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Lately, Google Inc.'s (Nasdaq: GOOG) Mountain View, CA-based headquarters have looked more like the clandestine lair of a Bond villain than a business center.

The company has poured more than $120 million dollars into construction projects that are fit to house testing labs and top-secret initiatives with names like "Project X."

One theory about what's going on at the Googleplex involves the development of a driverless car.

And that may well be true - but the more immediate and practical use for the renovation would be to expand the base from which the company competes with rival Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL).

Google's war with Apple continues to escalate as the two companies fight for ground in three major consumer markets: mobile devices, Internet search and digital media.

Google fired its first salvo at Apple with the introduction of its Android operating system, which has come to dominate the smartphone market.

Apple recently retaliated by introducing Siri - the voice-activated search engine that has been a major selling point for the latest iPhone.

Still, the biggest clash is set to take place in your living room.

Google and Apple are fighting to be the company that supplies your media at home, stores it for you in a cloud drive, and then distributes it to your wireless devices.

Google has even expressed interest in bringing other appliances into the fold, connecting things like lighting, heating, and air conditioning via the Android operating system - a seamless integration dubbed "Android@Home."

The goal is to let you control every electronic device in your home through a smartphone or tablet.

This is a battle for what futurists call the "digital living room."

And it's just getting started. Here's a sneak peak at what's in store.