The WSJ reports that Amazon is devloping a battery of new devices including a smartphone that would use a crazy-sounding glasses-free 3D technology. If it’s true… what?
This better not be just another HTC Evo 3D. We’re worried because that’s what this sounds like. If there was a lesson from that catastrophe, it’s that 3D ruins phones, so… that’s probably a good indication that maybe this isn’t such a good idea? People just don’t really care about all that technology. History seems to suggest that 3D can only end badly here.
Actually, according to the report, Amazon is “working on” at least three devices: two phones and one audio-only streaming device. The latter sounds kind of like a cloud connected JamBox or iPod that would serve you subscription music — or at least the music in your Amazon Cloud Drive. This doesn’t fall too far afield of the set-top-box Amazon is rumored to have in the works in that it’s a piece of hardware designed to get Amazon media into your face (or ears).
But the really interesting bit, as we mentioned before, is the rumour about the higher-end smartphone that’s supposed to dazzle you with some confusing sounding technology. Let’s parse this description by the WSJ:
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 [the sources] said.
Oh my god, this could even be worse than the HTC Evo 3D.
Of course, companies are constantly working on research projects that never turn into real products, so let’s please take this rumour with total lightness until Amazon tells us they’re making this thing. [WSJ]