Amazon Fire Phone is Here
After many month of anticipation, and with hardly any spec not having been leaked already online, Amazon finally made an announcement a couple of days ago of their new hardware product – Amazon Fire Phone. Amazon is thus following the same pattern as most of the other tech giants by providing a full gamut of tightly integrated hardware and services. The particular twist to their approach is that Amazon still thinks of itself primarily as an online shopping destination, and their hardware tends to reflect this – very tight integration with their online store and hardware that is mostly (but not always) sold at the heavily discounted rate compared to most of its competitors. So far there have not been any indications of the version of the Fire Phone that is subsidized through advertising (like the Kindle tablets), but it is very likely that something along those lines is in
The most touted feature of the Fire Phone is its 3D viewing experience. Through the combination of four forward-facing cameras and some nifty eye-tracking software, Fire Phone can dynamically alter the view on its display depending on your viewing angle. Even a bigger feature, though, is the new Firefly technology – the ability of the phone to recognize objects in your environment. Amazon has introduced this technology in order to make it easier for people (i.e. customers) to spot and purchase objects in their environment from Amazon’s site. I’ve used Amazon’s app on my iPhone for a while to scan barcodes and comparison shop, but this is a pretty convoluted process that requires several clicks through the menus and a careful positioning of my camera. With Firefly, all of this can be achieved with far less hassle, and can lead to more spontaneous and instant purchases.
While both the 3D viewing and the Firefly may seem totally driven by Amazon’s desire to encourage our consumerist tendencies, I believe that these two features are a real and almost tangible precursor to the first truly useful immersive wearable devices. If you could put both of those technologies into a Google-glass like device (Let’s call it Fireglass – you’ve heard that term for the first time here.), and make them unobtrusive and highly affordable, then Amazon might be the first big tech company that can bring that sort of technology to the masses. I can see a device like that making it to the production line in about two to four years, and costing in the $100 to $200 range. I love making predictions. Especially about the future.
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