People wave while waiting to take their seats to hear the keynote address of the Google I/O conference in Mountain View, Calif. FOSTER CITY, Calif.--Computers as we know them are about to disappear. Well, okay, they won't completely disappear, but they will take on a new form that makes them very difficult to distinguish from everyday objects all around us. This transformation is part of a bigger, longer term trend that some have dubbed "ambient" computing. The idea is that computing capability will end up being embedded in devices ranging from speakers to automobiles, and will provide capabilities and services to us throughout the day via the environment around us. "The difference between receiving useful information or performing specific actions automatically, as opposed to instigating the efforts on our own, is profound" The most obvious example of ambient computing to date is Amazon's Echo line of products. Echo and Tap integrate the company's Alexa digital assistant into what appears to be a Bluetooth speaker.

A crowd gathers ahead of the Google I/O conference at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Calif. It's been a big 12 months for Google. On Wednesday, the tech giant kicks off its I/O developers conference with a keynote address expected to cover plans for its Android mobile operating system, and possibly other ventures including Android Auto. Burke says Android is the most popular operating system in the world. More than 600 Android phones launched last year.

This guide has been updated with new integrations, including Honeywell Total Connect Comfort thermostats, the GreenIQ Smart Garden Hub, and Kayak. The Amazon Echo has quietly become the hottest smart home product on the market. Suddenly, every tech company wants to integrate its products with Amazon's customizable virtual assistant, Alexa. The integrations keep coming, at such a pace that it can be hard to know exactly which products work with Alexa. Amazon's website tries to keep on top of things, but its interface can be tough to navigate.

Google Home will take on Amazon Echo when the voice-activated device launches later this year. MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Google officially entered the voice-activated digital assistant race Wednesday with Google Home. The small device will compete directly with Amazon's popular Echo and should be available to consumers later this year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced at the search company's annual developers conference. The move had been anticipated, as Google looks to put its mark on a coming age of artificial intelligence in which machines learn to interpret and answer human queries by leveraging the speed and scope of cloud competing. The device will be able to play music, complete a range of tasks and answer questions that one would ask of Google search.

Google just made it that much easier to access its massive search engine when your phone isn't nearby. The device is similar to the Amazon Echo smart speaker. Google Home functions as a speaker that also houses Google's powerful new voice-activated assistant. It's launching later this year, but the company demonstrated a preview of the gadget on stage. Google Home is customizable, so buyers can swap out the material based on their furniture and ambience. The device comes with an embedded speaker and microphone, and doesn't include any buttons.

Google unveiled Wednesday a significant overhaul to its voice search functionality that makes it smarter and more intuitive. The revamped software also has a new name: "Google Assistant." Google Assistant understands language more naturally than standard Google voice search. For example, if a user asks who directed the film The Revenant, that person can follow up with a query like "Show me his awards." The user doesn't have to say the director's name to get the correct answer.

While Facebook and Microsoft are busy building discreet bots to squawk at you in messenger programs, Google's taking another angle. Google Assistant--a new smart assistant announced by CEO Sundar Pichai at Google I/O 2016--weaves together the complex information that Google already has about the world and the detailed information that the company already has about you to create a helpful AI that revolves your world. Building on the deep knowledge base of Google Search, the individual knowledge base of Google Now and your Google profile, and the advanced natural language recognition that's been improving in Android year-in and year-out, Google Assistant is designed to be conversational and help you get things done, Pichai says. For example, you could ask Google Assistant "Who designed this?" while standing in front of a famous sculpture with your phone, and the bot is able to mix location data and image recognition to identify exactly what you're looking at and provide the answer in seconds. It also ties in the personal knowledge that Google already has about you to tie your natural language queries to your specific scenarios.

Facebook has two of them: WhatsApp and Messenger. They're all messaging apps--smartphone apps that let you chat with friends and family. But they're rapidly morphing into something else, a new kind of super communication tool that does so much more than just shuttle texts between people. So, it should come as no surprise that Google is building a new one of its own. The big difference is that, well, it comes from Google.

Like Amazon's Echo, Google Home is a speaker that can keep music and entertainment streaming directly from the cloud to insure top-notch quality. It also offers Cast support, so you can group it with your other speakers for multi-room audio or start playing videos on your television with Chromecast. And yes, both of those are voice-controlled tasks. You can even tell Home to play music on another piece of audio gear in another room rather than the whole group or Home itself. Google Home will also serve as your IoT hub, linking all of those connected household devices like lights, camera, thermostats, small appliances and more.

Google Assistant won't just be helpful for talking to Google itself -- it'll tap into a wide array of services, too. The search firm has revealed that it's working on a "comprehensive way" for third parties to tap into the AI-powered, conversation-oriented helper. You'll have to wait to hear more about it in the "coming months," but there are already some big partners lined up, like OpenTable, Spotify and Uber. On the I/O stage, Google also anticipated developers writing trivia challenges and other games. In short: as with Facebook Messenger and Skype, you may find yourself chatting up all kinds of services in the near future.