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In the battle of the buds, our "taste test" was striking. A friend and I both compared listening to the Foo Fighters "Learn to Fly" on Amazon's new Echo Buds and the product it aims to emulate, what Apple calls the best-selling headphone "in the world," the AirPods. The Amazon product "sounded tinnier," said Jan Schreiber, a Laguna Beach, California-based photographer. The AirPods had richer bass and a fuller sound. We switched to other songs, and the verdict didn't change.

There's a reason a new product announced by Amazon 12 months ago never got released to the general public. The product has an unbelievably affordable price at $25 and was only offered initially by "invite-only," on a first-come, first-come basis. I did get my invite recently, forked over the big bucks, and tested the unit in my 2012 Hyundai. The tiny unit, which looks like the old iPod Nano, but with an Amazon smile splashed across the front, connects to the 12-volt car socket for power, and your smartphone's Bluetooth to bring the Internet to your car, thus bringing audio through your car stereo without hanging to hassle with wires. Amazon's Echo Auto brings Alexa into the car (Photo: Jefferson Graham) Look who's listening now: Hey, Siri, Google and Alexa – enough with the snooping The good: You can bring Amazon's personal assistant to the car, to play on-demand music, news and podcasts for you, read back your latest e-mail, find the nearest gas station, tell you what's on your calendar and help you locate the nearest Starbucks.

A year ago, we were so impressed with what was then called the Google Home Hub, we called it one of the top 10 best tech products of 2018, with one caveat. We wished it could be bigger. Now, the all-new, and yes, larger version is in stores, with a bigger 10-inch screen (up from 7 inches) higher price tag ($229, vs. $129) and a confusing new name. The new Google Nest Hub Max, with a ten-inch screen, back to back with the old Nest Hub, with a 7-inch screen. The old Home Hub is now called the Nest Hub, and the larger, new version is the Nest Hub Max.

For years, the Sonos Wi-Fi speakers have been beloved by music fans for the ease of listening to streaming music at home with great sound. Also, add the ability to add multiple speakers for even better sound without having to resort to stringing speaker wire all over. The one drawback: Sonos speakers can be pricey, topping off at $499 per speaker and even higher for the $699 TV Playbar. So good news consumers: The most affordable way to get into the Sonos system goes on sale Thursday. But you won't find the speakers at Best Buy, Amazon or any of the other retailers which usually stock Sonos products.

Apple is offering iPhone users a way to bypass Facebook's and Google's sign-in services when using new apps. That era actually ended quite some time ago. Remember when iPhones were tied to the desktop for updates? So when Apple confirmed Monday that its next desktop operating system upgrade would split up iTunes into three separate apps, for music, TV shows and movies and podcasts, it seemed like an afterthought. "It's a rounding error," something that should have been done a long time ago, says Gene Munster, an analyst and investor with Loup Ventures, iTunes "had gotten way too big."

Not all voice assistants can handle the same requests. We put Siri, Alexa and Google to the test. LOS ANGELES – When you pose the simplest of questions to Siri and it can't answer "what's 1% of $1 million," yet Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant can, you know just how far behind Apple's assistant has fallen to rivals. Siri was the first voice assistant, announced in 2011 for the iPhone 4S, but over the past several years, Amazon and Google have rolled over it, by investing heavily and introducing many new features, while Siri "hasn't moved forward much," says Bret Kinsella, who runs the Voicebot.ai Apple traditionally takes center stage at its Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) to unveil new software features to whet app makers' appetites, and often they involve Siri.

Sure, Siri can open Netflix for you and search for a George Clooney movie, but only if you spring $179 to $199 for the Apple TV accessory streamer. Now, Apple's personal assistant can turn on the TV, change the channel and find a specific TV show, on certain newer TVs from Vizio, Samsung, Sony and LG. It's part of a radical rethink on Apple's part to bring Apple outside of the ecosystem, and onto mainstream television sets. Samsung pushed out Apple's AirPlay features on new smart TVs that began shipping May 13. AirPlay lets you mirror what's on your device.

DJI is treading on GoPro's turf with their new Osmo Action camera featuring their "rock steady" stabilization. How does it compare with the Hero 7? Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY And it acts like it as well, with a caveat: The company that makes it, Chinese drone-maker DJI, says video footage on its Osmo Action camera is smoother than on the GoPro. We tried the camera in a back-to-back shootout with the GoPro Hero 7 Black, and the "RockSteady" footage isn't steadier and is, in fact, barely as smooth as the GoPro. But it is less wild and saturated, meaning that if you use an action camera to shoot footage of human beings, as opposed to surfing, cycling, hiking and the like, your subjects are going to look better. My guess is, though, that you want the camera for action, not portraits.

A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Amazon acquired another startup this week, the maker of the beloved tech product Eero, a mesh router that improves dead Wi-Fi spots in the home. To that, you might have said, OK, so? But, more importantly, it's an indication of how Amazon wants to go further than just making our homes "smart." It wants to turn our dwellings into the "Amazon Home."