Now That Apple Has HomePod, When Will Facebook Find Its Voice?
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Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and now Apple have made their voice-activated hardware approaches clear. But one proverbial elephant isn’t in the literal living room yet: Facebook. Does that mean Facebook will be next?
Amazon was the first to define this market, with its Echo devices using its Alexa operating system. Google came next with Home, powered by Google Assistant. Microsoft first offered voice controls of a home electronics device years ago when it released the Kinect in 2010 for the Xbox 360, which combined voice recognition with facial recognition. This year, Microsoft licensed its voice software, Cortana, to power a Harmon Kardon device called the Invoke. And just this month, at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple announced it would release its HomePod, which it refers to as “a powerful speaker.”
That accounts for four out of five of the U.S.-based technology leaders. Analyst and investor Lou Kerner, who refers to Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon collectively as “FAMGA,” notes they have a combined market capitalization north of $3 trillion. New York Times tech columnist Farhad Manjoo calls them the “Frightful Five.” If four are already betting on voice-activated hardware designed for the home, could the fifth be far behind?
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