Amazon event invite points to 3D smartphone reveal on June 18th

Amazon has posted an open invitation for an event on the 18th of June, which will almost certainly see the company reveal its much-rumoured smartphone to the public for the first time. As well as being Amazon’s first mobile device outside of its Kindle tablets and eBook readers, the handset is expected to heavily feature eye-tracking 3D effects and tilting gesture controls.

A teaser video posted along with the invitation shows people’s reactions to the device, which are typically glowing, but doesn’t actually reveal the phone itself. Act quickly with the pause button and you can spot it reflected in a pair of glasses at 41 seconds in, however.

The handset itself was leaked online by BGR, which suggested it would have a 4.7in, 1,280×720 resolution screen, with six front-facing cameras to monitor head and eye movements for the 3D effects. Other hardware will likely include a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 2GB of RAM, and a heavily customised version of google’s Android operating system.

Unusually, the company has also opened the doors to members of the public, rather than just journalists and developers – an invite request form was posted to Amazon’s website earlier this morning.

Join Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos for our launch event. Request an invite http://t.co/jp1NWs7NQS #AmazonEvent pic.twitter.com/vk0UgDPNsY

— Amazon (@amazon) June 4, 2014

It’s currently unknown what the smartphone will actually be called – the common consensus is that Amazon will call it the Kindle Phone, but we’ll just have to wait until the event to find out the official name. Hopefully we’ll also discover whether it will be coming to the UK, as the FireTV set-top box announced last month has yet to receive a British release.

If you’re desperate to see Amazon’s smartphone before anyone else, you can request an invitation to the event – although keep in mind you’ll have to make your own way to Seattle for the 18th of June.