LG today showed off a new smart speaker that will be available in early 2018. LG is calling the ThinQ Speaker its "first premium smart AI audio product" thanks to the addition of the Google Assistant. With Assistant on board, the Thinq Speaker will behave a lot like the Google Home product by performing voice-based searches. In addition to playing music, the ThinQ Speaker can interact with LG's other smart home appliances, such as television sets, air purifiers, and refrigerators. LG says the speaker includes Meridian Audio technology to ensure support for high-quality, lossless file playback for the best possible sound. LG will share more information about the ThinQ Speaker during its CES press conference scheduled for January 8. Google is encouraging its hardware partners to put Google Assistant, which first launched on mobile devices, in a variety of products. Amazon has done the same with its Alexa artificial intelligence.


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