Almost a year after reports that Amazon was testing smartphones in Asia, half a year after rumors Amazon was buying a smartphone chip processor, a year after more reports that Amazon was building its own smartphone, five months after unveiling a notifications system that would look really nice on a smartphone, and six months after probably wild speculation that Amazon was going to unveil a smartphone for the pre-Christmas shopping spree in 2012, there’s yet another report that Amazon is building a smartphone. One of the two smartphones Amazon is developing will reportedly have a 3D screen that can track your eye movements. Some of them will come to market, and some of them won’t. If Amazon really wants to do something great with the smartphone it should focus on data plan pricing.
– Rumors of an Amazon smartphone have been kicking around for a while, and the Wall Street Journal weighs in today with some funky-sounding specifics. Its sources say one of the devices the company is working on has a 3D screen: "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," writes Greg Bensinger. "Users may be able to navigate through content using just their eyes." At VentureBeat, John Koetsier writes that it's a safe bet Amazon will come out with a smartphone sometime this year. But he's skeptical about this 3D business, even suggesting the nugget might have been planted as a way to identify the source of leaks. And at Business Insider, Jay Yarow writes that for Amazon's sake, it better be false. "There is no value in a 3D screen," he writes. "HTC made a phone with a 3D screen, the EVO 3D. It didn't come out with a second 3D phone, which tells you all you need to know."