This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read Wirecutter's continuously updated list of deals here. Available for $130, this Google Home Hub bundle allows you to get the Home Hub at the typical holiday sale price of $130 but includes 2 Home Minis, a $50 value. It's a great way to jump into smart speakers and displays at a discount if you like the Google ecosystem.

CES 2019 is right around the corner, and we're preparing to learn all about next year's major electronics releases. Of course that will include a slew of new TVs, and Variety reports that Samsung is planning a couple of upgrades focused on AI assistants and audio. While the company enhanced the 2018 QLED TVs with its own Bixby AI assistant, next year it could go a step further with support for third party technology, namely Google Assistant. Other manufacturers already support assistants from companies like Google and Amazon, and opening up access will make linking to the rest of the smart home that much easier for people who don't go all-in on Samsung's brand. The other major upgrade mentioned applies to audio, with Variety pointing out trademarks recently filed around spatial and volume intelligence.

Artificial intelligence was far and away the core tech mania of 2018. Even if you're not an analyst like me who focuses on this technology, it was hard to escape the AI buzz that's pervading popular culture, media, politics, and, of course, personal technology such as Alexa. With that in mind, here are my predictions for AI in 2019. Please pardon me in advance for the long, detailed list of trends and forecasts for this technology in the coming years. AI fakery will work its magic -- benign and otherwise -- more deeply into our lives: AI-generated audio has crossed the "uncanny valley" that makes it indistinguishable from what comes out of humans' actual mouths, as demonstrated publicly this year with Google's new Duplex digital-assistant technology.

It's fair to say that when Amazon introduced the first Echo speaker in the fall of 2014, most people weren't quite sure what to make of it. In the intervening years, Echo and the broader universe of Alexa-powered devices have transitioned from curiosity to ubiquity. But while you can find Alexa in just about everything--including, yes, a microwave--the real progress Amazon's voice assistant made in 2018 came less from breadth than from depth. That's not to say it hasn't made gains of scale. Amazon's voice assistant has doubled the number of countries where it's available, for starters, learning how to speak French and Spanish along the way.

If the barrel-shaped JBL Xtreme 2 that Scott Wilkinson reviewed a couple weeks back is ready to party, Sony's cubist SRS-XB501G smart speaker is equipped to deliver a crowd-pleasing LED light show at a backyard rave. A young crowd, that is. Color-shifting LED light bars run around the perimeter of the speaker's face, and there's a pair of independent white LEDs in the top middle. A second white LED sits above the woofer. Sony says these lights can be synchronized to the music you're listening to, and there are no fewer than six light modes for you to choose from (rave, chill, hot, cool, strobe, and random flash).

Google Assistant is everywhere, ranging from the Android smartphone in your pocket to the smart speakers and smart displays ensconced in your kitchen or living room. And that means you can control all your smart home devices without so much as turning your head. All you need to say is "Hey Google!" What do you say after that? Well, almost anything, but here are 15 essential commands you should commit to memory.

Tech columnist Marc Saltzman gives tech ideas to keep you entertained during your "staycation" if you're home for the holidays. Don't be jealous if your snooty friends won't stop talking about their upcoming holiday vacation. Let them deal with crowded airports, sunburns, and watered-down booze at all-inclusive resorts. Instead, having a "staycation" has never been more fun – especially if you consider all the awesome home tech you can pick up for you and the family. From big-screen televisions and smart speakers that play millions of songs (simply by asking for it) to deals on video game consoles and curling up with a great e-book on a tablet, there's never been a better time to be home for the holidays.

Stuck on what to get your loved ones for the holidays? As a tech reviewer, I get to play with all the best new gadgets before they hit store shelves, but I don't get to keep them. That means this time every year, I'm leaning over my laptop -- fingers twitching and crediting cards itching -- to buy a few of my favorites for myself or people I really, really like. Here's what I shelled out my very own money to buy this year. This is the year of voice-activated smart displays.

Artificial Intelligence has been at the forefront when it comes to building a system that can analyse data intelligently, possess self-learning algorithms and provide a forecast with higher accuracy. From our smart phones to desktop computers, the AI technology has silently made its way into our lives. These come in many forms like speech bot, chatbot, email bot and social media bot. From individuals asking Siri to help navigate to the desired destination, to ecommerce giants offering product recommendations based on the consumer interest, these smart systems are selflessly making our lives easier day by day. The Banking, Financial Institutions and the Insurance sectors are one of the keen adopters of this technology due to the various business benefits it has to offer.

To date, native access to Google Assistant on a Chrome OS device has meant splurging on Google-made hardware like the Pixelbook or Pixel Slate. You won't have to be quite so picky for much longer, though. Google has started testing Chrome OS 72 in beta form, and the new release brings Assistant to third-party Chromebooks for the first time. It works in the same way as you'd expect on the Slate, with support for both voice and written commands through a pop-up at the bottom. The beta also brings Android 9 Pie to hardware beyond the Pixel Slate.