4 ms·

What is Lab126, Amazon’s secretive research laboratory?

wiggles_uwu 5y ago
Cool, I actually work for Lab126 now. Lab126 is essentially Amazon's consumer hardware products arm. I would say it's "secretive" in the same way that a company like Apple would be secretive about their next iPhone release. For example, the new Amazon Astro robot had been in the works for a while before the official PR dropped for it. Astro pulls together a lot of different technical initiatives that had been concurrently in the works. If any of those initiatives were to leak, connecting the dots of potential products coming out would be pretty easy.
solarkraft 5y ago
Bits of trivia: Some Kindle components are named after Mario characters. My Kindle Touch is built on the Yoshi platform (that is the only one I can find right now, but I remember there being more; boot logs contain "K76mcsd:def:skipping on non-Mario-based WW hardware"). My Kindle's root password is "fiona430" (Shrek?). The Kindle Touch's system is a pretty normal Linux from around 2010. Upstart, D-Bus, Xorg, awesome WM. The shell is made with GTK 2 and lots of unobfuscated, commented (!!!) Javascript. It's a joy to explore. If the kernel wasn't ancient you could run modern Linux apps on it - on the newer models you can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcZiVo1z4Eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcZiVo1z4Eg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHoPgXb-JNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHoPgXb-JNM Maybe somebody from lab126 could comment on the culture that brought forth software internally so fun.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
charcircuit 5y ago
Considering that it has a wikipedia article it's not much of a secret. Amazon advertises its existence on its job site the and the office is listed on Google Maps. It doesn't seem any more secretive than whatever else Amazon works on.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  That's a pretty short article, to be fair. But yeah, Lab126 is not particularly secretive, IMO.
- bushbaba 5y ago
  It's existence isn't secretive just like Apple's Special Projects Group is publicly known about. However what projects are in the works at Lab126 is a secret. But that's true for most physical product companies
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  Hence secretive.
pclmulqdq 5y ago
I interned at Lab126 in college. They advertised quite heavily, and weren't very secretive about their projects, except for the two new ones: the echo and the fire phone. Those were pretty heavily locked down.
- changoplatanero 5y ago
  I interviewed for a job there once and when I asked what the job was about they said it would be working with "sensors". I told them that I understand that they can't reveal the product they are working on but to get a better idea of if the job is suited to my background and interests should I think of a "sensor" being something akin to a microphone or a camera. They refused to confirm if a camera or a microphone would be considered sensors.
lettergram 5y ago
"revolutionary products like kindle or alexa" <-- This sounds like paid ads to me. The end of the article is also odd and brings up taxes for some reason: > ... There will be an assistant in each house, perhaps hanging on the wall or moving on the floor, and through it financial transactions will be carried out, we will control the lights in the house, select the music to be played or carry things from one place to another, he posits. Humanistic technology? Or an iridescent oxymoron?One of the richest men in the world is building prodigious hardware (in competition with Samsung, Apple, Google or LG), but what is his social involvement? Should Bezos pay a 90% tax rate, as the French economist Thomas Piketty argues? “I’m afraid I don’t have a good answer to your question,” notes Zehr. “I’m a successful farm-raised inventor and engineer, and I’m very involved with young people. However, as a species, we have to ask ourselves what world we want to live in.” That, perhaps, is the biggest secret of all.
ardit33 5y ago
I worked there on the earlier days... it is not that secretive. The Kindle was developed there (and it was one of the first devices made by the lab). After it, it came a bunch of other devices. This arm of Amazon has both hardware and software engineers, mostly on the device side.
angarg12 5y ago
I used to work there. I don't find it very mysterious. The only difference is our offices had an extra layer of security/access control, and we had to firm NDAs. The team sitting next to us worked on that robot, but I couldn't tell anyone until it was released.
- TheRealNGenius 5y ago
  any unique insights/thoughts about said robot you'd be able to share?
  - TheRealNGenius 5y ago
    What the fuck
    - TheRealNGenius 5y ago
      Fuck you turds
      - TheRealNGenius 5y ago
        phuck
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
crakenzak 5y ago
Interned here while in university, was a pleasant experience but never felt like I was working in a high security lab or anything of the such. Interesting to see how things seem from the outside.
IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
Refreshing to see original non-english newspaper articles in HN. I never read el pais. In fact, would have bet heavily that they could not write original articles about SV and SF in general. And then, certainly not in english. Its great to be wrong.

Cool, I actually work for Lab126 now. Lab126 is essentially Amazon's consumer hardware products arm. I would say it's "secretive" in the same way that a company like Apple would be secretive about their next iPhone release. For example, the new Amazon Astro robot had been in the works for a while before the official PR dropped for it. Astro pulls together a lot of different technical initiatives that had been concurrently in the works. If any of those initiatives were to leak, connecting the dots of potential products coming out would be pretty easy.

solarkraft 5y ago

Bits of trivia: Some Kindle components are named after Mario characters. My Kindle Touch is built on the Yoshi platform (that is the only one I can find right now, but I remember there being more; boot logs contain "K76mcsd:def:skipping on non-Mario-based WW hardware"). My Kindle's root password is "fiona430" (Shrek?). The Kindle Touch's system is a pretty normal Linux from around 2010. Upstart, D-Bus, Xorg, awesome WM. The shell is made with GTK 2 and lots of unobfuscated, commented (!!!) Javascript. It's a joy to explore. If the kernel wasn't ancient you could run modern Linux apps on it - on the newer models you can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcZiVo1z4Eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcZiVo1z4Eg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHoPgXb-JNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHoPgXb-JNM Maybe somebody from lab126 could comment on the culture that brought forth software internally so fun.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

charcircuit 5y ago

Considering that it has a wikipedia article it's not much of a secret. Amazon advertises its existence on its job site the and the office is listed on Google Maps. It doesn't seem any more secretive than whatever else Amazon works on.

saagarjha 5y ago
That's a pretty short article, to be fair. But yeah, Lab126 is not particularly secretive, IMO.
bushbaba 5y ago
It's existence isn't secretive just like Apple's Special Projects Group is publicly known about. However what projects are in the works at Lab126 is a secret. But that's true for most physical product companies
unethical_ban 5y ago
Hence secretive.

pclmulqdq 5y ago

I interned at Lab126 in college. They advertised quite heavily, and weren't very secretive about their projects, except for the two new ones: the echo and the fire phone. Those were pretty heavily locked down.

changoplatanero 5y ago
I interviewed for a job there once and when I asked what the job was about they said it would be working with "sensors". I told them that I understand that they can't reveal the product they are working on but to get a better idea of if the job is suited to my background and interests should I think of a "sensor" being something akin to a microphone or a camera. They refused to confirm if a camera or a microphone would be considered sensors.

lettergram 5y ago

"revolutionary products like kindle or alexa" <-- This sounds like paid ads to me. The end of the article is also odd and brings up taxes for some reason: > ... There will be an assistant in each house, perhaps hanging on the wall or moving on the floor, and through it financial transactions will be carried out, we will control the lights in the house, select the music to be played or carry things from one place to another, he posits. Humanistic technology? Or an iridescent oxymoron?One of the richest men in the world is building prodigious hardware (in competition with Samsung, Apple, Google or LG), but what is his social involvement? Should Bezos pay a 90% tax rate, as the French economist Thomas Piketty argues? “I’m afraid I don’t have a good answer to your question,” notes Zehr. “I’m a successful farm-raised inventor and engineer, and I’m very involved with young people. However, as a species, we have to ask ourselves what world we want to live in.” That, perhaps, is the biggest secret of all.

ardit33 5y ago

I worked there on the earlier days... it is not that secretive. The Kindle was developed there (and it was one of the first devices made by the lab). After it, it came a bunch of other devices. This arm of Amazon has both hardware and software engineers, mostly on the device side.

angarg12 5y ago

I used to work there. I don't find it very mysterious. The only difference is our offices had an extra layer of security/access control, and we had to firm NDAs. The team sitting next to us worked on that robot, but I couldn't tell anyone until it was released.

TheRealNGenius 5y ago
any unique insights/thoughts about said robot you'd be able to share?
- TheRealNGenius 5y ago
  What the fuck
  - TheRealNGenius 5y ago
    Fuck you turds
    - TheRealNGenius 5y ago
      phuck

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

crakenzak 5y ago

Interned here while in university, was a pleasant experience but never felt like I was working in a high security lab or anything of the such. Interesting to see how things seem from the outside.

IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago

Refreshing to see original non-english newspaper articles in HN. I never read el pais. In fact, would have bet heavily that they could not write original articles about SV and SF in general. And then, certainly not in english. Its great to be wrong.