Why Google's future is brighter than Apple, Facebook or Amazon

The big razzmatazz show-and-tell press conference has become a staple of the tech world. Like latter day Great Lafayettes, today's tech CEOs produce out of their hat a series of eye-catching (or otherwise) new products to the appreciative applause of an enthusiastic audience. The instant reaction to last week's Google's I/O conference [innovation in the open] was a collective "meh". Allo, a new messaging app; Google Home, another me-too smart home device to rival Amazon's Echo; VR stuff and a few other bits and bobs. Twitter passed its judgement and moved on.