Take a deep breath, hold on to your hat, and take a seat: Amazon is building a smartphone. 
 
 Still there? 
 
 Sorry for the big shocker. Almost a year after reports that Amazon was testing smartphones in Asia, half a year after rumors Amazon was buying a smartphone chip processor, a year after more reports that Amazon was building its own smartphone, five months after unveiling a notifications system that would look really nice on a smartphone, and six months after probably wild speculation that Amazon was going to unveil a smartphone for the pre-Christmas shopping spree in 2012, there’s yet another report that Amazon is building a smartphone. 
 
 But this one has a 3D screen. 
 
 The Wall Street Journal says that Amazon is building at least two smartphones, including a high-end model with 3D graphics and retina-tracking technology so that users can navigate content by “using just their eyes.” Plus an audio-only “streaming content device.” 
 
 Harrumph. 
 
 Amazon is almost certainly working on a smartphone and almost certainly planning to release it in 2013. There’s just too much smoke for there not to be fire. And having made its bet on digital content being the growth engine of the company’s future success — 12 of the 15 highlights in Amazon’s recent earnings release were about digital content — a smartphone that makes use of Amazon’s recently expanded app store and burgeoning virtual shelves of ebooks, TV shows, movies, and all other forms of digital content makes way too much sense. 
 
 But a couple grains of salt. 
 
 Amazon hasn’t made its bones in the tablet market by offering the absolutely latest and greatest technology but by presenting a solid product at a rock-bottom price. So I’m a little skeptical about all the wild 3D speculation — especially because that could be a sweet datapoint plant for the company to identify leak sources. And, in reality, a company the size of Amazon, like Apple, is working on many different projects at any given time. Some of them will come to market, and some of them won’t. 
 
 One company that can’t be happy about Amazon impending smartphone plans, however, has to be Google. Amazon has essentially hijacked Android for its Kindle offerings, taking the open-source mobile operating system that Google has developed, stripping out the Google app store, Google apps, and Google branding, and replacing them with its own offerings. Amazon will doubtless adopt the exact same strategy with any smartphone play — as Samsung might as well. 
 
 And, given the fact that Kindle is probably the leading Android-based tablet, it has the potential to do well in smartphones as well. 
 
 Of course, incumbent leader in Android sales Samsung might have a thing or two to say about that. 
 
 Image credit: Brian Sawyer/Flickr ||||| Amazon is planning on significantly expanding its line of hardware devices, Greg Bensinger at the Wall Street Journal reports. 
 
 Amazon is developing two new smartphones as well as an audio streaming device, which we assume would be like an iPod. 
 
 Previously, there was a report Amazon was developing a video streaming box that rivals Apple TV and Roku. 
 
 If all of these reports are accurate, Amazon is going to have quite the suite of hardware products. 
 
 One of the two smartphones Amazon is developing will reportedly have a 3D screen that can track your eye movements. The 3D screen on this high-end smartphone would not require glasses. Images would appear to float on the screen like a hologram, says Bensinger. 
 
 You never want to pre-judge a product that doesn't exist, but this sounds really bad. It sounds like a mess of horrendous gimmicks. 
 
 There is no value in a 3D screen. HTC made a phone with a 3D screen, the EVO 3D. It didn't come out with a second 3D phone, which tells you all you need to know. 
 
 When HTC failed to follow with a second 3D phone, an HTC rep explained the decision to CNET, saying, "I wouldn't say 3D was necessarily dead, I mean never say never, but we don't have any new products with 3D in the lineup. That's based partially on customer feedback, what we know the market wants, and also a design decision we've made." 
 
 As for eye-tracking, Samsung is trying that and it's not working. Amazon has failed to produce great software, so we see little-to-no chance that its going to do good eye tracking software. 
 
 The smartphone market is very crowded. Amazon understandbly wants to roll out a smartphone that stands out from the crowd. 3D screens and eye tracking are not the best way to stand out. 
 
 If Amazon really wants to do something great with the smartphone it should focus on data plan pricing. If it could radically cut consumers' monthly cell phone bills it would have a winner. 
 
 Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions. ||||| Article Excerpt 
 
 Amazon.com Inc. is expanding beyond its range of Kindle devices as it aims to compete more directly with Google Inc. and Apple Inc. 
 
 The Seattle e-commerce giant has recently been developing a wide-ranging lineup of gadgets—including two smartphones and an audio-only streaming device—to expand its reach beyond its Kindle Fire line of tablet computers, said people familiar with the company's plans. 
 
 One of the devices is a high-end smartphone featuring a screen that allows for three-dimensional images without glasses, these people said. Using retina-tracking technology, images on the smartphone would seem to float above the screen like a hologram and ...
– Rumors of an Amazon smartphone have been kicking around for a while, and the Wall Street Journal weighs in today with some funky-sounding specifics. Its sources say one of the devices the company is working on has a 3D screen: "Using retina-tracking technology, images on the smartphone would seem to float above the screen like a hologram and appear three-dimensional at all angles," writes Greg Bensinger. "Users may be able to navigate through content using just their eyes." At VentureBeat, John Koetsier writes that it's a safe bet Amazon will come out with a smartphone sometime this year. But he's skeptical about this 3D business, even suggesting the nugget might have been planted as a way to identify the source of leaks. And at Business Insider, Jay Yarow writes that for Amazon's sake, it better be false. "There is no value in a 3D screen," he writes. "HTC made a phone with a 3D screen, the EVO 3D. It didn't come out with a second 3D phone, which tells you all you need to know."