Several months ago, Amazon dropped surprise news about the next generation of their Echo devices.

While the updates to Echo, Echo Plus, and others were expected, the announcement of an Echo device dedicated to the automobile was a surprising addition to the mix. Echo Auto was designed to live in the car, working through the Amazon Alexa app to give the user hands-free functionality for content and entertainment in their cars.

Much more info and some videos and images can be found below.

On this week’s The Drill Down podcast, Amazon follows Apple to one trillion, France bans smartphones in school, California fights for Net Neutrality, Social Media comes before Congress … and much, much more.

On this week’s The Drill Down podcast, Netflix is bigger than Disney (briefly), is Amazon secretly recording your conversations?, has your internet router been hijacked by Russian hackers?, why you’re seeing all those pesky privacy notices… and much, much more.

This week’s The Drill Down podcast, does President Trump have a beef with Jeff Bezos? Amazon sells your face to law enforcement, Elon Musk drives journalists and reviewers crazy, a parrot who uses Amazon Echo (Alexa!) … and much, much more.

This week, a global ransomware hack will make you WannaCry, Google’s I/O Conference, babies made from skin cells, Apple builds a new spaceship, and a pizza box, plus much, much more.

This week on The Drill Down podcast, Hulu’s skinny bundle, Facebook fixes Live, Amazon has something new to Show, boots that keep you running, and Net Neutrality needs your help again, plus much, much more.

On this week’s Drill Down podcast, a wiki for fake news, an Amazon Echo with a camera, The Pope gives a TED Talk, an artificial womb, and… yes, Uber’s shenanigans are in the news again, all this and much much more.

Google Home is a little device that plugs into the wall and responds to your voice. It can play recorded music or the radio through services like Google Play Music and TuneIn, and it can respond to questions based on the knowledge Google has amassed throughout the 21st century. If you’ve got the correct hardware at home, like a Nest Thermostat, Samsung’s Smartthings, or Philips hue, Google Home can allow you to control some of your home’s functions with your voice.

We’ve had some time to get to know the Google Home and there are a LOT of things to like about it. Its voice recognition is robust and its audio is impressive for being a little tiny speaker. At the same time, when one looks at Google Home through the lens of a smarthome, AI, product, one quickly realizes that the device is not quite where the demonstrations were during the 2016 Google IO developers conference, nor is it a device that delivers on the promise of its advertisements.

This week’s Drill Down podcast, Silicon Valley responds to the election of Donald Trump, fake news on the internet, Apple wrote the book on product design…and it’s for sale, and much more.

This week, Elon Musk wants to hack the human brain, Netflix wants to bust a cap in data caps, is Facebook abusing its power as a news source?, ageism in tech, 50 years of Star Trek… and much, much more.