Amazon is planning to launch a new smartphone later this year, a Business Insider report has claimed.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the phone will mark Amazon's newest device after its announcement about its Fire TV setup box last week. The phone will feature a 3D screen, with front facing cameras projecting images like a hologram.
"The retailer has been demonstrating versions of the handset to developers in San Francisco and its hometown Seattle in recent weeks. Amazon aims to announce the phone by the end of June and begin shipping phones by the end of September, ahead of the holiday shopping season," according to the WSJ.
"The smartphone would feature retina-tracking technology which would be embedded in four front-facing cameras, so as to make the image appear in 3D, which would give a hologram-like effect," according to Valuewalk.
According to WSJ, the phone will sense eye movement and the position of the screen with respect to the face. As the screen moves closer to the face, users can zoom in and zoom out of images. The feature will also help change appearance of text according to user preferences.
In addition, Amazon's initial order is as large as 600,000 units; the company is currently in talks with two display makers, including Japan Display, to make the smartphone display. The display makers, however, did not comment on the news.
"Amazon has been inviting select app and software developers to hotels to demonstrate the handset in suites protected by security guards," according to the WSJ.
While WSJ's report said the phone's pricing is unclear at this stage, Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos stated that the company prefers to profit from customers buying services through Amazon hardware and not profit from the sale of the devices themselves.
With its smartphone, Amazon would enter a highly competent market that is largely ruled by Google's Android and Apple's iPhone.
