Google's new smart speaker fixes your sound quality with AI

Not 10 minutes after Amazon's surprise announcement of new Echo devices last week, I walked into a small meeting room in Google's Mountain View headquarters to hear about the new Google Home Mini and Google Home Max. If there was ever a sign that Google had a big hill to climb to stay competitive in home speakers, this was it. But Rishi Chandra, Google's GM of Home products, was characteristically relaxed about the whole thing, even joking about it. "It only shows we're in the early stages of this area, let's just say that. Chandra is going to need to hang on to that sense of humor, because even though Google is expanding its lineup of smart speakers, Amazon has clearly captured consumers' imaginations in a way that the Google Home has not. Amazon is in the lead in this category, even though, in some ways, the Google Home and the Google Assistant are more technically advanced than what Amazon has been offering. Part of Amazon's success has come because it's been able to offer lots of ...