Google has a ‘Manhattan’ project that’s aimed at Amazon

Google is getting ready to fire another shot against Amazon in the home speaker wars.

The search giant is reportedly working on its own touch screen-equipped smart speaker, even as it yanked its YouTube video service from Amazon’s Echo Show touch-screen speaker earlier this week.

According to TechCrunch, the device — presumably a new version of its Google Home speaker — has the code name “Manhattan” and will feature a similar-size screen to the Echo Show’s 7-inch display.

Sources told TechCrunch that the new device will offer Google Assistant, Google Photos and video calling, as well as play YouTube videos and act as a hub to control smart home devices.

On Wednesday, Amazon disclosed that Google had pulled YouTube functionality from the Echo Show, which had access to the video player since its launch in June.

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

Amazon, which unveiled a slew of new Echo devices earlier this week, 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.”

It appears now that the reasoning might be much more simple: Google wants YouTube to be exclusively available on the “Manhattan” and will undermine its rival’s product any way it can.

There’s no firm release date or price point for Google’s forthcoming device yet, but keep an eye out for a possible announcement as its Oct. 4 hardware event.