2014年6月17日星期二

Inside the Secretive R&D Lab Behind the Amazon Phone

Inside the Secretive R&D Lab Behind the Amazon Phone

Revelation: Brad remove seeds from is author of The Everything put in storage: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. The put your name down for is in print by petty, coffee & Co., a division of the Hachette put your name down for set (MMB:FP), which is at present involved in the sphere of a contract dispute with Amazon with the aim of is heartwarming the availability of The Everything put in storage and other Hachette books on the Amazon website.

On Wednesday, Amazon (AMZN) strength of character make public a smartphone. It’s a colossal expect in favor of the online retailer and, in the sphere of the instant, a good absolution in favor of the artifact managers and hardware hackers by the side of Lab126, Amazon’s secretive Silicon Valley hardware division.

Other than 1,600 colonize receive Lab126 the same as their employer on the expert networking location LinkedIn (LNKD). Recently a hardly any months before, Amazon investors might practically maintain demanded to know what did you say? Folks expensive engineers and artifact managers—and many others working on device hardware and software from Amazon’s offices in the sphere of Seattle and in the sphere of Cambridge, mountain.—were in point of fact liability.

But this is spiraling dazed to be present a immense time in favor of Lab126. Amazon released its Fire television set-top box in the sphere of April, to first-class reviews and endless promotion on the Amazon to your house call. Around the same occasion the company on track quietly distributing the wand-like Amazon Dash, which lets users of its AmazonFresh grocery service look at barcodes of everyday items and add them to their online shopping lists. Tomorrow’s announcement—and refreshes to the e-reader and medicine with the aim of are rebuff doubt appearance soon this year—will progress to this the nearly everyone productive time in favor of Lab126 since Chief Executive official Jeff Bezos established the set to pursue a digital interpretation device back in the sphere of 2004.

Many Amazon watchers struggle to explain recently why the online retailer and cloud services bringer is in the sphere of the risky venture of making hardware in the sphere of the at the outset place. That’s the in the wrong question to ask. Lab126 is in the sphere of the venture of asking: Why the heck not? Fueled by his pride in the sphere of Amazon’s inventiveness and his stubborn refusal to cede even an shuffle of the tech landscape to other companies, Bezos provides much of the motivation by the side of Lab126, pushing it to develop mainstream hardware policy, the same as well the same as a variety of so-called “science projects,” many of which maintain yet to see to it that the light of daylight hours.

Single set by the side of Lab126, in favor of instance, is working on a device with the aim of projects a PC image against every outside. A succeeding is on the increase a wireless orator with the aim of responds to voice commands. Apparently near are many other. Lab 126 insiders whisper more or less a credit-card interpretation device akin to settle, which may well help push Amazon’s baby bird payments venture, plus a remarkably watery approaching version of the Kindle Paperwhite, code-named Ice Wine.

The smartphone project has been single of the best in the sphere of development by the side of Lab126. Interviews with multiple Lab126 employees in excess of the curriculum of many months—all conducted with promises of inscrutability for the reason that Amazon angrily guards such information—suggest with the aim of the phone project was on track the same as far back the same as 2009. Single of the inspirations was this famous capture on tape by hacker Johnny Chung Lee, at present an employee of Google (GOOG), who demonstrated with the aim of by reversing the take of sensors on the Nintendo (7974:JP) Wii, you may well create a demonstrate with the aim of tracked people’s heads and presented images with the aim of motivated along with their vantage points. It effectively formed a 3D demonstrate with no the need in favor of special glasses.

The Amazon smartphone took inedible from near. It was by the side of single indicate code-named Tyto, as soon as a genus of owl. The project was accompanied inside Lab126 by a lower-cost smartphone design with no the 3D effect, code-named Otus, in favor of one more owl genus. With the aim of Amazon would choose its smartphone projects as soon as birds of prey could not approach the same as a render speechless to somebody who’s paid attention to the company in excess of the years.

The development of Tyto, however, was bedeviled by technical and managerial challenges, plus getting the real cameras to harvest a sure 3D effect and scheming the cost of the handset—as well the same as figuring dazed recently why smartphone owners would need such a countenance in the sphere of the at the outset place. (It won’t be present apparent until the phone in point of fact goes on transaction whether Amazon has in point of fact figured with the aim of single dazed.) Lab126 employees say the phone set was updated several time. Leadership misused, and income was high-pitched. Bezos himself spent part of carry on summer with Lab126, which could maintain sped things along and instigated the current flood of hardware roll-outs.


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