Amazon Reportedly Building ‘Kindle TV’ Set-Top Box to Rival Apple TV

According to a report by Bloomberg Businessweek, Amazon is reportedly making its own set-top box to stream from its Video on Demand store, essentially rivalling Apple TV and other similar products:

Amazon is making e-readers and tablets and will likely soon introduce a smartphone. As it works to build all types of connected devices, that leaves a natural next step: a television set-top box. The e-commerce giant is planning to introduce a device this fall dedicated to streaming video over the Internet and into its customers’ living rooms, according to three people familiar with the project who aren’t authorized to discuss it.

The device is being made by Amazon’s Lab126 division in Cupertino, which sources say has experimented with creating TV-connected devices for years. People familiar with the project say it is being run by Malachy Moynihan, a former VP of emerging video products at Cisco and ex-Apple employee who worked at the latter for nine years during the 1980s and 1990s. Other influential hardware engineers said to be working on the project include a former TiVo and Vudo employee and an ex-ReplayTV hardware architect.

How would the so called ‘Kindle TV’ affect Canadians? So far, don’t hold your breath that the device would be even sold in Canada. The Kindle Fire is still unavailable here, however we recently got the Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle eBook Store and Amazon’s Prime program for guaranteed unlimited two day shipping. Those are slightly positive signs Amazon hasn’t forgotten about us.

However, the barriers at stake most likely would involve content licensing in this country, but it’s not impossible from what we have seen from Netflix Canada. For now, this mythical product falls into the Amazon rumour pile, like the Amazon smartphone. Stay tuned.