Google now lets hardware developers tinker with its Assistant

Google has long said that it wants to open up its Assistant to a broader ecosystem of hardware companies and developers. Today it's taking a major step in this direction with the launch of the Google Assistant SDK, which allows developers to build the Assistant's smarts into their own hardware prototypes. Those could be smart mirrors, Google Home-like appliances or a teetotaler's favorite robot bartender -- the world is your oyster. It's worth stressing that Google is only making the API freely available for building prototypes for now. If you want to commercialize a project, you still need written permission from Google.