WSJ: Amazon Developing Smartphone with 3D Display

The online retail giant Amazon is looking into diving even deeper into hardware manufacturing, as it is rumoured to be developing multiple gadgets with one being a smartphone with a 3-D Screen, The Wall Street Journal’s sources have reported.

Inside Amazon’s Lab 126 facility, there are a number of ongoing projects known collectively as the Alphabet Projects due to their name: Project A, B, C and D. What the Wall Street Journal’s sources found is the online retail giant has recently been developing a two smartphones and an audio-only streaming service as part of its hardware ambitions.

One of the devices is a high-end smartphone featuring a screen that allows for 3-D images without glasses, these people said. Using retina-tracking technology, images on the smartphone would seem to float above the screen like a hologram and appear three-dimensional at all angles, they said. Users may be able to navigate through content using just their eyes, two of the people said.

While the online retail giant is rumoured to be releasing some of the gadgets it has been working on in the coming months, some may be held back due to performance, financial and other concerns.

Amazon’s ambitions have been unveiled by several acquisitions: for instance, the retail giant acquired Evi, the startup behind natural voice search engine, which is similar to Siri.

Also, it was Amazon who hired Microsoft’s ex-Windows Phone General Manager Charlie Kindel. Even Digitimes’ sources have heard that the Amazon Phone is coming, with a 4.7-inch display, so it will be a smartphone with screen real estate somewhere between the iPhone 5 and the Galaxy S4.