Amazon Fires Up E-commerce Smartphone

Amazon unveiled its first smartphone, the Fire. It is equipped with Amazon's new Firefly app, which is designed to quickly recognise things in the real world—web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, movies, music, and millions of products, and enable the user to take action in seconds.

Amazon says Firefly "combines Amazon’s deep catalog of physical and digital content with multiple image, text and audio recognition technologies to quickly identify web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, plus over 100 million items, including movies, TV episodes, songs, and products. Simply press and hold the dedicated Firefly button to discover helpful information and take action in seconds."

When it recognises printed phone numbers, email, web addresses, QR, and bar codes, the Firefly button enables the user to make a call, send an email, save as a contact, or go to the website without typing out long URLs or email addresses. In the case of multimedia content, the Firefly button enables the user to add titles to a watch/wish list or download the music track or video and start watching immediately. In the case of physical products, the Firefly button enables the user to add the item to a wish list, or order on Amazon.com. source: Amazon statement