It’s pretty clear that Motorola is looking to enter the wearables market, given that the company has posted a job listing for a Senior Industrial Design to handle precisely those sorts of gadgets.
The opening, spotted by TechCrunch, will be responsible for defining and executing design strategies for “all” of Motorola’s wearable devices.
“The Industrial Design Team collaborates closely with our internal work partners to create compelling, usable and innovative products that define our brand with over a million consumers worldwide,” the listing reads. “The wearables design team will lead the establishment of our brand in the massive competitive and growing space of wearable connected products.”
Motorola Mobility has been rather quiet ever since it was acquired by Google back in August 2011. The company has released new smartphones, but there’s been a widespread feeling that the firm wasn’t living up to the lofty ambitions set by Google’s in-house teams.
The numerous teasers for Moto X, a new smartphone that will be assembled in the United States and give consumers some degree of choice over its design, has changed public perception however. A range of wearable devices would take that new image – defined in part by its new logo – even further in the public eye.
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Motorola’s Dennis Woodside and Regina Dugan also took to the stage at D11 in May this year to show off an electronic tattoo. The design, manufactured by a company called MC10, features an antenna and couple of circuits that could be used as a password substitute.
There’s no word on what sort of wearables Motorola is interested in; a Google Glass competitor seems unnecessary, so a smartwatch seems far more suitable and plausible.
The company would join a dizzying list of high-profile technology firms who are rumored or interested in entering the wearables space. Sam Burd, Global Vice-President of Personal Computing for Dell, told The Guardian earlier this month that the PC maker was currently looking into the technology.
Add Microsoft, Google and Apple, as well as Sony’s recently unveiled SmartWatch 2 and the Kickstarter-funded Pebble, and it’s easy to see how the market could become quickly overcrowded.
“Our ambition is to make Motorola a recognized leader in design of all things mobile,” Motorola’s job listing reads. “We will do this by creating product experiences that are led by consumer insight and intuition, keen design sensibility and cutting edge technologies. We want our products and brand to be experienced and loved by millions of people worldwide. We want to create the new Motorola.”
Image Credit: REMY GABALDA/AFP/Getty Images
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