Welcome to the Tech Meme Ride Home for Friday August 17th 2018. I'm Brian McCullough

today. A Google Smart Speaker with a Screen.

The crypto mining fad is fading.

Silicon Valley has lost a piece of its history.

The secret Netflix categories that no one ever knew about,

and the Weekend Long long reads suggestions.

Here's what you miss today in the world of tech.

The Nike Asian Review is reporting that Google is preparing to launch its own smart speaker

with a display similar to the Amazon Echo Show and they're planning to do so in time for the

holiday season this year. Apparently three million units are planned for the

first production batch and this is despite the fact that according to analyst estimates

sales of the echo show have actually been underwhelming.

Quote Google's upcoming model with the display is still likely to rely on voice commands,

but users should be able to play YouTube videos, check their calendars, and view maps.

Some industry executives predict more smart speakers will hit the market with displays as image and video recognition features catch on.

For all of 2017, 35 million smart speakers were shipped worldwide.

Amazon took the top market share at 63% last year

while Google controlled 32% on other players fought over the scraps.

Google, however, accounted for 36% of around 9 million units shipped in the January to March

period of 2018 with Amazon's share falling to 28%. Remember that scoop from the AP earlier in the week that Google is probably still tracking your location even when you seemingly have turned location

tracking off in settings.

Well, Google pushed back on that story, but actually reading back at Google's responses this morning, they didn't actually

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