It seems like voice control has come along quite suddenly. The herald, for most, was Amazon's Echo device, which with its obvious use cases and relatively low price point has become the market leader. But voice control has been around for rather longer than you might think. Amazon released its first iteration of the Echo smart speaker in 2014, albeit to invited Prime members. And as far back as 2011, Apple had integrated its Siri voice assistant into the humble iPhone 4s.
Now voice-activated assistants are popping up everywhere. Google has brought out a mini smart speaker to...