Items tagged with smart speakers
Apple was slow to get into the smart speaker market, but it did so in a traditional Apple fashion in 2018 with the release of the HomePod. This $350 speaker never sold very well, and the company canned it in 2021, leaving just the HomePod Mini in its smart speaker lineup. Last month, it unexpectedly announced a return...
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Have you ever received an Amazon delivery, but did not remember placing an order for the item? There are plenty of stories like this online, which sometimes boil down to having one too many libations during an attitude adjustment hour. But what if we told you that some of those times weren't related to brain fog or...
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It's bad enough we have to worry about sharks with frickin' laser beams attached, but now we have to be vigilant against the threat lasers present to smart home speakers and other devices with digital assistants. How so? Security researchers at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo and at the University of...
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How far would you go to make your house guests comfortable? Most of us would probably tidy our home, fluff the sofa pillows, and pour a few drinks. However, would you also unplug every smart speaker in your home? Google hardware SVP Rick Osterloh recently remarked that users should warn their guests about smart...
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A shocking report by a news agency in Belgium claims that contractors paid by Google to transcribe audio recordings uploaded by Google Home smart speakers have also been able to hear private conversations that should have never been recorded in the first place. The recordings run the gamut from bedroom conversations...
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We have known for several months that Samsung is aiming to compete in the growing smart speaker market, though the company has yet to launch its anticipated Galaxy Home speaker with Bixby integration. Even so, however, the company is already looking ahead to launching a more compact version, presumably called the...
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In an apparent effort to stay competitive in the smart speaker war, Apple today clipped $50 off the price of its HomePod, bringing the cost down from $349 to now $299. The new price applies to both the White and Space Gray models. For those who are interested, the $50 savings negates the cost of adding an AppleCare+...
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When it comes to electronics, one way to stretch your dollar is to stay a generation behind. This can prove particularly savvy if you strike right when a new product is announced, as the 'old' one might not be all that old or outdated at that point. Following that philosophy, you can snag a 2nd generation Echo Dot...
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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...
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Are consumers putting too much trust into smart speakers that a monitor their surroundings and send recorded data over the web? That is a question that was recently posed, drawing a comment from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) calling digital assistants and other IoT devices a "triple threat to privacy." Now...
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One of the themes we expect to be in full force at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next month is smart speakers. Amazon leads the charge with its Echo products, and following its success, others have jumped on board the smart speaker bandwagon, including Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Harman Kardon, to...
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One of the unique features of Google's Home Max smart speaker is that it has an auxiliary (line-in) port, allowing customers to connect a turntable, cassette tape player, or other external music device. Part of Google's hope is that being able to use its Home Max will make it popular among musicians and DJs as a...
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Amazon seems to have struck gold with its Echo products, capitalizing on the trend towards digital assistants that became popular in smartphones. In similar fashion, smart speakers offer a level of intelligent convenience—just bark out a command and Alexa (if you're using an Echo speaker) will fetch weather...
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A smart speaker that does not allow you to make phone calls does not seem very smart, does it? Google agrees, and so the Mountain View outfit is bringing hands-free calling to its Google Home speaker. Starting soon, the AI assistant powering Google Home will allow users to make voice-activated phone calls for free to...
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