GooGle’s Quest Dominate WorlD

THE LAUNCH of Made by Google was big, glitzy and packed to the gills... not just with people but also with the number of products being announced. Two Superphones (Pixel and Pixel XL), a Virtual Reality headset (Daydream), an Amazon Echo-style voice assistant speaker (Google Home) and an all-new Chromecast device (4K version). Exciting, right? Well...

Google and hardware devices have a truly poor history. Google Glass was a failure, the buyout of Motorola ended in shambles, Android One devices would win the award for worst executed idea and even some Nexus devices didn’t do as well as they should have. So let’s dial down that excitement a little and do a reality check for each device announced. It’s made out of fabric, fits you like a glove with no hard plastic bits digging in, and comes with a remote control. This is the bigger and more sophisticated brother of the poor Google Cardboard and takes Virtual Reality to greener pastures. You’ll still have to insert a phone in it (which means you can’t use your phone at the point), continues to have some pixelation issues and will still be a middling experience.

The tech giant’s new offerings are set to disrupt the market, but there’s much to be critical about

CHROMECAST ULTRA

Take a very successful product and upgrade it to 4K. That’s the new Chromecast for you. It still looks like an ice hockey puck and plugs into your TV – but now streams faster and in Ultra HD. Oh, and it costs twice as much as the previous generation.

That’s the Google avalanche of products, part of its strategy to

VIRTUAL DREAM Daydream is a bigger and finer version of Google’s previous VR offering, the Cardboard