Xiaomi announces Android TV-powered Mi Box, coming soon to U.S

China based Xiaomi has announced Android TV-powered Mi Box at Google's annual developer conference Google I/O. The Mi Box will launch soon in the U.S, with other markets to follow. This is not the first product Xiaomi is bringing to the U.S market, earlier the brand also started selling its accessories in the U.S, but is yet to sell smartphones and tablets.

The Mi Box is a stand-alone set-top box running Android TV 6.0 and supports 4K video playback at 60fps. Inside there is a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor backed by Mali 450 and 2GB RAM. It houses 8GB eMMC flash storage and features an HDMI 2.0a port, USB 2.0 portWiFi ac, Bluetooth 4.0,, Dolby Digital Plus & DTS surround and supports Google Case for wireless mirroring from mobile devices. It comes with the latest HDR 10 standard that offers improved brightness, contrast, and colour without any loss to sharpness or clarity 

It comes bundled with Bluetooth voice remote that allows users to search for content, switch channel, launch apps and more using voice commands. Xiaomi is also offering Mi Game Controller to play games on the Mi Box.

Since the platform is based on Android, Mi Box users can access Google Play and its vast ecosystem of contents, apps and games. YouTube, Netflix, Vudu and FandangoNow will also be offering contents to the Mi Box.

The launch of Mi Box in the U.S will be quite significant for Xiaomi, as it would be hoping to make it presence felt in the U.S and use it to make a bigger name for itself in the western market. The pricing will be announced close to launch.

Google announces Amazon Echo competitor, a smart speaker called Google Home

As expected, Google at its I/O developer conference has announced it own voice activated home assistant device called Google Home, to take on Amazon's Alexa. The small cylindrical shaped device is a speaker which is integrated with Google's new Assistant and supports Google Cast and select home automation devices.

Google Home features an always-listening microphones that can detect sound and you can communicate with the device via voice commands. With simple voice commands you can ask Google Home to play song, manage everyday task, check flight status, send texts, weather forecast, answer questions or turn off the lights of the room. The device recognizes 'Ok Google' voice command to initiate a search and offer the desired results.

Google Home is compatible with Google Play Music, and should also be compatible with other music services like Spotify. The device can also communicate with Google's Chromecast that's plugged to the TV, so you can command it to play YouTube videos or show search results on TV.

At the time of release, Google Home will work with a few home automation devices including thermostats and lighting including Nest. The device also comes with a range of modular cover so you can customize it and features LED light to let you know it is listening.

Google Home will launch later this year.  

Via