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.

Google has unveiled Google Home at the I/O developer conference, its competitor to the Amazon Echo. The small, white, button-free speaker will sit anywhere in your home, connecting to all your Google accounts as well as services like Google Maps. Google', you'll be able to command it to complete a number of tasks - checking your calendar, telling you the weather, playing music, ordering taxis or booking cinema tickets. On the face of it, the device is similar to Amazon's Echo, a black monolith which can conduct internet searches and generally run your life. However, Google claims it is "unmatched" in being able to understand natural language.

That has spurred speculation that Google will release a virtual-reality device to compete with Facebook's new Oculus Rift headset, as well as Samsung's Gear VR. Analysts also believe Google may release an artificial-intelligent gadget to compete with Amazon's Echo, which is a cylinder-like device that includes a virtual assistant named Alexa.

Google will introduce its much-anticipated entry into the voice-activated home device market on Wednesday, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Named Google Home, the device is a virtual agent that answers simple questions and carries out basic tasks. It is to be announced at Google's annual developers' conference in Silicon Valley. Google Home will come to market in the fall -- a long time away, given the speed of technology, but Google needed to plant a stake in the ground now. The device will compete with Amazon's Echo, which was introduced less than two years ago.

Google will unveil an Amazon Echo competitor called Google Home tomorrow, according to The New York Times. It's not stated exactly what form the device will take -- a speaker seems like a reasonable guess, but it's only ever referred to as a "voice-activated home device." Like the Echo, it'll be able to answer questions and take commands by voice. Though it'll be demonstrated tomorrow, according to the report, Google Home won't ship until this fall. The early demonstration is somewhat unusual for Google, but there's good reason it may want to unveil it at I/O. Announcing Google Home now would let third party developers begin building out integrations with it, which could then be ready at launch.