NEW YORK (AP) – Google announced a lot of new bells and whistles Wednesday – several of which, it turns out, are already offered by rivals such as Amazon, Apple and Facebook.
These days, it’s not unusual to find tech giants and their plucky startup rivals copying each other’s tools and features – sometimes improving on them and sometimes just playing catch-up.
___
ECHOING THE ECHO
Google added features to its internet-connected Home speaker – such as hands-free calling. That echoes Amazon’s Echo speaker, which was released earlier and so has had more time to acquire a wider range of abilities.