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Sonos’ Google lawsuit says what every smaller tech company was thinking: working with big tech sucks - The Verge

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 04:00 AM PST

It's the first "official" day of CES, when glitzy keynotes are replaced with grungy, sweaty crowds shuffling from booth to booth set up on the hideous carpets of the Las Vegas show floor. I love it.

I intentionally kept my calendar as open as possible so I could go experience the full spectrum of what's on tap here this year. I saw everything from the neon-lit horde in Samsung City (what we call its massive booth) to the locker-room-smelling funk of "Eureka Park," where the tiniest of businesses rent the tiniest of kiosks, all crammed together by the thousands.

Employees from every part of that spectrum are out tonight and I feel very confident in saying that many of them are raising a toast in thanks to a company that isn't here: Sonos.

As often happens at CES, the biggest news of CES didn't happen at CES and yet was nevertheless custom designed for maximum impact at CES: Sonos has sued Google for allegedly stealing smart speaker tech.

The New York Times story that broke the news contains many eye-popping details if you've followed the saga of getting the Google Assistant working on Sonos speakers. It was a process that took seemingly forever, and despite asking many, many times why it took so long, nobody could give a satisfactory answer for why.

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I asked Google for comment on the Sonos suit and got the same one as before, however this time with a new line, emphasized below:

Over the years, we have had numerous ongoing conversations with Sonos about both companies' IP rights and we are disappointed that Sonos brought these lawsuits instead of continuing negotiations in good faith. Google's technology was developed independently by Google — it was not copied from Sonos. We dispute these claims and will defend them vigorously.

That new line is Google explicitly saying it didn't copy Sonos' technology, but it doesn't address Sonos' claims that it told Google it was infringing Sonos' patents four times since 2016. And not copying something on purpose doesn't mean you haven't infringed the patents, especially if the patent owner keeps telling you there's a problem.

Nilay Patel has pointed out that Sonos has already won a case against Denon with at least two of these patents. So I wouldn't expect either Google or Sonos to stand down quickly on this lawsuit. I am very far from qualified to talk about the merits of the lawsuit itself, but I think the reason the news hit so hard is that it tonally feels right.

Likely because it could affect the proceedings, Sonos executives weren't directly quoted in the NYT outside of a prepared statement from CEO Patrick Spence. They seem to have spoken bluntly with Jack Nicas and Daisuke Wakabayashi about what's been going on, however. This paragraph in particular rings true to me:

Like many companies under the thumb of Big Tech, Sonos groused privately for years. But over the past several months, Patrick Spence, Sonos's chief executive, decided he couldn't take it anymore.

This (in addition to some off-the-record comments from another company's executive from that were relayed to me) is why I am quite confident that a lot of people are thanking Sonos for forcefully saying (forcefully suing?) what they've all been thinking for a long time.

This all relates to the theme I wrote about earlier this week: that CES is seen to not matter because only smaller companies bother trying to make a splash here anymore. Over the course of years, more and more types of gadgets have become vassals of an ecosystem run by a bigger company.

This trend has only accelerated with the rise of digital assistants. Where before the gadgets that were beholden to big platforms tended to be phone accessories, everything is now supposed to work with Alexa, the Google Assistant, and Siri.

So CES is, in some ways, a convention where tens of thousands of people from thousands of companies meet to show off how they intend to survive in a world ruled by the big tech companies. No wonder it's less relevant than ever.

Will this open a floodgate of other companies coming out and saying publicly what they've felt privately, that they're increasingly spending their time thinking about Amazon and Google instead of their customers?

In some places, smaller tech companies already are. They're just speaking in places with stronger regulatory protections to curb Big Tech, places like the European Union. Spotify's lawsuit against Apple's App Store "tax" comes to mind.

Here in the US, the step before going public is likely all of those people talking to each other about it, probably over drinks in Las Vegas. Sonos perfectly timed its announcement so that it would be the talk of the show, one hour before the doors opened. Usually at CES, the awkward thing you say when you don't know what to say is "How is the show for you? Seen anything good?" Yesterday, it was "Did you see the news about Sonos? Whoa."

The other thing that rings true in the NYT story is the detail that Google told Sonos it would pull Google Assistant support if Sonos enabled simultaneous wake words. That's the feature which lets speakers listen for both "Alexa" and "Okay Google" at the same time. Google really comes off looking like a bully.

Amazon doesn't come out of this story cleanly, either. Apparently Amazon also threatened to pull support at one point, and according to the NYT, the only reason Sonos didn't also sue Amazon was that it can't afford to take both companies on at once.

It all could put a radically different spin on Amazon's motivations for forming an alliance to get companies to make their assistants to interoperate. An alliance Google hasn't joined, by the way, and neither have Apple or Samsung.

In an interview with Chris Welch of The Verge last night, Amazon hardware boss Dave Limp said that "we would never ask any company for exclusivity." But he dodged a bit when asked if Echoes hurt Sonos' chances in the market, saying:

As long as they and others continue to differentiate, customers will find them. It's not about at any given time, a price point or a set of features. It's about how do you define your brand and what your brand stands for and how it's differentiated. And I'm very optimistic that Sonos can navigate that path.

Chris' full interview with Dave Limp will be up on The Verge later this morning, keep an eye out for it.

Four years ago I wrote a piece warning that the move to digital assistants would mean that a lot more of what we see "online" (if that term even applies to talking to a smart speaker) would be determined by backroom deals. It turns out I wasn't pessimistic enough: those same deals are also determining what kind of gadgets get made and what they're allowed to do in the first place.

It's no wonder so many of the people here at CES feel like they need a drink.

CES News

└ Listen to The Vergecast's first CES 2020 episode

We'll do a couple of Vergecast chat shows this week -- this was the first and only one we did live. Always love doing a podcast in front of a live audience. Thank you to all who came!

Also: I know I promised category roundup and they're coming, but have decided to leave them to our reporters who are best suited to each one. In the meantime, here's what happened yesterday.

└ I tasted Impossible Pork at CES 2020

Well, not me. Liz Lopatto and Becca Farsace did. Apparently it's pretty accurate but really salty. Don't miss the video.

└ Inside Intel's Ghost Canyon NUC, the incredibly small modular desktop PC

Intel is taking two different ideas it's been working on for awhile and crammed them together to make something genuinely interesting. The idea is to make your CPU and motherboard as easily replaceable as any other part. Intel has some other manufacturers on board with the idea, too.

└ Razer's first desktop gaming PC is the stunning modular Tomahawk

...like Razer, for example.

└ The best part of the OnePlus Concept One isn't the disappearing camera

Add another concept to the pile I wrote about yesterday. Really happy with how this video turned out.

└ Delta will add a 'binge button' to its inflight entertainment screens

Everyone, including me, is assuming that dozens of people trying to pair Bluetooth headphones to their seatback entertainment systems will be a disaster. But what if it just sort of turns out to not be that bad? It's not like Bluetooth pairing is a wonderful experience anyway.

Delta recently started retrofitting its planes with new wireless seatback screens, which frees up more room underneath each seat. These new screens will also allow passengers to use Bluetooth headphones during their flights. ... The screens will also be able to mirror your smartphone, and Delta says other new features will be added at a quicker pace than in the past.

└ The Google Assistant will be able to read articles out loud in 42 languagesandwill finally let you schedule actions for later

Phone accessories are still a thing

└ Insta360's One R shape-shifts between a 360 and an action camera

Becca Farsace has been using this completely modular and completely endearing camera system for a little while. You can swap out camera modules, adjust the screen to face the direction you want, and take it underwater to boot.

Pretty much every modular gadget in recent memory has been a bust. For whatever reason, I feel like this one makes enough sense that it could have a shot. It's really quite clever. Becca has full impressions of what it's like to use.

└ Razer made another Switch-like mobile gamepad, but this one works with Android and iOS

Gamepads you attach to your phone have until recently felt like weird curiosities. They still are in some ways, but with Apple Arcade, Microsoft xCloud, PlayStation Remote Play, and Google Stadia maybe that could change.

└ PopSockets made its own wireless charging pad so you don't have to take the PopSocket off your phone

I know know if this will get me to become a PopSocket person, but I do know that the wireless charging hassles was blocking me from becoming one before today. Really good idea and glad to see the designs aren't boring.

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Every new Google Assistant feature and how to use them on your Google Home and phone - CNET

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 05:00 AM PST

Google Booth CES 2020 — Google's booth at CES 2020 was all about Assistant.
James Martin/CNET

This story is part of CES 2020, our complete coverage of the showroom floor and the hottest new tech gadgets around.

Google Assistant has become a fixture at CES, with the tech giant dedicating an entire booth (complete with slides) to the digital voice assistant. Google's ambition is clear -- to become the one platform to rule your home, through a combination of a Google Home ($79 at Walmart) device and the Google Assistant app on your phone.

Google's new features and an emphasis on privacy are part of a calculated move in the heated battle against Amazon to own the smart home market. Google Assistant has 500 million monthly users and is on over a billion devices. Amazon's Alexa assistant is installed on "hundreds of millions" of devices, Amazon said this week, more than doubling its presence in a year.

Assistant's new tools include scheduling actions, digital sticky notes and a privacy tool to make your Google Home or other Google Assistant-enabled smart device disregard what you said. Here are the six new features Google announced that will arrive later this year, and how you'll use them.

Now playing: Watch this: These smart displays are beautiful

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Link Google devices with Assistant in the app

Google is trying to make it easier for you to link your account to a smart home device that isn't made by Google, for example the C smart light bulbs or Ecobee smart thermostat. That's a boon for setting up new devices, which can take more leg work to get discovered and linked in Home.

Now, when you set up a new device with the manufacturer's app, Google will push a notification to your phone that you can select to automatically add your information.

Schedule actions for later

If you have any devices in your home that are compatible with Google Assistant -- say a microwave, TV or smart plug ($25 at Amazon) -- you can use a new feature called Scheduled Actions to control it.

You'll be able to say things like:

Hey, Google, start the coffee-maker at 6 a.m.
Hey, Google, turn off the TV at 9 p.m.
Hey, Google, turn on the robot vacuum cleaner at 3 p.m.

The feature will come out in 2020 to more than 20 devices.

google-nest-hub-max-21 — The Nest Hub Max and other smart displays will work with Google's digital sticky notes.
Angela Lang/CNET

Digital sticky notes for everyone

Called Household Notes, this next feature reenvisions Post-It Notes for a smart display. The idea is for anyone nearby to see the note, even if they're not voice-matched to the display.

You'll simply say, "OK, Google, leave a note. I already fed the cat" to create the sticky note. The new tool will roll out over the next few months.

Household contacts

Another shared feature for the entire household is a speed dial called Household Contacts. You'll need a smart display to use it.

The family member with the master account (the one who sets up the device) can make a master list of phone numbers -- say, the babysitter, Grandma or your favorite restaurant for take-out. That way, anyone can place a call without having to look up the phone number first.

The list of contacts can be added during device setup, or from the Google Assistant app on your phone. To use it, you'll say, "Hey, Google, call Grandma" or by tapping the contact name from the contact list.

google-home-nest-mini-1522 — Little by little, Google is making smart speakers smarter.
James Martin/CNET

Google Assistant can read long stories aloud

Google Assistant can already read to you, for example, audiobooks and emails. Now, Google's expanding that to read longer articles aloud.

You'll simply say, "Hey, Google, read this page," for Assistant to begin. The page also scrolls with you so you don't lose your place. You can translate it into 42 languages. It'll be available in the next couple of months.

New privacy controls

There are two new privacy-related tools to use with Google Assistant. If you think you accidentally triggered Google Assistant, you can say "Hey, Google, that wasn't for you" to make it disregard anything you said.

Google likes to use Google Assistant to communicate what it's doing in terms of privacy. You'll also be able to ask, "Hey, Google, are you saving my audio data?" Google Assistant will tell you about privacy controls and open the settings screen on your phone app to review your preferences.

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