Google also went big with the $400 Google Home Max, a larger version of the Google Home that takes on Sonos with powerful audio and AI smarts. Google says the speaker delivers volume 20 times more powerful than what the standard Google Home achieves, but as with the Pixelbook, the software is the secret sauce. Google's new Smart Sound tech scans the Home Max's surroundings to optimize audio output. It'll tweak calibrations based on whether the speaker's jammed into a corner or left on an open counter. Over time, it'll learn to adjust to your home automatically--lowering music volume in the morning or raising it when it hears your dishwasher running, for example.

Google also revealed other items like the Google Clips Camera, which automatically takes photos and soundless video based on A.I. programming that recognizes faces. The idea is that it will know when to take pictures for you, so you won't have to be preoccupied with your camera during get-togethers. There are also new Google Home Mini and Max smart speakers, which will compete with Amazon's Echo and Echo Dot, plus another generation of the Google Dream, a virtual reality headset that works with the Pixel phones.

Google's most adorable product launch today is definitely its puck-sized Home Mini. At $49, it'll square up against Amazon's Dot, but like the Dot, it will act as a gateway smart speaker for those not willing to throw down bigger sums of money. I took a look at the Home Mini at Google's satellite London event, and if other speakers left you cold, this unassuming AI speaker might win you over. Google's miniature version hones down last year's Home into a smaller design, but with all of the smarts. The only discernible drawback during my brief hands-on is that sound was (understandably) less bassy, and not quite as loud.

The New York Times has been upping its tech game recently in hopes to keep subscription numbers up in an age of free internet news. It made digital access free during the 2016 election, bundled free Spotify accounts this past February and bought a VR agency to help the Times create immersive news content. Now you can get a "free" Google Home smart speaker with a $17 per month All Access or $18 per month Home Delivery subscription. While a $10 per month Basic subscription is available, you'll need to drop a little more cash to get the Google Home. With All Access, subscribers will also get the NYT Crossword, NYTimes Cooking, and a free subscription to give to someone else.

Wow, I remember reading the original article and wondering how many iterations of hardware it would take to make the model real-time. Google went from generating 0.2 seconds of audio in 1 second to 20 seconds of audio, that's an impressive 2 orders of magnitude improvement. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if in a few years we have a real-time model with a MOS equal to (or surpassing?) human speech.

Google has big dreams for the future. "In an AI first world, computers should adapt to help people live their lives," said CEO Sundar Pichai at the company's big hardware event today. No one wants to think about the technology that lets them move from screen to screen, or which phrases Google Assistant can or can't understand. People just want it to work. That's the big theme that extends across everything Google announced today, from the brains behind its new generation of Pixel phones to the newly miniaturized and maximized Google Home devices.

Confirming one of the industry's worst-kept secrets, Google announced today that it finally has a cost-reduced version of its Google Home smart speaker. The $49 Google Home Mini, available for preorder now, will go head to head with the Echo Dot that Amazon introduced way back in March 2016. Like the original Google Home, the Mini will feature fabric over its speaker grill. But Google assures us this is no ordinary fabric. Google's lead designer for home hardware, Isabelle Olsson, said the company invented its own yarn for the Mini--going through 157 iterations to find just the right colors: chalk, charcoal, and coral.

Even though many of the devices from today's Google's Pixel 2 event had leaked beforehand, there was still plenty left to surprise. Leading the way were the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, but we also got our first look at the Google Home Max and Mini, the 2-in-1 Pixelbook and the new wireless Pixel Buds. Some will be available in the UK soon, others will take their time to make their way across the Atlantic. Here's how much some of that new gear is going to cost you. As expected, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are vastly improved from last year's models.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai talks about Google Lens, which lets you point your phone's camera at places and objects to get information about them. SAN FRANCISCO -- Google thinks smartphone technology should be, well, smarter, and do more of the work for us. So on Wednesday Google announced it's rolling out Google Lens with its new Pixel phones. Pixel users will be the first to try Google Lens in Google Photos and the Google Assistant. Google Lens turns your smartphone camera into a search engine.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Hey, Google: Say it ain't so. At a splashy event in San Francisco to unveil its latest generation of Pixel smartphones, Google debuted Google Pixel Buds, its own Bluetooth earbuds priced at $159. Their biggest selling point of the Pixel Buds is that they come equipped with the smarts of Google Assistant (though they don't come with the purchase of a Pixel phone) and a really nifty feature: real-time translations of conversations through Google Translate in 40 languages. The downside: Google has jettisoned the headphone jack on the Pixel, leaving just a USB-C data/charge port. If this sounds familiar, it's because the headphone jack is increasingly an endangered feature on smartphones, thanks in large part to Apple.