Something ‘fishy’ with Amazon’s new devices

Amazon’s Alexa smart assistant will soon be accessible through the Big Mouth Billy Bass animatronic fish. The company also will incorporate improved, 360-degree sound into its second-generation Echo speaker (inset, in oak finish).

Amazon unveiled a slew of products on Wednesday to compete against Google and Apple, but the biggest splash came with the news that Alexa can now live inside a talking fish.

At an event at its Seattle headquarters, Amazon revealed that its Alexa smart assistant will soon be accessible through Big Mouth Billy Bass, the animatronic fish that sings songs like “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and “I Will Survive.”

By integrating with Alexa’s software, Big Mouth Billy Bass soon will be able to set timers, find sports scores and buy items on Amazon, according to Amazon Senior Vice President Dave Limp.

Elsewhere, Amazon announced three new Echo devices as well as an upgraded Fire TV. The second-generation Echo speaker — available with Google Homestyle fabric finishes — will be priced at $99 versus $129 for the Google Home; Apple’s upcoming HomePod speaker will cost $349.

And less than two weeks after the announcement of the new $179 Apple TV 4K, Amazon revealed a Fire TV that supports 4K HDR video and retails for $69.99.

Competition among smart speakers took a nasty turn earlier Wednesday, when Amazon disclosed that Google had yanked YouTube functionality from its Echo Show speaker, which features a video screen.

Customers who tried to play a video on their smart-speaker-cum-tablet device were met with a message from Alexa saying, “Currently, Google is not supporting YouTube on Echo Show.”

Amazon said in a statement that Google’s YouTube move came “without explanation and without notification to customers,” while the archrival argued “Amazon’s implementation of YouTube on the Echo Show violates [its] terms of service, creating a broken user experience.”

With the spat raging, Alexa’s tie-up with Big Mouth Billy Bass, which is slated to roll out later this year, came as a welcome diversion for the world’s largest e-tailer.

This isn’t the first “fishing” trip for Alexa, however. Last November, artist Brian Kane shared a video of a Big Mouth Billy Bass he had hacked to work with Alexa that showed the fish giving a weather forecast.