Google Home can now tell who's talking

Among the first things you might ask the cloud-based voice activated Google Assistant inside Google Home is to "tell me about my day." Google Assistant will then rattle off the local weather, upcoming appointments, and connect you to preferred news sources. Until now, though, the standalone artificial intelligence-infused $129 speaker--Google's rival to Amazon's popular Alexa voice-based Echo speaker--couldn't distinguish your voice from that of a spouse, partner or roommate. On Wednesday, Google began rolling out a feature to remedy the situation in households with a shared Google Home unit: the ability for up to six people to connect their account to that unit and, following a brief training period, have the speaker recognize each person's voice independently. Google Home can then deliver their commute times, calendars, playlists, and so on--not yours.