Matching Amazon's new free music offer on Echo speakers, Google now offers owners of the Google Home speaker access to free tunes, via YouTube Music. There's a big difference: songs are sponsored on Amazon Echo speakers, while tunes for Google users are free. Additionally, they can be listened on both the Google Home speaker line, and any speaker that has the Google Assistant, Google's Siri/Alexa like helper. That includes the brands Sony, JBL, Harman and others. What you can't get is on-demand song selection, but instead playlists or radio stations created based on your requests.

Details on what Apple may have in store for the next major versions of its operating systems are trickling out ahead of June's Worldwide Developers Conference. The latest leaks are linked to macOS 10.15, to which Apple could add some iOS features, such as Siri Shortcuts and Screen Time, according to 9to5 Mac. Apple revealed Siri Shortcuts at WWDC last year. It opens up the voice assistant, allowing you to create custom Siri commands for various apps, though you might need to download a Marzipan app (those ported from iPad to Mac) from the Mac App Store to use Shortcuts on your computer. It's a move that makes sense, as it should allow developers to make sure the Shortcuts for their apps still work after they port them to macOS.

Amazon, like many other tech companies investing heavily in artificial intelligence, has always been forthright about its Alexa assistant being a work in progress. "The more data we use to train these systems, the better Alexa works, and training Alexa with voice recordings from a diverse range of customers helps ensure Alexa works well for everyone," reads the company's Alexa FAQ. What the company doesn't tell you explicitly, as highlighted by an in-depth investigation from Bloomberg published this evening, is that one of the only, and often the best, ways Alexa improves over time is by having human beings listen to recordings of your voice requests. Of course, this is all buried in product and service terms few consumers will ever read, and Amazon has often downplayed the privacy implications of having cameras and microphones in millions of homes around the globe. But concerns about how AI is trained as it becomes an ever more pervasive force in our daily lives will only continue to raise alarms, especially as most of how this technology works remains beyond closed doors and improves using methods Amazon is loathe to ever disclose. In this case, the process is known as data annotation, and it's quietly become a bedrock of the machine learning revolution that's churned out advances in natural language processing, machine translation, and image and object recognition.

If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA Today's newsroom and any business incentives. Get your Nordstrom cards out, people. There is a sale going on right now at the beloved retailer, and it's good. I literally shopped the entire sale online, so I can confirm: this is a must-shop event (my bank account is shaking).

Amazon Fire TV Stick & nbsp; & nbsp; & bull; Price: $24.99 & nbsp; & nbsp; & bull; Savings: $15.00 & nbsp; & nbsp; & bull; Percent off: 37.5% & nbsp; & nbsp; ALSO READ: 40 Places Young People Are Moving (Photo: Courtesy of Target) Google and Amazon, longtime corporate adversaries who have been feuding for years, have made up. Consumers who have complained about not being able to watch YouTube or the cutting-the-cord YouTube TV service via Amazon's popular Fire TV Stick streaming products and the Amazon branded Fire TV Edition TV sets will finally get to do so later this year. Additionally, Google is bringing Amazon's Prime Video service to the Android TV platform and the Google Chromecast streaming device. Still, the companies have a ways to go. You still won't be able to see YouTube on Amazon's Echo Show, the video version of the Alexa speaker, nor will Amazon be opening up the doors to sell products like the Google Home speaker (Alexa's main rival) or the Pixel phone, in its eStore.

Amazon officially began offering free ad-supported music for owners of Echo speakers Thursday, even if they don't subscribe to Prime, Amazon's expedited shipping and entertainment offering. Amazon already provides some 2 million songs free, but without ads to Echo owners who also pay $119 yearly to subscribe to Prime.A more full-featured ad-free music offering, Amazon Music Unlimited, is available for $9.99 monthly, or $7.99 monthly for Prime members. Amazon says it has access to around 50 million songs. The new free service has limitations, more akin to online radio station Pandora than Apple Music in that customers can't request a specific on-demand song. Instead, the request will lead to a music station "based" on that song, or a pre-existing Amazon playlist.

Amazon's got an unstoppable deal right now for a smart doorbell: The Ring Video Doorbell Pro is on sale for $199. That's the usual $50 discount we've seen before on this item, but on top of that, Amazon's throwing in a free Echo Dot. The third-generation Echo Dot is usually $50 (albeit currently on sale for $40), but it's not clear if you get the second or third generation mini speaker with this deal. It connects to your Wi-Fi via 802.11b/g/n and you can check-in remotely to see who's at your door. The Pro also works with Amazon's Alexa digital assistant, which allows you to use the smart speaker for two-way talk with whoever's at your door.

Starting today, YouTube Music is offering a free, ad-supported experience on Google Home speakers and other Google Assistant-powered speakers. Just navigate to account settings, tap services and select music, then set YouTube Music as the default music service. Then it's just a case of saying "Hey Google, play [whatever]" and you're away. However, the ad-supported YouTube Music experience won't let you request specific songs, albums or playlist. Instead, you can tell it a genre or style or mood of music you're looking for and your Google Home will play a station based on that request. As before, YouTube Music Premium subscribers can request specific songs, artists and playlists on demand.

Rumors started circulating last week that Amazon was exploring a free, ad-supported tier of its streaming music service. Turns out there was something to those rumblings. Today, the commerce giant announced that Alexa device owners in the US will be able to listen to top playlists and stations on Amazon Music at no additional charge, even if they are not Amazon Prime subscribers. Of course, this news also comes on the same day that Amazon's frenemies over at Google launched ad-supported free YouTube Music streaming on Google Home smart devices. Listeners will be able to ask Alexa to play music by creating stations based in a song, artist, era or genre.

Wish there was a place to shop where you could compare prices from multiple retailers at once and get the best deal on your favorite products, while also getting everything you need shipped quickly and efficiently right to your door? Say hello to Google Express, the online shopping service that's designed to give you that experience. While it's been around for years, this constantly evolving platform is part of Google's attempt to unseat Amazon's hegemony in the online shopping world. The service aims to make buying products online more convenient and accessible. But chances are, you've never even heard of it before.