Amazon is inviting folks to a launch event on June 18th when it is expected the company will reveal their first smartphone device. As we have previously reported, Amazon is hoping to bring something unique to market by loading the device down with several sensors that will enable both 3D effects on the screen as well as the potential for new interactions based on face and head tracking of users. It has now been revealed that Amazon will be using OKAO Vision face sensing technology from Omron.
Omron’s technology appears to have been modified internally by Amazon to be able to drive stereoscopic effects from a normal LCD screen. The smartphone will have four cameras on the front that will be used to detect the users face and can generate X, Y and Z coordinates. Combined with the smartphone’s accelerometer and gyro sensor, the device will be able to quickly and smoothly render unique effects that should be more impressive than the current batch of parallax effects we see on devices.
Omron says that in addition to the ability to track a user’s face, their system can also be used to recognize faces and facial attributes and their software is capable of estimating gender, age and ethnicity. There are no indications that Amazon incorporates any of these functions.
With the ability to detect a user’s face, we anticipate Amazon may be able to make some new methods for interacting with the device available to buyers. This would be a similar strategy to what Motorola used when introducing the Moto X last year in lieu of packing in the most cutting edge hardware available.
Reportedly the Amazon smartphone will come with a 720p 4.7-inch screen, 2GB of RAM, and Snapdragon processor. All of this will be used to run Amazon’s FireOS.
You can check out a video below from Omron that shares more information on how their OKAO Vision technology works and what it is capable of doing.
Click here to view the embedded video.
source: TechCrunch
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