In case you needed another reason to go Alexa rather than Google, the media gods have got one for you. The avalanche of CES 2017 press conferences hadn’t even begun when the news came in from Dish Network. In addition to their Sling Box and their 2014 breakthrough, no-contract live-streaming cable service, SlingTV, Dish decided to take another leap forward in delivering television entertainment to their consumers — support for Amazon‘s Alexa Voice Services or AVS.

Dish users with Hopper DRV devices of any generation will be able to control them using their voice through Amazon’s Echo or Echo Dot hardware.

This week, we put current news aside in order to review the annus horribilis that was 2016, and this year, we’re doing something a little different. Instead of merely having a stack-ranked list of top news of the year, we’re gonna make tech news compete for awards, affectionately called The Drill Bits. So put on your tuxes, get in the limo, and roll out the red carpet, “˜cause the show’s about to begin!

On this week’s Drill Down podcast, driverless ride-sharing is emerging, Russia’s part in hacking the U.S. election, President-Elect Trump meets with tech leaders, Bill Gates leads a fight against climate change,  and much, much more.

Podcast

On this week’s Drill Down podcast, Pebble‘s dead, Google goes green, UK’s Snoopers Charter, Amazon Go, a DIY gif bot, some amazing game trailers, and much, much more.

Google Home is a little device that plugs into the wall and responds to your voice. It can play recorded music or the radio through services like Google Play Music and TuneIn, and it can respond to questions based on the knowledge Google has amassed throughout the 21st century. If you’ve got the correct hardware at home, like a Nest Thermostat, Samsung’s Smartthings, or Philips hue, Google Home can allow you to control some of your home’s functions with your voice.

We’ve had some time to get to know the Google Home and there are a LOT of things to like about it. Its voice recognition is robust and its audio is impressive for being a little tiny speaker. At the same time, when one looks at Google Home through the lens of a smarthome, AI, product, one quickly realizes that the device is not quite where the demonstrations were during the 2016 Google IO developers conference, nor is it a device that delivers on the promise of its advertisements.