Meet Home, Google's answer to Amazon Echo

Jefferson Graham reports from Google's I/O developer conference, where the Internet giant introduced new home products and apps aimed at having Google make your life easier. The standalone 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, Google I/O. 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 computing. Though smartphones still hold a lock human-computing interactions, the surprise hit of Amazon's Echo speaker has energized a new category: speakers run by digital assistants connected to a tech giant's app and content ecosystem. Google Home project lead Mario Querioz held the device in his palm, revealing a design that was shorter and wider than Amazon's cylindrical Echo, which is powered by Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa.