Citing “people familiar with its plans”, the Financial Times reported that the wearable device would allow users to summon Alexa anywhere and at any time.
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They are not expected to offer features such as an on-board camera, so should avoid issues like privacy concerns and poor battery life that plagued rival Google’s offering, Google Glass. The wearable device is created to look exactly as the regular pair of spectacles that can be worn comfortably and discreetly. The glasses are said to use bone conduction to transmit sound, so you don’t even need earbuds plugged in. Amazon’s Alexa could be worth $10 billion in revenue by 2020 according to RBC Capital Markets. It will be another addition to Amazon’s smart home lineup.
After discontinuing production of Google Glass previous year, Alphabet re-introduced the wearable handset earlier in 2017.
Babak Parviz the founder of Google’s ill-fated Glass, the first major attempt to popularise smart glasses, is rumoured to be directing Amazon’s efforts. Other specs and features of the all-new Amazon Fire HD 10 include a microSD card slot for memory expansion up to 256GB, Dolby Atmos Audio technoloy, Dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity, and rear and front-facing cameras. Unlike Google and Apple, which have their own smartphones to deploy the voice assistant on, Amazon is dependent on third-party devices. Of course, this won’t be the first Amazon device with a camera, the Echo Look, and Echo Show also house a camera.
Amazon is already selling Alexa On The Go headphones, which streams songs with Prime Music, iHeart Radio, Tune-In, while allowing users to listen to audible books or news and weather information.
Getting back to Amazon, it’s The Financial Times that reports Amazon is secretly working on such glasses.
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If these products are to be unveiled by year’s end, at least investors won’t have to wait too much longer to see what Amazon has in the pipeline. Compared to other tech firms with AI assistants, such as Alphabet GOOGL and Apple AAPL, Amazon does not have a proprietary mobile device, so Alexa smart glasses could simply be a method of spreading the technology.
