Google Home and Google Assistant unveiled - promises to follow you wherever you go

Machine learning added to Google Assistant and the ability to follow you from (Google) device to device

Google has announced a slew of new products and initiatives intended to draw together its disjointed Google Now / OK Google / Google App offerings.

The announcements were made at Google's annual I/O developer conference. Google Assistant is intended to give the service-with-no-name a clearer identity, with added machine learning to make conversations easier. The concept is an "ambient" ongoing dialogue between the user and Google, which contextualises what you've already said to make it easier to use natural language.

What sets it apart from previous efforts is that it travels from device to device owned by the user (much like Cortana) and is therefore able to pick up the thread of what it is being asked in a different room, and on a different device.

To that end, the big gadget of the day was Google Home, a device intended to take on the likes of Amazon's Echo as a permanent 'presence' in the home. It has a Wi-Fi speaker with always-on listening from Google, and the ability to act as an 'OK Google' as we currently know it, and a home controller.

What was interesting about Google Home is that it was an idea demonstrated more in theory than in practice. The demonstrations were disclaimed with phrases like "It's early days" and "This is how we see it looking in the future."

It also looks like a Glade Sense and Spray air freshener.

Home, and Assistant as a whole, is intended to work across the Android/Google infrastructure, so a command like 'Show me a picture of Nick Knowles on the big TV' could involve Android TV or Chromecast.

The same "consciousness" would follow you to a car running Android Auto and live in your phone. Basically, this is Google bringing HAL 9000 to life, hopefully without the paranoid schizophrenic psychopathy.

Google Home will formally launch later this year in a variety of speaker grille covers. Pricing is also yet to be disclosed.

Assistant will start to appear in apps, starting with the new messaging apps Allo and Duo and will be an evolution of the existing OK Google service.