Watch: This is how Google Home will work in your home. Goodbye, privacy?

There is a popular 'mail forward' about the advancements that modern computing and technology have made over the years. That the processing power of modern smart phones is greater than the processing power of the computer that sent the Apollo 11 to the Moon. Whether this fact is accurate or misrepresented is a matter of debate.

At Google I/O 2016, CEO Sundar Pichai announced the Google Home device. It will be a wireless speaker and voice command device that can connect to various smart devices and provide real time information. When will you get it? Later in 2017. How much will you have to pay? Google isn't saying – yet.

In the video above, the device is used to get airline information, postpone a restaurant booking, answer questions about homework, get real time information about traffic, and remind the entire family of their son's space camp. The man behind the project, Mario Queiroz, was also the person who launched Google's Chromecast.

The product is not the first of its kind. The Amazon Echo has been retailing since 2015 and is able to do much of the same things that Google's device promises to do. Here is a comparison of the two products that concludes by saying that Google Home is likely to be better, given the tech giant's past, and praises it for its ability to integrate with multiple devices.

In this article, the author suggests that Google Home's biggest mistake is not providing a personality and a name, unlike Echo, which is called Alexa and the iPhone's Siri.

According to an article in the New Yorker, the idea behind the device comes from Pichai's statement in the Founder's Statement published on the official Google blog: "Looking to the future, the next big step will be for the very concept of the 'device' to fade away. Over time, the computer itself – whatever its form factor – will be an intelligent assistant helping you through your day. We will move from mobile first to an AI first world."

Below is the entire video of the I/O.

Pichai, however, did not address the privacy concerns that many found were true of the Amazon Echo as well. In return for all the free services that Google offers – including email and search – massive amounts of data are mined, collected and sold to companies. With a device like the Google Home that is around the house and has access to any conversation that might take place in the home, along with the knowledge of the whereabouts of family members at all times, the level of data that it will have access to will go to a deeper level. There have already been warnings about the extent to which Google Maps keeps track of your location history.

An article about how private the Amazon Echo is concludes: "Still, for the truly privacy-concerned, any sort of microphone – no matter how many buttons to turn them off they have – is going to be a no-go area on a device."

Then there is the question about how soon will we have fully functional smart homes, because that is what is needed for the device to be truly functional. Smart homes are in a pilot stage of development, have too many risks and remain "stupid".

Here is Ron Swanson, the popular character from Parks and Recreation, reacting to the information that his computer is collecting information about him.

The device has no official release dates for India. Given the difficulty that Siri and other voice recognition software has had with Indian accents, don't expect the India journey to be a smooth ride.

The device has already lent itself to internet comedy, with a bunch of users comparing its likeness to household objects including air fresheners and salt shakers.

Here is comedian Jose Covaco imaging Google Home in an Indian setting. In response to a question about traffic, the Hindi version of the device says, "Traffic har din same rehta hain, time pass mat kar. (The traffic is the same every day, don't waste my time.)"