San Francisco, Jan 24 (IANS) To take on smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home, Apple will unveil its smart home device "HomePod" with an in-built digital assistant Siri on February 9.The device will be available to order online, starting on January 26 in the US, the UK and Australia. "HomePod brings advanced audio technologies like beam-forming tweeters, a high-excursion woofer and automatic spatial awareness -- together with the entire Apple Music catalogue and the latest Siri intelligence -- in a beautiful design," Philip Schiller, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Apple, said in a statement."The team has worked to give Siri a deeper knowledge of music so that you can ask to play virtually anything from your personal favourites to the latest chart-topping releases, simply by saying ‘Hey Siri'," Schiller added.The smart speaker will arrive in France and Germany this spring. There was no mention about its release in India.Priced at $349, Apple's smart speaker was originally set to be unveiled in December. The tech giant later confirmed that it will start shipping in the US, UK and Australia in early 2018.Announced at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2017, the cylindrical smart speaker features a seven-speaker array of tweeters, a four-inch subwoofer and a six-microphone array.Highlighting the security of HomePod at the launch, the company said: "The device will always listen for a 'Hey, Siri' prompt to activate, information won't be sent to Apple's servers until after that command is heard."--IANSksc/na/mr
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