Amazon Fire Phone

Via The Huffington Post

After much speculation about the device, Amazon made it official and announced the Fire Phone at a press event in Seattle Wednesday. The device is much more impressive than anyone had speculated. Beyond the 3D interface, there are some serious features in the Fire Phone.

Firefly

Images via Gizmodo and The Verge

One of the coolest features in the new Fire Phone is the Firefly functionality. When users activate Firefly, from the dedicated button, the camera opens. The camera auto-recognizes things that it is looking at: products, a book, numbers, paintings, really anything you can imagine. Once these images are recognized, The phone will save all of these recognized objects, and it allows you to buy them directly from the phone. For other non-purchasable things – the example used in the demo was a painting –  Firefly will give you the Wikipedia entry for the object:

Image via The Verge

According to Bezos, “Firefly recognizes 100 million different items.”¹

Photo Storage

Via Engadget

Simple enough, the Amazon Fire Phone comes with unlimited photo storage on Amazon Cloud Drive.

3D Interface – Dynamic Perspective

Via The Verge

Bezos set up the Fire Phone 3D imaging technology in a statement:

We invented a new sensor system called Dynamic Perspective that recognizes where a user’s head is relative to the device—we use it to offer customers a more immersive experience, one-handed navigation, and gestures that actually work. And this is only the beginning—the most powerful inventions are the ones that empower others to unleash their creativity—that’s why today we are launching the Dynamic Perspective SDK and the Firefly SDK—we can’t wait to see how developers surprise us.²

So it’s not really 3D, just something like it. There is a ton of useful features built into this Dynamic Perspective functionality:

Dynamic Perspective uses four ultra-low power specialized cameras and four infrared LEDs built into the front face of Fire, a dedicated custom processor, sophisticated real-time computer vision algorithms, and a new high-performing and power-efficient graphics rendering engine. Dynamic Perspective features include:

• One-handed gestures: Auto-scroll, tilt, swivel and peek for quicker, easier navigation and a better media and entertainment experience…
• Immersive apps and games: Dynamic Perspective enables a new class of apps and games that are more immersive, and make it quicker and easier for the user to access information…
• Enhanced Carousel: Stay productive with real-time updates and take action right from the home screen—triage email, find recent photos, access most visited websites, return missed calls, view appointments, and more.[/note]Ibid[/note]

Under The Hood

The Fire Phone has some pretty impressive specs:

• Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 2.2 GHz processor and 2GB RAM for excellent fluidity and image rendering.
• 4.7-inch HD display with an ambient light sensor and Dynamic Image Contrast that delivers better outdoor viewing.
• Global LTE and connectivity with nine bands of LTE, four bands of GSM, five bands of UMTS for better voice coverage and faster data speeds, 802.11ac support, Wi-Fi channel bonding, NFC, and Bluetooth.
• Dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus for a virtual surround sound experience.
• Advanced imaging system with custom-tuned 13MP rear-facing camera with backside illumination, LED flash, 5-element f/2.0 lens, Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), and high dynamic range (HDR) capabilities for beautiful, crisp photos, even in low-light conditions. Fire also includes a 2.1MP front-facing camera. Both front and rear-facing cameras record smooth 1080p HD videos.³

The Fire Phone will ship on July 25, and will be exclusive to AT&T. A 32GB Fire Phone will be available for $199 and a 64GB Fire Phone will be $299, both with new 2-year contracts. There will most certainly be more news coming out in the next several days. We will keep you posted.