Facebook is building a tool to hunt copyright infringing videos

YouTube isn’t the only site record labels are taking issue with when it comes to copyright infringement. Financial Times reports that music publishers want Facebook to license music that gets posted on its site and take down any user-submitted videos that contain copyrighted content. The first step is said to be handling all the copyrighted material that’s posted to the site’s News Feed in the form of cover songs and other footage. As part of the effort, Facebook is said to be working on a copyright identification system, similar to YouTube’s Content ID, to help police what’s published.

Financial Times explains that once the ID system is in place, Facebook will work with record labels on a licensing deal for all the music that’s available on the site. Those talks are said to be in the early stages and a final agreement isn’t expected before this spring.

The music industry has been taking issue with YouTube for years, claiming that the site doesn’t adequately compensate artists and rights holders for the content it hosts. Earlier this month, the video site announced that it paid $1 billion in ad revenue to the music industry in the last year. Facebook has revenue deals in place with publishers, but doesn’t currently have any licensing agreements for music. As you might expect, labels want a piece of that ad money like they’re receiving from YouTube for having their music available to users.

According to a National Music Publishers’ Association op-ed on Billboard this fall, the songwriters’ trade group said it identified nearly 900 videos that contained 33 top songs on the music charts at the time. Those clips garnered well over 600 million views total, so it’s easy to see why the music industry wants to be compensated for having its material on display in Facebook videos.

Via: FACT, Billboard

Source: Financial Times

Samsung Again Rumored to Be Exclusive Supplier of 5.8-Inch OLED Displays for 2017 iPhone

Samsung Display has again been rumored as the exclusive supplier of OLED panels for the 2017 iPhone, according to new claims made by sources in the Taiwan supply chain (via DigiTimes). Back in April, The Korea Herald reported that Samsung would supply Apple with OLED panels in 2017, furthering rumors from as early as January that Apple and Samsung were in talks for an OLED manufacturing partnership.

Next year’s iPhone is said to come in 4.7-inch, 5.5-inch, and 5.8-inch sizes, with the last model believed to be the only iPhone with an OLED display. The OLED version’s actual touch-sensitive screen real estate may in fact be closer to 5.5-inches, or possibly 5.1- and 5.2-inches, if the rumor of a curved display is true.

Samsung’s current estimates place the company at manufacturing 20 million units per month, according to the supply chain sources. The company’s shipments of OLED units are estimated to reach 590 million by 2019. As for benefits, OLED screens can be brighter, clearer, and lead to more energy efficient iPhones.

Samsung Display will become the exclusive supplier of AMOLED panels for use in Apple’s new iPhone devices to be launched in 2017 and can supply 20 million units in maximum a month, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers.

Apple will launch 4.7-, 5.5- and 5.8-inch new iPhone models in second-half 2017, with TFT-LCD panels to be used in the former two models and AMOLED for the 5.8-inch one, the sources said. Global shipments of the AMOLED iPhone in 2017 are estimated at 60-70 million units, the sources noted.

In a separate DigiTimes report posted today, Wistron is believed to be a potential third partner for the manufacturing of the 2017 iPhone, following Foxconn and Pegatron. Wistron was previously rumored to be part of Apple’s diversification in its supply chain this year, but it seems like the company was left out of iPhone 7 manufacturing. In the past, Wistron helped supply the iPhone 5c and iPhone SE.

Related Roundup: iPhone 8 (2017)
Tags: Samsung, digitimes.com
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Best iPad Pro 12.9 keyboards: Turn your Apple tablet into a laptop alternative

It’s time to get a keyboard for that fancy Apple iPad Pro you’ve just bought or been given as a nice little, but not little at all, pressie.

Apple’s most powerful and priciest iPad to date, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, has a starting price of £679, and is claimed to be a device that is capable of replacing laptops. It has a faster processor than the other iPads (except the smaller iPad Pro), with a new 64-bit A9X and M9 combination under the hood, which Apple claims rivals most portable PCs.

• Apple iPad Pro 12.9 review
• Apple iPad Pro 12.9 cases

The Cupertino company also pitches this device at the business, multitasking-focused user. In order to turn this powerhouse into a productivity machine that can support your workflow however, you’ll have to connect it to a keyboard.

There aren’t quite as many keyboards out there as there are cases, the latter of which you can find here, but we have rounded up a few that will help you type out those emails, spreadsheets, and notes.

As usual, we will keep updating this feature and adding more as they catch our eye so keep checking back if one of the lovely options in the gallery doesn’t tickle your fancy.

Emporio Armani Connected preview: Simple and sophisticated

Fossil has been busy stirring up the smartwatch world, launching a number of devices over the last year in collaboration with several fashion companies. The latest to join the party come from Diesel, Kate Spade and Emporio Armani.

Like the other two fashion brands, the Emporio Armani collection opts for the hybrid path seen on the previously launched Skagen Connected. Here are our first impressions.

• Kate Spade Hybrid Smartwatch preview
• DieselOn Time preview

Emporio Armani Connected preview: Design 

The Emporio Armani Connected smartwatches follow the design route of some of the company’s best-selling timepieces, adding Fossil’s wearable technology to make them a little smarter than the classic models.

Simple but sophisticated, the Emporio Armani Connected smartwatch is available in five models, comprising a stainless steel case with a stainless steel bracelet, a black case with a black bracelet, a rose-gold case with a brown leather strap, a stainless steel case with a blue leather strap and a gun metal case with a black leather strap.

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All the models within the collection offer a premium build with a simple watch face. The two bracelet models have a black face, the rose gold model has a white face, the blue leather strap model has a silver face and the gun metal case has a navy face. Despite the colour differences, the face design is the same however, with unnumbered lines representing the hours, the Armani logo sitting in place of 12 o’clock, a sub-dial in the bottom left of the display and the Emporio Armani Connected logo positioned above the hands.

Like both the Diesel and Kate Spade hybrid smartwatch options, the Emporio Armani Connected smartwatches have a stainless steel underside with a slit for changing the coin-cell battery and there are three functional buttons on the right-hand side of the casing. These buttons are more subtle than on the Diesel models, offering a more streamlined finish, which once again coincides with the brand they represent. Armani is going for a smarter, more sophisticated look compared to the chunky but cool Diesel option.

Pocket-lint

Emporio Armani Connected preview: Features

As the Emporio Armani Connected smartwatches are hybrid smartwatches, rather than Android Wear like the Michael Kors models, features are more limited. What you lose some functionality, you gain in subtlety and the result is that none of Fossil’s latest fashion smartwatches look like smartwatches, which some will love.

Compatible with both Android and iOS, the Emporio Armani Connected connects to a dedicated app where you’ll be able to set certain preferences and filter smartphone notifications. You can set alarms, control music or take a photo on your smartphone directly from your wrist, as well as get vibration alerts or dial changes for specific smartphone notifications.

Pocket-lint

The Emporio Armani Connected smartwatches will also keep track of your activity, calories and sleep, allow you to set goals and automatically change time zone when you travel. The coin-cell battery also means you won’t need to charge your watch every night, as you do with Android Wear smartwatches and the Apple Watch.

You won’t be able to take calls or read a text message, but you will be able to see a second time zone immediately with a press of the middle function button, or see your activity progress with a push of the top button. Activity is shown via the top of the sub-dial, while the date is shown at the bottom of the sub-dial.

First Impressions

The Emporio Armani Connected is a smart, sophisticated and well-built hybrid smartwatch. Like the Kate Spade and Skagen options also offered by Fossil, it offers an option for those who like the idea of getting more out of their watch but who aren’t quite sold on a fully-fledged smartwatch.

Being hybrid, it misses out on some of the features offered by Android Wear devices or the Apple Watch, but the Emporio Armani Connected looks like your typical Armani watch and that’s where it will gain the hearts of those who want to be stylish and smart.

Availability is yet to be confirmed, but the Emporio Armani Connected will be available from £259.

The blue screen of death is going green for Windows testers

If there’s one color guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of Windows users, it’s blue. But as one Twitter sleuth has discovered, the iconic and always alarming “blue screen of death” is going green, and not because Microsoft is feeling festive. The new crash screen was spotted in a recently leaked preview version of Windows 10 (build 14997, to be exact), which isn’t expected to be formally released until early next year. Microsoft’s Matthijs Hoekstra has confirmed the color change is specific to test builds released through the Windows Insider program, which makes sense. Where bugs and crashes are reported, Microsoft will immediately be able to distinguish between problems with consumer Windows 10 builds, and those found on early, less stable preview builds.

Microsoft already improved the amount of info the blue screen of death conveys earlier this year, adding scannable QR codes to these error messages to help users troubleshoot their particular problem. This new green screen isn’t the only noteworthy change discovered in the leaked preview build thus far. Microsoft also looks to be adding a night mode in the display settings, which will reduce the amount of sleep-hating blue light coming out of your monitor in the evenings. A new “game mode” has also been found that will reportedly starve background apps of resources to boost gaming performance (but not your skill level, unfortunately).

Via: The Verge

Source: @Chris123NT (Twitter)

iPhone 7’s Lack of ‘Compelling’ Features Convinced Most Galaxy Note7 Owners to Stay With Samsung

In a recent piece by The Wall Street Journal, hardware analyst Stephen Baker commented on the state of holiday sales figures for both Apple and Samsung. While many believed Apple would have it easy this season due to Samsung’s Galaxy Note7 crisis, Baker said that “Apple’s own lack of a wowing product this year” meant that woeful Note7 owners opted for other high-end Galaxy phones, and not the iPhone 7.

“Most of those who bought or wanted to buy a Note 7 opted for a different high-end Galaxy phone,” Mr. Baker said. “Samsung was able to fend off other Android competition, and Apple, too, thanks to Apple’s own lack of a wowing product this year.”

Apple decided to not release the first weekend sales numbers for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus back in September, because it felt the results were “no longer a representative metric” due to demand outweighing supply. Samsung officially halted sales of the Galaxy Note7 worldwide in early October, but another industry analyst, Chetan Sharma, continued Baker’s thread by commenting on the iPhone 7’s lack of “a compelling enough feature set,” which wasn’t enough to convince owners of potentially exploding Note7 devices to switch ecosystems.

“Apple has the strongest ecosystem, with its hardware, software and app and content stores,” said consumer tech and mobile industry consultant Chetan Sharma. “IPhone users looking for an upgrade stick with Apple. But in a year when Samsung dropped the ball in a huge way,” he said, Apple “didn’t have a phone with a compelling enough feature set to lure Samsung owners away.”

Earlier this week, Yahoo-owned mobile analytics firm Flurry released data surrounding the top device activations by manufacturer between 12/19 and 12/25, confirming that Apple was again at the top of the list with 44 percent activations, while Samsung came in second at 21 percent. In comparison to the previous year, Apple dropped from 49 percent and Samsung climbed slightly from 19 percent.

Ultimately, the two analysts admitted that both Apple and Samsung “made mistakes this year that cost them growth.” Sharma said that “the timing couldn’t have been worse for Samsung and it couldn’t have been better for Apple. But the truth is neither company capitalized this year.”

In the first few days of December, financial firm Oppenheimer summed up the current negative cloud surrounding Apple — fueled by mixed-to-negative consumer reception and its first revenue decline since 2003 — and stated that the company could be heading into a “decade-long malaise” if it doesn’t turn things around.

Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tags: Samsung, Galaxy Note 7
Discuss this article in our forums

Why phone makers should take a break from making Android Wear smartwatches

Google still has work to do with Android Wear before it’s a worthy fighter.

Christmas came and went and no one I know received a smartwatch as a gift. Conversely, I saw plenty of mechanical watches sprouting up on social media — I even received one for Christmas.

Admittedly, that’s not a benchmark for how smartwatches are performing, but it is a valid reminder that smartwatches have had a relatively slow year. The Apple Watch had lost some traction, and while Google was prepping the Android Wear 2.0 update, some manufacturers decided they’re better off hanging out on the sidelines for a while.

2017 is supposedly the banner year for this niche product category, especially for the incredibly abundant group of Android Wear smartwatches. But as Android Central’s Alex Dobie wrote in his editorial, smartwatches need a “less is more” approach, because right now there are way too many. The good news is that there are plenty of companies that have taken a pause from Android Wear for the new year, so we won’t be bombarded with new designs as the platform figures itself out. Here’s my plea to those manufacturers who might be considering taking their place.

Seriously, less is more

There are way too many Android Wear smartwatches. Huawei has several varieties. Fossil, Michael Kors, and LG do, too. And Asus just introduced its third-generation ZenWatch. In the new year, Google will launch two more smartwatches, which will add to the already lengthy list of devices compatible with Android Wear 2.0.

This is a very good thing for Google. It means the new version of Android Wear 2.0 will have plenty of wrists to land on, which means plenty of people using Google services on the go. But more smartwatches means more confusion, and Android Wear has yet to establish its narrative among the general populace. Is it for the nerds, for the athletic, or for the fashionable? It’s obviously for everyone, but how do you choose which one is for you?

Let Google handle that by letting its “Nexus” watches shine for the year. It means Google will have to handle the marketing effort, but it’s doing pretty well with the Pixel thus far, and even Google Home and Daydream View. If Google can convince a manufacturer to work with it behind the scenes on its future smartwatches, like it did with HTC for the Pixel lineup, that means it can control the marketing, software updates, styles, and customer support. Having all that be a centralized experience — rather than a fragmented one — will make it easier to sell to those who may already be apprehensive about Android as a platform.

There needs to be more innovation

Responding to a message by typing the reply on a 1.4-inch screen is neither cool nor innovative. It’s simply meaningless, and it does nothing to push the Wear platform forward.

I’m with The Register on this one: the “Wouldn’t it be cool?” factor should not be applied to wrist wearables. Yes, it is cool to do that thing with your smartwatch, but if it’s not a necessity, it shouldn’t be marketed towards consumers who already lead complicated lives.

Maybe it’s time to reimagine their use case.

Until Google figures out what consumers do want from their wrists, manufacturers should sit out the race. Companies like LG and Asus have done little to add to the Android Wear platform, save for encouraging you to download a proprietary app that adds “extra features.” And with the demand for new smartwatches at an all-time low, maybe it’s time to reimagine their use case, too.

Leave it to the fashion brands

It’s not that technology companies aren’t capable of great design, but they sell technology, not style. The only other technology-first manufacturer that’s been relatively successfully with wearables is Apple, and that’s because it’s already established itself as a design company in both technology and fashion.

I know — this sounds like ridiculous pop culture vernacular, but the disparity is obvious. Just look at the way that Michael Kors advertises Android Wear compared to Asus. Michael Kors focuses on the functionality compared to Asus, which uses buzzwords around component names but fails to explain why custom widgets would be useful.

Android Wear could try existing in two parts: Google’s part and fashion’s part. Google could continue to working with major brands to make fashionable timepieces, while also fostering development with its “Nexus” watch program. That would ensure that as more people adopt a smartwatch from their favorite designer, it’s using Android Wear, and eventually, it’s name would be become synonymous with all the major fashion houses available at the department store.

Super Mario Run for Android is coming, pre-registration now open

Having spent the last two weeks as an iOS exclusive, Super Mario Run is about to launch on Android. The pre-registration page has now gone live on the Google Play Store, so you can be notified as soon as it lands. There’s no exact launch date given, but we suspect it will be sometime after 15 January, one month after the iOS launch. 

In its first few days on the App Store, Super Mario Run quickly became one of the most popular games ever to hit the iPhone, and was also one of the top 10 grossing apps for a little while.

In its first four days, the app was downloaded 40 million times, and has since passed the 50 million mark. It’s since started dropping down the top grossing lists, but that’s expected given that it only has a single in-app purchase available. 

• Super Mario Run review: Is Mario on iPhone worth £8?
• Super Mario Run tips and tricks: Unlock secrets and beat the bosses

The Android version will be identical feature-wise to the iPhone app, requiring internet connectivity at all times to play the game. It will be a free download initially offering three stages, with a single in-app purchase to unlock the rest of the levels.

You’ll be able to play the World Tour mode to complete and unlock levels, or play Toad Rally, trying to beat other players’ scores to win different coloured toads to bring to your kingdom. There are unlockable bonus levels, characters and buildings. 

Super Mario Run became big news earlier this year when it was announced at Apple’s iPhone 7 launch event. It’s the first time Nintendo has launched one of its popular game characters in a mobile game, after what seems like years of consumers hoping and praying for it. 

While it seems it was initially very popular, we’re yet to see if it will prove to be a long-term success, and whether or not there are many more smartphone users out there willing to stump up the cash for the full game. 

Samsung VR7000 robot vacuum will eat your dust, take commands from Alexa

Samsung has announced the POWERbot VR7000, the latest model to join its series of robot vacuum cleaners, will be officially unveiled at CES 2017.

• Dyson 360 Eye review: Finally, a robotic vacuum that really works

Samsung says consumers in North America, perhaps unsurprisingly, want a robot vacuum to reach the hard to reach areas and they don’t want to have to go around with a manual vacuum themselves to pick up the areas it’s missed.

To help alleviate these problems, Samsung has given the VR7000 20 watts of sucking power and a Clean Master feature which lets the vacuum get within 0.5in of a wall thanks to an 11in wide brush. To make sure no spot of dust is safe from the sucking power, an Auto Shutter feature drops a barrier down to sweep up any remaining bits.

The VR7000 has a pretty clever brain inside it too, so it can scan the room it’s in and map an ideal route. It can recognise various contours of your room in case you don’t have straight walls and it’s also said to be able to move itself to particularly dirty areas in the room and clean them.

• Five robotic vacuum cleaners to do your cleaning for you

If the Samsung VR7000 happens to move over different surface types during its clean, such as carpet or hardwood flooring, it can adjust the power of the suction accordingly. Of course, being in the age of the Internet of Things, you can control the vacuum using your smartphone, either to turn it on or schedule cleaning times. And if you happen to have an Amazon Echo in your home, you can bark commands at Alexa to get it to clean as well.

Google Home review: Better than Amazon Echo?

If there’s one thing Google is good at, it’s search. Its 20 years of experience has helped it to become the number one site we all go to when we want to look up anything. Heck, most people just say “Google it”.

Beyond search we use Google brands for a range of tasks, including getting directions, sending email, and watching videos. In early 2016 Google came up with Google Assistant: a voice-based, conversational way for us to interact with Google’s products and services.

These have all been stepping stones to Google Home: the company’s $129 connected speaker (which, for now, is only available in the US). A home hub device that, for the first time in Google’s history, allows you to leverage all of what Google offers without having to tap or click on a screen. 

Which all sounds very exciting. But then there’s Amazon’s competitor, Echo, which has been in the market since 2014 and is further down the line in third-party app integration. Do two decades of search experience give Home the edge it needs over Echo?

Google Home review: Flexible design

• 96.4mm (D), 142.8mm (H); 477g
• White finish, interchangeable bases
• Touchpanel and voice control

Home is a minimalist’s dream. It’s a short device – about half the size of Echo – that complements anything from Ikea. It’s only available in white, but you can still match it to your decor by swapping out the bases (Google is selling $20 optional bases that come in a variety of fabric or metal finishes and colours).

Pocket-lint

We have to mention it though: most of our friends say Home looks like an air freshener. We don’t mind as that just means we can place it anywhere, from kitchen to bedroom. It doesn’t smell like potpourri thankfully.

The top of Home slopes at an angle and hides a touch-sensitive panel that you can swipe gestures upon to change volume, play and pause music, and activate Assistant’s listening mode. You’ll see colourful, very Googley lights glow in the panel when Home hears its wake words “OK Google” or “Hey Google” or it responds to a command.

Amazon Echo, on the other hand, has a blue ring of light at the top with a physical rotation ring. Echo also has physical buttons press to mute the listening mode and whatnot, which just doesn’t look or feel as futuristic as Home’s setup.

Google Home review: Voice control

• Voice-control using “OK Google” or “Hey Google” wake words
• Far-field voice recognition for hands-free use

The only other things you’ll notice about the top-half of Home are these two divots for the far-field microphones, which theoretically allow Home to pick up your voice commands from across a room. That’s key for a largely voice-controlled product.

Pocket-lint

However, we found that their pickup weren’t very accurate when the device’s speaker at the bottom is blaring out tunes full blast. With quieter or no music playing, however, it had no problem hearing us. We suspect Google will be tweaking the device for regional accents as and when it rolls out across non-US countries.

Similar to Amazon Echo, Home can listen and respond to your voice commands. You can’t change the OK Google/Hey Google wake words, and you must say them every single time you want to interact with Home. This can be a bit of a barrier for Assistant’s potential conversational capabilities and, just like with Echo, we’d like a more natural to-and-fro conversation.

Some people (cough Edward Snowden) don’t like the idea of Google always listening to you and your household while relaying information to the cloud for processing. So, in an effort to alleviate any privacy concerns, Google has promised it’s not constantly recording you, and it even includes a mute button that completely turns off the listening feature. Google also allows you to peek at all the data Home sends back and forth (go to myactivity.google.com).

Pocket-lint

When we looked at our activity, it was obvious that we mostly use Home as a connected music speaker.

Google Home review: Speaker quality

• 2-inch speaker driver
• Two 2-inch passive radiators
• No Bluetooth connectivity

As for the audio quality, Home has two passive radiators for bass and the output is adequate enough to fill a room. We think it’s plenty loud, with fair sound quality for its $129 asking price. If you’re just looking for an average speaker to sit on your kitchen counter or bedroom nightstand and casually play some tunes, rest assured that it’ll get the job done just fine.

We streamed tunes from built-in sources like Google Play Music, YouTube Music, Spotify, and Pandora. We even used it to wirelessly cast audio from our phone and laptop.

Pocket-lint

Unfortunately, Google Home doesn’t have Bluetooth connectivity like Echo, so you’ll need to use apps and services with it that support Google Cast – but that’s basically everything.

Home can also send audio to a Chromecast Audio-connected speaker. Just say “Hey Google, play this on Chromecast Audio”. Or if you plug a Chromecast into, let’s say, a bedroom TV, you can say “OK Google, play Pocket-lint videos on my bedroom TV” (it only does this with YouTube videos, at the moment).

Finally, you can group multiple Home speakers together and stream through all them at the same time. Echo can group Echo units together, too, plus it supports casting to Fire TV devices.

Because we reviewed Home at Christmas time, our most common command was: “OK Google, play some Christmas music”, to which it always complied with related playlists from Google Play. We asked it to play specific songs, artists, and albums as well. It streamed all that within seconds and without issue.

Pocket-lint

Interestingly, we found that Home needed to know the exact name of a song if we asked it to cue something specific, and it wouldn’t understand us when we accidentally left out a word from the song title, whereas Echo never seems to have this problem.

Google Home review: Google Assistant

• Supports Android 4.2 / iOS 8.0 and higher

Home is all about Assistant, really, which is the gateway to question-and-answer information. Assistant doesn’t have a real-person name, like Alexa or Siri, but it does have a (fairly robotic) female American voice, which you can’t change.

And she’s always waiting for you to talk to it or ask it something. Currently, you can call on those everyday, mundane tasks like manage cooking timers, set morning alarms, and remember shopping lists. You can also ask Assistant to fetch weather and traffic information, look up flights, check your calendar, get local business information, and order an Uber for you.

Assistant even does jokes and trivia: Just say “OK Google, entertain me” and see what happens next.

Pocket-lint

However, Assistant is a pretty basic assistant right now. Especially for Google and when considering the bigger picture. We’d love if Home could check our Gmail for new messages or track our packages, but it can’t do that. We’d also like it to text or call our friends for us, like even through our wirelessly connected Android device, but it can’t do that either. We’d even love the ability to add appointments to our Google Calendar or set reminders, but again, it can’t do any of that.

At least it’s got some of the typical stuff down; it quickly became our daily alarm clock and the easiest way to check the score of the most recent Miami Hurricanes game.

Google Home review: Searching for answers

Where Home has a notable upper hand over Amazon Echo is in search capability.

Pocket-lint

First, understand that Assistant can follow your use of pronouns and remember context for follow-up questions, whereas Alexa cannot. That means you can ask “OK Google, who is the President-elect of the US?” and then ask “OK Google, how old is he?”, and Assistant will know you’re asking about the President-elect’s age.

Second, Assistant pulls from most of Google’s online services as well as its deep well of search knowledge. You can ask what you should have for dinner, and Google Assistant will locate local places to eat and serve up suggestions. There are endless things you can ask, and nine times out of 10 it will have an answer for you. Alexa, on the other hand, really seems to love the phrase “I don’t understand the question.” If you do happen to stump Assistant, it simply apologises and says it can’t do that “yet”, which is a subtle way for Google to remind people that more features are coming.

Assistant is supposed to smartly hand-off commands too. We use a Google Pixel XL which also has Google Assistant built-in and is meant to be clever enough to understand when you’re talking to Home rather than the phone. Sadly, that’s not the case: more often than not we wouldn’t get a response from Assistant on Home, but rather on our phone.

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But the biggest gripe we have with Google Home/Assistant is that it only works with one Google account at a time. It remembers search history, music tastes, purchases, and all sorts of other data that’s based on you, for you. It surfaces your calendar and adds stuff to your shopping lists and knows all about your day – but no one else’s, which means it isn’t family-friendly in a sense.

For a speaker that’s meant to be the hub a of a home, it certainly could do a little better at servicing the entire household.

What apps does Google Home support?

Home is designed to sit in your house and not only be your assistant but also your primary means of controlling smart home gadgets – with just your voice. And, yes, Echo does this too. With either speaker, you can turn your smart lights on or off, control your smart thermostat, and more. You can also program IFTTT commands. They’re true control centers for the home.

However, because Echo has been around for two years longer, it has a big leg up in terms of integrations. Right now, Home only supports Google Nest, Philips Hue, and Samsung SmartThings.

Meanwhile, Echo works with smart devices from Samsung, Phillips, Wemo, Insteon, Wink, Honeywell, Lyric, Lutron, and like a gazillion others.

Verdict

Does two decades of search experience give Home the upper hand over Amazon Echo? In terms of search results, yes. But is it the better product? No. Home might be better looking, but it’s not as well rounded just yet.

That’s largely because Home is in early-days territory and can’t hold a candle to Echo when it comes to controlling the home. Amazon’s Alexa assistant has thousands of skills: it can send texts through AT&T and read recipes from Allrecipes.com; it’s got tonnes of app integrations available from the likes of Expedia, Thrive, Capital One and beyond. So if you want the full-blown voice-activated connected speaker experience right out of the gate, you’re silly to consider anything other than Echo.

But here’s our prediction: within two years, Google Home will have just as many integrations and partnerships available as Echo. It’s already better at conversational points and search. Plus it’s $50 cheaper than Echo and doesn’t want you to add an annual Amazon Prime subscription into the mix to get the most out of it either.

So, in many ways, we prefer Home. If you don’t mind waiting for it to mature, then Home is the speaker to get (well, if you’re based in the US). But if you must have one now – like, this very second – then go with Echo. Just don’t get mad at us when Google Home is just as good (and still cheaper) down the road.

Google Home: The alternatives to consider

Pocket-lint

Amazon Echo

£149

In the UK Amazon is the only viable alternative at present, as Google Home can’t be bought outside the US… yet. With its Alexa voice-control assistant, Echo is the premier home product: it can play music, interact with third-party apps (including home controls, such as Nest heating adjustment and Hue lighting controls) and plug-into all the great and the good of an Amazon Prime subscription too.