Hello, Alexa. Hey, Google: Getting your smart speaker up and running

Get used to people in your house saying "What?" a lot. If you just got a new smart speaker from Amazon or Google, you'll be barking commands out loud, and people around you may wonder what's going on. You'll be engaging in the next step of computing, voice style, using Google or Amazon speakers (or perhaps Siri in Apple's HomePod or Microsoft's Cortana in Invoke from Harman Kardon) to ask for a specific music selection or playlist, the weather, latest news or podcast, the answer to a math problem or how to spell a word. The smart speaker market is dominated by Amazon and Google, so we'll focus here on those two. They were among the most heavily marketed during the holidays, with massive discounts for the entry-level Echo Dot and Google Home Mini at under $25, so we expect them to be under many trees.