Items tagged with google home
Do you want to have a more natural conversation with your AI voice assistant? If saying wake words like "OK, Google" over and over again seem to robotic and stilted for you, Google is pushing out an update that it first announced at Google I/O called Continued Conversation. Continued Conversation will all you to invoke "OK, Google" or "Hey, Google" just once by voice, and then you'll be able to ask repeated questions without having to break out the wake words again. For example, you could say "Hey, Google, how far is it from Richmond, Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina"; "What's the temperature...
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Amazon and Google are massive tech giants, for vastly different reasons. Google is the leading search engine provider, a smartphone platform juggernaut, and huge advertising machine, while Amazon is the largest e-tailer in the world and a cloud services powerhouse, though Google is coming up strong. Though they are different animals, these two companies find themselves locked in heated battle with their respective Google Home and Amazon Echo devices; a battle for AI dominance that could determine who will ultimately control a good chunk of the Smart Home market. The Smart Home market has massive...
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It looks as though Google is turning the corner with regards to its positioning in the growing AI smart speaker market. Ever since Google Home was first introduced in late 2016, it has played second fiddle to the dominant Amazon Echo family (which originally launched in late 2014). However, new sales numbers coming in this week from Canalys claim that Google Home sales have surpassed the Amazon Echo for the first time. Canalys' numbers are for Q1 2018, during which Google reportedly shipped 3.2 million Google Home devices. Amazon, on the other hand, sold 2.5 million Echo devices during the same...
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There's no doubt that smart voice assistants like the Google Home Mini and Echo Dot are incredibly popular with consumers, and extremely useful for grabbing quick snippets of information or controlling our smart home devices. However, these small speakers aren't exactly known for their superior audio quality when it comes to music playback. Google is looking to change that with a Google Home update will allow you to control your third-party Bluetooth speakers. To enable this functionality, you simply need to open the Google Home app, and proceed to device settings. You will then be able to pair...
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The jailbreaking community is alive and well, and people frequently install "unauthorized" software on their smartphones and tablets once they’ve cracked the bootloader. This practice is often frowned upon by device OEMs (especially Apple), but it is legal to do so under an exemption in Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), however, wants to extend the exemption to include another hot segment in the consumer electronics market: smart AI speakers. That would means that owners of devices like the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and...
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Google has carved out a significant chunk of the smart home speaker market with its Home speaker line, which now accounts for nearly a third of all installed home automation devices, according to data and analysis by Consumer Intelligence Researcher Partners (CIRP). Just as importantly, Google has managed to shrink the gap in the market place between its speakers and Amazon's Echo line. No small feat, Amazon essentially created the smart home speaker market when it unexpectedly launched its first Echo product over two and a half years ago. It was an immediate success, and continues to be today....
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Over the past few weeks, complaints have been pouring into Google's support communities and reddit concerning Google Home and Chromecast devices flooding home Wi-Fi networks with packets of data, causing their internet speeds to slow to crawl. Thankfully, Google has responded late this week with a fix to address these slowdowns. "In certain situations, a bug in the Cast software on Android phones may incorrectly send a large amount of network traffic which can slow down or temporarily impact Wi-Fi networks," wrote Google. "The specific impact to the network will vary depending on the router." As...
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Several years ago, spammers figured out they could fill up a user's Google Calendar with advertisements and other unwanted messages by sending them out as event invites. The issue has largely flown under the radar, but unfortunately for some Google Home owners, the exploit (if you want to call it that) is preventing them from receiving legitimate notifications over their smart speaker, turning what was a nuisance into a major problem. We were alerted about the issue from Micah Stroud, a former NVIDIA employee who sent us an email detailing his frustration with the situation. "For the past three...
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Amazon and Google have an on again and off again relationship that all started with a spat over how YouTube was presented on the Amazon Show device. Google pulled YouTube from the Amazon Show because of issues with the layout of the video app that removed some of YouTube's normal capabilities. Only a few weeks ago, the YouTube app returned to the Amazon Show and everyone though that the feud was over. As it turns out, the war between the two companies is far form over. Google has now announced that it will be blocking YouTube from two Amazon devices. Google has also criticized Amazon for refusing...
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When it comes to AI smart speakers currently on the market, the two dominant players on the market are Amazon's Alexa-powered Echo family and the newly expanded Google Home family. During the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales bonanza, the "original" Google Home was available for as low as $79, which is a $50 price break from its normal MSRP. However, Best Buy is far surpassing those deals with its current two-pack offer on the Google Home. The $129 price that you would normally pay for a single Google Home will instead get you two for the same price. So, you're essentially pay $65 for each Google...
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You may have noticed, but the madness that is known as Black Friday has already begun. Sure, there will be "door buster" deals later this week that require actually marching to a physical store location and fighting the crowd for what little stock is available on the most heavily discounted items, but there are plenty of deals to be had online, both now and later this week. Among them are several Internet connected devices from Google. If you're looking to outfit your home with a Google Assistant in every room, you will be able to score a nice discount on Google's Home Mini speaker later this week....
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The smart home speaker market is red hot, with Amazon and Google leading the way with their respective Echo and Google Home products. And with Black Friday and Cyber Monday in view, there will be a lot more smart speakers find their way into homes this week, and through the holiday season. As with all Internet of Things (IoT) devices, it's important to keep security in mind, and Symantec has some tips on that very topic. "While they make life easier in some ways, could voice-activated smart speakers also be endangering people’s privacy and online security? The range of activities that can...
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We first got a glimpse at the BlueBorne vulnerability back in September, when it was revealed that that Bluetooth-based attack vector was exploitable on phones, computers, and IoT devices -- basically, anything with a Bluetooth radio. BlueBorne was especially nasty since it is capable of man-in-the-middle attacks and remote code execution. It was initially revealed that both Windows- and iOS-based devices had been updated to defend against BlueBorne, while Android device manufacturers should have already delivered updates to address the exploit. However, we're now learning about another category...
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The Black Friday ads keep rolling in, giving you plenty of time to formulate a shopping strategy. One of the newest ads to land is from Walmart. The massive retail chain will have discounts on a wide assortment of items, including some nice deals on 4K resolution televisions, and game consoles such as Microsoft's Xbox One S and Sony's PlayStation 4. Sadly, Nintendo's Switch will not be marked down, but it will be in stock, at least initially.If you're after a 4K TV, one of the better deals is a Sharp 55-inch 4K Smart TV (LC-55P6000U) with high dynamic range (HDR) support for just $298. Walmart...
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