Rumour: Amazon considering movie and music gadgets

Is Amazon planning to develop music and movie players in future?
Is Amazon planning to develop music and movie players in future?

Amazon is reportedly looking at new gadgets and hardware in addition to its hugely successful Kindle range of e-readers.

Amazon's online Kindle store has only recently launched in the UK but recent job postings at the company's R&D Lab 126 (the division responsible for the Kindle) shows a range of interesting new job vacancies such as

Hardware Engineer

and

RF Systems Engineer

.

The New York Times speculates that there is "a good chance these engineers will be recruited to build other gadgets that Amazon is prototyping in its secret labs."

What is inside Lab 126?

Citing sources close to Amazon's plans in this area, who chose to remain anonymous, the Times adds that, "Lab 126 has been looking into building other gadgets that it could sell to consumers."

One source said that new products were developed with one key objective – to make purchasing content available on Amazon as easy as possible. To date the focus has been on books, but this could well soon be expanded to cover music, movies and more.

"Jeff [Bezos]'s original goal for the lab was to build a range of other devices," said one source. "There was talk of music players and other electronics."

Exactly if and when we will see an Amazon-branded music and movie player is still to be confirmed, of course. Amazon has yet to comment on the rumours.

Via The New York Times

Adam Hartley