Amazon Reportedly Launching Smartphone This Year 38
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Amazon is working on a smartphone for release in the second half of the year. They're currently aiming to announce it by July and launch the end of September. One of the differentiating features of the phone is its capability to display 3-D images. "..the phone would employ retina-tracking technology embedded in four front-facing cameras, or sensors, to make some images appear to be 3-D, similar to a hologram." However, it may not be just a gimmick for 3-D movies and TV shows: "Sources tell Re/code that one advantage of this display will supposedly be that the phone can be moved from right to left to navigate, so a user can interact with the interface with only one hand." The report's sources say Amazon has been demonstrating the phone for developers in San Francisco and Seattle, but they're likely to have difficulty luring developers away from established platforms.
Re:Amazon Phone = NSA Backdoors (Score:4, Interesting)
The best use for delivery drones is not Amazon purchases. This doesn't happen often enough, it's vendor-specific and it's too concentrated around their warehouses. Compared to other usages, it's a drop in an ocean.
You need to target something that will be viable even in the smallest of towns:
1. medication, because pills are small and light enough. Ideal candidate for the first phase using very small, low-cost lightweight drones.
2. fast-food and restaurant deliveries, because if you remove drinks, it's medium-weight items at best (pizza, burgers, chicken, fries, etc). It can be faster and cheaper than driving, there's no stopping at red lights so there's less chances for the food to cool down. Just have the container insulated like the pizza delivery bags.
3. small groceries items, maybe put a weight and volume limit on the deliveries. How often do we have to get there to get that one or two item(s) that we need to complete a recipe or a meal? This drone would benefit from having a cooled container for the items.
Okay, totally off-topic for the thread, but on-topic as a reply to the parent post.