Amazon launches Echo Show smart speaker with touchscreen and video calling

New voice-controlled speaker with a 7in screen hopes to keep Amazon ahead of Google and Microsoft in fight for home assistant supremacy

Amazon is launching Echo Show, a new Alexa-powered smart speaker that includes a 7in touchscreen and video-calling features, as it enters the next stage in an ongoing battle with Google to become the most popular in-home voice assistant.

Echo Show, which will cost $230 in the US and will ship on 28 June (no UK release date is set), will operate like Amazon's existing Echo and Echo Dot wifi-connected smart speakers, putting the company's artificially intelligent voice assistant Alexa into the home. But unlike Amazon's previous voice-only smart speakers, it will also have a touchscreen to show extra information, play videos from YouTube and elsewhere, show results for questions and other visual information that's currently displayed when Alexa is asked a question on the firm's Fire TV smart devices.