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It has a speaker built in. So they'll have that with Google Cast Audio, Google Now, etc. I am pretty sure they have a taken a leaf or two out of Amazons book.

True, although the audio engineering on the Echo appears to have been quite purposeful. Not sure what kind of performance they'll get out of the speaker on this Google device. But the functionality may well be there, I agree.

3W so.. probably not

The speaker is to talk to your phone, not to you. (Its a low-powered speaker that's used to communicate to a mobile device for configuration.)

I presume they're designing something to sit visibly on a shelf, but I quite like having things in a more stackable form factor. e.g., an external 3.5" on top of a Mac Mini sitting on top of a four-bay NAS, etc.

I guess that creates issues with interference with the antenna functioning though?

A slim cylindrical tube is also a box for a whisky bottle. It's just a cylindrical tube...