14 DAY TRIAL // There has been a lot of talk around Amazon’s upcoming smartphone, which will apparently come equipped with a 3D interface and will be sold exclusively via AT&T.
But according to a recent story by BusinessWeek, that’s not all that the tech giant has in store for us, as the company is immersed in a few other creative efforts, including a speech-controlled Bluetooth speaker, a credit card reader to compete with the likes of Square and a device that can project a computer image onto any surface.
Nevertheless, the interesting bit comes now. Amazon is also dancing around a new Kindle redesign codenamed Ice Wine, which will bring about a device with a super sleek, almost anorexic frame. Some of you might not be all that impressed, but you should be.
The story mostly focuses on the Lab126 team, which has been in charge of the smartphone projects for a while now, with information pointing towards the fact that the project kickstarted back in 2009.
Lab126 has rolled out two products this year, including the Fire TV and the Amazon Dash grocery-scanning thingy, which isn't really useful unless you pair it with Amazon Fresh, a service still limited to a bunch of locations throughout the US.
The Fire TV has been better received by consumers, but the truth is that the set doesn't bring about something that non-Prime affiliates can’t get from another place.
As for the extremely hyped Amazon smartphone, anonymous sources claiming that they have tested the handset exclusively, have revealed that they weren't really impressed with how the whole 3D afraid played out on the device.
Bottom line, scanning through the Businessweek report, you might be left wondering what could constitute the real appeal of Amazon’s upcoming products. A device that can project a computer image on any surface is akin to a pico projector, a speech-controlled speaker equals a combination of Siri and Jambox, while a Square-like service is basically Square with Amazon’s logo plastered on top.
The product most likely to survive in today’s market and interest customers is actually the super sleek Kindle Paperwhite.
Amazon’s Kindle bunch has been the most successful family of products that Amazon has ever put out to date and from the first generation to the second, the Kindle Paperwhite kept getting better and better.
An earlier report claimed that the third-gen Kindle Paperwhite codenamed “Ice Wine” would arrive with a new display technology. Overall, the new eReader will be lighter than previous models (and now we know, thinner) and have a built-in flexible display.
Furthermore, it was said that the Kindle Paperwhite 3 would arrive with a flexible Mobius display, which would be taking advantage of TFT technology. Mobius displays are expected to weigh 50% less compared to glass-based TFT displays.
Now, it appears that information is adding up and we're certainly eager to see Amazon's third-gen Kindle Paperwhite arrive, at last.