed smart home base...
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The Lenovo Smart display is the first in an assault of Google Assistant-enabled devices set to hit the market this year. They will take on Amazon's Echo Show in a battle for smart home assistant technology, with not only a set of ears, but also a set of eyes and a display face to complete the experience. Priced at $249.99 for a 10-inch version and $199.99 for an 8-inch variant, with identical hardware specs except for the display, these are a new breed of smart home devices that have the potential to give Google and its OEM partners a leg-up on Amazon. Since they're part of the "Android...
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This time of year many people are gearing up for Amazon Prime Day. Not to be outdone by their competitor, eBay is offering a free Google Home Mini with qualifying purchases of $119 or more. Customers will simply need to shop for $119 worth of items (not counting the cost of the Mini), add a Google Home Mini directly from Google’s eBay page, and enter the coupon code “PMINI4FREE” at checkout. Customers will receive their Google Home Mini within ten business days. Most items on eBay count as qualifying purchases. The few exceptions are from the Coins & Paper Money, Gift Cards...
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DISH has become the very first major pay-tv company to offer users compatibility with Google Assistant. The compatibility launches today for the Hopper, Hopper Duo, Joey, and Wally set-top boxes. The cool part about this compatibility is that you don’t need to go out and buy additional hardware. While Google Home devices are supported, so are most Android phones and iPhones with the Google Assistant app installed. "Since we first introduced voice control technology, we've seen our customers really embrace the hands-free TV experience," said Niraj Desai, DISH vice president of product...
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