Amazon’s devices unit has a new team tasked with inventing “breakthrough” consumer products that’s being led by a former Microsoft executive who helped create the Xbox. The ZeroOne team is spread across Seattle, San Francisco and Sunnyvale, California, and is focused on both hardware and software projects, according to job postings from the past month. The name is a nod to its mission of developing emerging product ideas from conception to launch, or “zero to one.” Amazon has a checkered history in hardware, with hits including the Kindle e-reader, Echo smart speaker and Fire streaming sticks, as well as flops like the Fire Phone, Halo fitness tracker and Glow kids teleconferencing device. Many of the products emerged from Lab126, Amazon’s hardware research and development unit, which is based in Silicon Valley. The new group is being led by J Allard, who spent 19 years at Microsoft, most recently as technology…
