Amazon to Hire for IoT, Connected Device Lab

Wearable Computing: Creativity from Head to Toe

Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos plans to further invest in his company’s dedicated hardware and purchasing systems, with an eye toward the home Internet of Things, according to Reuters. The site used “a little-known government document” and other sources to determine that Amazon’s Lab126 will receive $1.2 million in tax breaks from the state of California while increasing its employee totals to “at least 3,757 people by 2019,” up from around 3,000 in 2013.

Lab126 worked on the Kindle and other Amazon consumer electronics, and will build on that experience by developing new “connected-home devices” and possibly wearable computing devices.

While IT Business Edge’s Loraine Lawson struggles to expand understanding of everything that the Internet of Things can and does accomplish (see “The Internet of Things Is Bigger than Texting Refrigerators and Fitbit”), that consumer market remains a prime target for Amazon, Google, Apple, Cisco, IBM and Microsoft. Projections of its growth are impressive. Gartner sees IoT revenue passing $300 billion in 2020, and IDC says the worldwide market will reach $7.1 trillion the same year, according to a Forbes roundup. The same article cites Acquity Group, which finds that over two-thirds of consumers plan to purchase connected devices for their homes by 2019 and around half have the same plan for wearable computers.

Kachina Shaw is managing editor for IT Business Edge and has been writing and editing about IT and the business for 15 years. She writes about IT careers, management, technology trends and managing risk. Follow Kachina on Twitter @Kachina and on Google+