The annual South by Southwest music (and a lot more than music!) festival in Austin, Texas, kicks off this weekend, and as usual, Google is going to have pretty significant presence. This year, it looks like everything will revolve around Google Assistant.
Specifically, Google says that it will be hosting a “Google Assistant Fun House” just a few blocks away from the Austin Convention Center. The company describes it as a mix of an “immersive art installation” and a smart home built around Google and, presumably, Nest products. Similar to what they did at CES, but smaller.
The Fun House is half immersive art installation, half smart home, full of voice-activated insanity that shifts the landscape around you. Join us to find out how you can make Google do stuff for you, and explore the ecosystem of the Google Assistant.
The Fun House is actually going to be in the same neighborhood that Google hosted its demos of Project Jacquard last year. It will be located at a Victorian home at 1301 E Cesar Chavez St, Austin, TX 78702 and Google says chats will happen next door at 1209 E Cesar Chavez St.
If you’re wondering what you will need to get in, you should expect it to be free entry to the same kinds of badge holders as last year’s event: primary access for Interactive and Platinum badges, and secondary for Film and Music. Basically, if you have a SXSW badge, you should be good.
Google has also announced some other Assistant-related fun happening at SXSW this upcoming weekend. There will apparently be Assistant Phone Booths (wonder what those are…) at Fairmont Hotel on March 10-13, Google Assistant Hopper Cabs on March 10-11, and more.
Last year, the bulk of Google’s presence at SXSW revolved around its Project Jacquard jacket. Google ATAP’s Ivan Poupyrev gave a talk and announced pricing and availability of the jacket. As you may know, we finally got our hands on a review unit last fall.
We’re going to be at SXSW 2018 this weekend to check the house out, so stay tuned for our coverage this weekend.
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