If Google Home proves more capable than the Echo at responding intelligently to a wide range of queries--and I suspect it will, given Google's expertise in search and natural language--then it might not matter that it has a dumb name. Amazon pioneered the smart speaker category, but Google may be best equipped to perfect it. That could go a long way toward establishing Google Assistant as the new Google search--your default portal to the online realm. How exactly Google will monetize it, the company will have to figure out: Selling ads against search queries is one obvious possibility. Regardless, the history of the Internet suggests that if a company finds a way to monopolize a given type of online behavior, piles of money will follow.

I loved the Chromecast since the first one came out, and I've already ordered Google's just-released Chromecast Ultra. This latest Chromecast is faster than ever and will enable you to watch both 4K and high-dynamic range (HDR) video. The Chromecast Ultra brings more than 4K video to your high-end television. It brings Google Assistant into your home. Google claims that the Ultra is far faster than earlier Chromecasts.

USA TODAY takes a look at Google Home, Google's new voice-activated digital speaker, in the hands-on room at an event in San Francisco. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. USA TODAY takes a look at Google Home, Google's new voice-activated digital speaker, in the hands-on room at an event in San Francisco.

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Today marked Google's biggest hardware launch yet. Not only did it announce two Pixel phones and a Daydream VR headset -- it also unveiled a slew of products for the living room. We already heard about Google Home, its voice-powered assistant-and-Bluetooth speaker combo at the company's I/O developer conference this year. New today, though, was a mesh networking router and an updated Chromecast. We took a closer look at all three immediately after the event and came away with a dream of a Google-powered home.

Google is pretty serious about its plan to take over your home. The company on Tuesday offered more details on its smart speaker and home hub, Google Home, as an answer to Amazon's Echo speaker. But Google -- perhaps knowing that it's starting a little bit behind -- has been sure to hook the Home into Google's broader suite of services to make the concept of the smart home more affordable. Home will work with Google's Chromecast video and audio streaming devices -- 69 and 35, respectively -- so that customers can upgrade their current speakers and televisions with little fuss and not that much cash. When the whole system is in place, users can use their voices to call up YouTube videos on their televisions or ask for a specific song to play through their non-Google speakers. Home itself will also be able to play music.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai talks about the Google Assistant, which will power the company's new line of smartphones and a voice-activated speaker. Google CEO Sundar Pichai talks about the Google Assistant, which will power the company's new line of smartphones and a voice-activated speaker. Google's products are everywhere: maps, Gmail, the Chrome browser, the Chromecast video/audio system, the Android mobile operating system, YouTube, Waze. But the company has been far less successful at selling things rather than software. Earlier this year, Google scrapped the project to build a modular phone; its Nexus phones and tablets are laggards of the industry; and we'll never forget the crash-and-burn of Google Glass.

Google has unveiled its hotly-anticipated new Pixel smartphones, which are branded with the Google logo on the back. The new glass and aluminum phones come with Google Assistant included, a made-by-Google artificially-intelligent assistant that can do things like make dinner reservations through OpenTable. The devices come in two sizes, 5 and 5.5 inches, and are available immediately for pre-order, Google said. "While Pixel's beautiful, what really makes it come to life is how the hardware and software work together," Rick Osterloh, senior vice president of Google's hardware division, said at the San Francisco event, during which they heavily emphasized the importance of the Google Assistant. The Pixel phones will come in three colors, which Google calls "quite black," "very silver" and "really blue."

Google's product announcement in San Francisco Tuesday centered on the company's answer to Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri: Google Assistant. SEE ALSO: Pixel is here: Follow Google's event live The tech behemoth announced a slew of new products that integrate with the artificial intelligence technology, the most noteworthy of which is the first Google flagship phone, the Pixel. "When I look ahead at where computing is headed it's clear to me that we are evolving from a mobile first to an AI first world," Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, told the audience at the start of the presentation. Another big trend was the Internet of Things. For the first time, Google presented a comprehensive hardware catalog that could reasonably be used in unison to power a complete smart home.