Google Play Music is currently the best streaming music service for people who have their own music collections. The service lets users upload 50,000 of their own music files, then access the audio on a wide range of streaming devices. It's a great way to access your own music files from anywhere, and it doesn't cost a dime. Unfortunately, the free ride is just about over. At the end of this year, Google will discontinue Google Play Music and push users over to YouTube Music as a replacement.

Google Home is down globally for at least some of its users. The problem might be a glitched Google update for its assistant that was intended to increase privacy. Try again in a few seconds." Alternatively, Google says: "There was a glitch. Try again in a few seconds."

Google has confirmed that many Home speaker and Chromecast users around the world are unable to use their devices, even after a reboot. The company didn't say why, and didn't have an estimated time of repair as of this writing. However, the issue has been inconsistent -- my Home Mini could respond to commands, while TechCrunch colleagues received an error. There are claims that the outage may have stemmed from an unsuccessful update, but there isn't any firm evidence of this at the moment. One thing's clear: this is bound to be frustrating if you rely heavily on Google's ecosystem to power your smart home.