Alphabet is folding Nest, led by CEO Marwan Fawaz (right), into Google's hardware team, led by former Motorola executive Rick Osterloh (left). Google is bringing gadget maker Nest back under its control as the search giant battles rivals Amazon and Apple in the rapidly expanding smart home market. A big part of the change: Making it easier to add Google's artificial intelligence technology and Assistant -- a digital helper that competes against Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri -- into new Nest products. The world's largest search engine has staked its future on building Google smarts into devices beyond smartphones. On Wednesday, Google said Nest was part of its plans and would no longer operate as a separate division that lived in the outer orbit of parent company Alphabet's "Other Bets" group of projects.

Tony Fadell is at the Grove, a spectacularly beautiful country estate outside of London. The event is Founders Forum: the ultra exclusive invite-only tech conference. Prince William is in the house. The guest list is lousy with knights and lesser officers of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Marissa Mayer, the now ex-CEO of Yahoo, and Biz Stone, recently returned to Twitter, are mingling with the other hundred or so invitees.

Google is packing its facial recognition and other tools into perhaps the smartest burglar alarm ever made. Home device maker nest – which is owned by Google's parent company, Alphabet – build upon the company's smart thermostat and smoke alarms in an attempt to revive the troubled brand. The company has been selling much the same products since it started six years ago, but has finally rolled out a new suite of security products intended to keep people's home safe. The central feature of the new alarm system is that it can recognise its owners but spot intruders, allowing it to smartly watch over the house. Although Nest has been among the early leaders in the effort to make home appliances as intelligent as people's smartphones, it hasn't been able to make money to the frustration of its corporate parent, Alphabet.

"We have better light rings than any other products on the market," says Adam Mittleman. This is a sentence that I have never before heard uttered by anyone, even after a long time living on Planet Earth. But because I am visiting Nest, and Mittleman is its Head of Product Design, working on a new gadget that this startup-turned-controversial Alphabet division is launching, I can't say I am surprised. After all, light rings--the shimmering glow-circles that allow digital appliances to provide feedback--have been a leitmotif for Nest throughout its eventful journey of disrupting the home. Nest has given a lot of thought to them. Naturally, there is a light ring on the Nest Guard, which is the hub of the Nest Secure suite. That suite has been in the works since well before the company was acquired by Google in January 2014 and then underwent a second recalibration in October 2015 when Google made Nest one of the divisions ("bets") in the Alphabet archipelago. Depending on the message the new Nest Guard wants to convey, its ring might glow red, yellow or green.

Take a look at a list of Google's 144 latest acquisitions and you'll notice most seem to have little in common. The seemingly random pattern of buyouts has a number of technology experts wondering just what the company is up to. This week Google bought SlickLogin, an Israeli startup that uses high-frequency sound waves as the basis of a smart-ID login system. A few weeks ago Google bought Nest, a company that develops thermostats and smoke alarms that are connected to the internet. In December its target was a slew of robotics companies, leading many to jovially question whether or not the company plans to develop an army of robots.

Silicon Valley – and Wall Street – have a new king. Alphabet, the company formerly known as Google, looks set to become the world's largest publicly traded company on Tuesday thanks to a spike in its share price, following exceptionally good results and a decision to come clean on how its makes and spends its money. Google's Alphabet set to overtake Apple as world's most valuable company Less than a year after it stormed past Berkshire Hathaway, ExxonMobil and Microsoft on its way to the top, the company's value has passed Apple. Tuesday will see whether it can hold on to those gains but the battle is on. In the past six months alone, since Google restructured to become Alphabet, its cap has risen by $200bn (£139bn), almost doubling its total value.

He was a key Apple employee, known as the'father of the iPod' - and now Tony Fadell, who also invested the Nest smart thermostat, has beaten his old employer to launch an electric vehicle. The 600 Arrow'smart-kart' includes includes GPS and WiFi to keep drivers safe, and is aimed at 5-9 year olds. Parents using a mobile app can geofence the kart's driving area, limit the top speed or even hit a stop button in an emergency. The 600 Arrow'smart-kart' includes includes GPS and WiFi to keep drivers safe, and is aimed at 5-9 year olds. There's also a proximity sensor to automatically prevent accidents.

Google became one of the most powerful companies on the planet by addressing a once-in-a-generation problem: Make it easy for people to search for stuff online. Alphabet, Google's parent company, is hard at work tinkering with a sweep of projects, from Wi-Fi-connected thermostats to nanoparticles for detecting cancer. Sales from those projects, which Alphabet calls "Other Bets," brought in 166 million last quarter, up from 80 million a year earlier. But losses from those experiments widened to 802 million last quarter from 633 million this time last year. Normally that wouldn't matter much, but pressure is sure to mount after the company's disappointing earnings report on Thursday.

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) are each pursuing unique visions of the smart home, the home as an ever-connected smart device. Home automation has been around as long as the PC, but is still struggling to find the right user interface and functionality that will make this compelling. The fundamental question that remains is just how smart do consumers want or need their homes to be? Amazon's answer to this question is simple: smart enough to understand your voice. Last week, The Information profiled Tony Fadell and the difficulties Nest has had in introducing new products since being acquired by Alphabet. For those who don't subscribe to The Information, there was also a good synopsis of the article in Fortune called The Mess at Nest.

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) are each pursuing unique visions of the smart home, the home as an ever-connected smart device. Home automation has been around as long as the PC, but is still struggling to find the right user interface and functionality that will make this compelling. The fundamental question that remains is just how smart do consumers want or need their homes to be? Amazon's answer to this question is simple: smart enough to understand your voice. Last week The Information profiled Tony Fadell and the difficulties Nest has had in introducing new products since being acquired by Alphabet. For those who don't subscribe to The Information there was also a good synopsis of the article in Fortune called The Mess at Nest.