Amazon unveils Fire Phone

Amazon has introduced a new smartphone with audio and object recognition technology that seeks to make it easier for consumers to locate and purchase products and services from the nation's largest e-commerce company.

The new Fire phone also adds such features as the ability to render images in 3-D. The Fire phone doesn't differ much from other smartphones on the market and shares many characteristics found in other Amazon devices. For instance, the phone will have X-Ray for supplemental content about movies and TV shows and Mayday for live tech support.

Amazon's new Firefly feature allows users to take a photo of an object, such as a toaster or a soup can, and get more information about it, including a way to purchase it through Amazon. Many of the new features have been available elsewhere as separate apps. Sony, for instance, has a tool for getting information over the Internet by snapping a bar code or a landmark. Firefly goes further, though, by incorporating audio recognition.

"It goes back to the mission of Amazon, which is to sell you stuff," said Ramon Llamas of the research firm IDC. "It reduces the number of steps it takes to buy things on the phone."

The phone will have a screen measuring 4.7 inches diagonally. That's smaller than leading Android phone, but larger than Apple's iPhone. CEO Jeff Bezos calls the Fire's size ideal for one-handed use.

Firefly is the centerpiece of the new phone. Snap a photo of a book, and it'll help you buy it, either as an e-book or a physical copy. Listen to a song playing in the background, and it'll direct you to that tune on Amazon.

It can even direct you to facts and data, by showing a Wikipedia entry with information about a painting you snapped.

The feature will also let you snap bar codes, phone numbers and more.

Another distinctive feature is 3-D images. You can rotate the phone and get a different view depending on your angle of vision. CEO Jeff Bezos calls this "dynamic perspective" and said the phone is basically redrawing the image 60 times per second.

To make that happen, the phone has four front-facing infrared cameras to tell where your head is, even if your fingers happen to cover two of them.

That is on top of the regular 2 megapixel front camera for selfies, plus the 13 megapixel one on the rear for regular shots. The rear camera will have image stabilization to counteract shaking as people take shots, something available in other phones as well.