Not OK, Google

At its hardware launch event in San Francisco yesterday, Alphabet showed the sweeping breadth of its ambition to own consumers' personal data, as computing continues to accelerate away from static desktops and screens, coalescing into a cloud of connected devices with the potential to generate far more data -- and data of a far more intimate nature -- than ever before. Along with two new "Google designed" flagship Android smartphones (called Pixel), the first Androids to be preloaded with the company's AI assistant (the Google Assistant) and also including fully unlimited cloud storage to suck users' photos and videos into Google's cloud, there were Google Wifi routers, designed to be bought in bundles to plug all those pesky in-home internet blackspots; the Google Home always listening connected speaker, which is voice-controlled via the Google Assistant and has limited support for third-party IoT devices (such as Philips Hue lightbulbs); an updated Chromecast (the Ultra) to ensure any legacy TV panels are internet-enabled; and Google's less disposable mobile VR play, aka the soft-touch Daydream View headset -- just in case consumer eyeballs seek to stray outside the data-mined smart home by escaping into virtual reality. The scope of Alphabet's ambition for the Google brand is clear: It wants Google's information organizing brain to be embedded right at the domestic center -- i.e. In other words, your daily business is Google's business. "We're moving from a mobile-first world to an AI-first world," said CEO Sundar Pichai kicking off yesterday's event.