It's long been possible to say "Hey Google" to your Google smart speaker to request a playlist from, say, YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, and even Apple Music. But can you spot the major music service that's missing? Until now, Amazon Music had been conspicuously absent from the list of music streamers that Google Assistant could easily control on your Google Nest smart speaker or display. Recently, though, Google has begun changing its tune in regard to Amazon Music support on its Nest devices. As spotted by 9to5Google, Amazon Music can finally be set as a default music service on your Google smart speakers.

The ongoing incursion of artificial intelligence into every app, service, and facet of your life continues. Microsoft's popular Android keyboard app SwiftKey lets you type by swiping across letters on the screen to generate words. Now, SwiftKey is getting a dose of chatbot to spice things up. Microsoft released its AI-enhanced Bing chatbot in February. Since then it has gone up against the other chatbot heavyweights, including Google's Bard and OpenAI's ChatGPT (which powers Bing Chat's backend).

You've thought long and hard about it, and you're finally ready to buy a smart speaker. They're all being heavily marketed for Black Friday sales, and you'd like to ask Siri, Alexa or the Google Assistant to play music, tell you the weather, turn off your TV or lights on command. But you're stuck: Which brand and model to buy? Amazon has five Echo speakers currently available, Google has six and Apple has two. Which one is right for you? And then there are the concerns about security and snooping.

Amazon's smallest Echo has evolved quite a bit over the years. The first Amazon Echo Dot was small and puck-like but didn't have very good audio. In 2018, the company upgraded the Dot's speakers to a new 1.6-inch driver that gave it a lot more bass and overall better performance, plus it had a much more stylish fabric-clad exterior. Last year, Amazon added a new model called the Echo Dot with Clock, which is basically the same thing but with a digital clock on the front. In 2020, however, the company has decided to go… round.

Over the last couple of years, Google has gradually improved YouTube Music with features like playback screen lyrics and an Explore tab. Now, it has unveiled integration with some of its other products, including Android TV, Google Maps and and Google Assistant. The first feature is recommendations via Google Assistant. To use it, you simply say: "Hey Google, play recommended music from YouTube Music," and you'll get personalized music suggestions, including favorite artists and genres, based on your listening history. Unfortunately, this feature is only available on newer Nest speakers and not Google Home devices.

YouTube Music is getting a pair of small but helpful updates today: full support for Siri, and support for being installed as a desktop web app. If you're on an iOS device, you'll now be able to ask Siri to play songs straight from YouTube Music. For the longest time, Siri only supported Apple's own music sources. But in iOS 13, Apple added the ability for Siri to tap into third-party apps with a long-overdue update. Spotify added support for this feature earlier this month, and now YouTube is following suit with support from its own music streaming service. Today's other new feature, desktop web app support, means you can now have a standalone YouTube Music app on your computer, instead of having to visit the site in your browser.

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.

If you've taken the leap and added this cute little button of a machine to your smart home arsenal, congratulations! The Google Home Mini is about to revolutionize your life in ways you probably haven't realized it was even capable of yet. While you won't ever get the same sound quality out of the Google Home Mini as you could expect from it's OG sibling (the Google Home), it is comparable in pretty much every other way. Fun fact: If you've got multiple Google devices within earshot (your phone, the Google Home, a few Google Home Minis…) and they all hear you call out an "OK, Google," or "Hey, Google," at once, they'll sync up to ensure only one replies. And that's just the beginning of what this mini smart speaker is capable of.

Matching Amazon's new free music offer on Echo speakers, Google now offers owners of the Google Home speaker access to free tunes, via YouTube Music. There's a big difference: songs are sponsored on Amazon Echo speakers, while tunes for Google users are free. Additionally, they can be listened on both the Google Home speaker line, and any speaker that has the Google Assistant, Google's Siri/Alexa like helper. That includes the brands Sony, JBL, Harman and others. What you can't get is on-demand song selection, but instead playlists or radio stations created based on your requests.

Starting today, YouTube Music is offering a free, ad-supported experience on Google Home speakers and other Google Assistant-powered speakers. Just navigate to account settings, tap services and select music, then set YouTube Music as the default music service. Then it's just a case of saying "Hey Google, play [whatever]" and you're away. However, the ad-supported YouTube Music experience won't let you request specific songs, albums or playlist. Instead, you can tell it a genre or style or mood of music you're looking for and your Google Home will play a station based on that request. As before, YouTube Music Premium subscribers can request specific songs, artists and playlists on demand.