Amazon Firetube Trademark Likely Aimed At TV Box Second Screen Companion

There's a collection of Amazon products on the way nearing the end of the year here in 2013, it would seem, with the winner for Most Likely to Appear First going to a trademark filing by the name of Amazon Firetube. This name will quite likely go to a product that'll take cues from Google's Chromecast, allowing quick and easy display mirroring from the Amazon Kindle Fire series – or the possible upcoming smartphone series – for your big-screen TV. The trademark filing, found by an intrepid tipster speaking with 9to5Google's Seth Weintraub, has appeared in both the United States and in Canada all at once.

As the newest Kindle Fire HDX series continues on with the successful push of second screen material (X-Ray, that is) for the user in the Amazon collection of movies and other odd media. Here with a television-connected device, the Kindle Fire tablet could easily display content from a movie while the actual movie is playing on a large screen. Of course that's only a suggestion for what COULD happen – the actual Amazon Firetube device is only known in name (for now).

It's also likely that any set-top box or dongle pushed by Amazon would end up being a whole lot cheaper than a Samsung Smart TV, a gaming console, or even the Android TV device set up for order by Samsung earlier today. With the model set for relative inexpensiveness on the last several Kindle Fire devices, Amazon makes up for the relative lack of profit with extra media sales through the devices themselves.

So how about it? Would you go for a little device called Firetube that hooked up through your HDMI port and only functioned with an Amazon Kindle Fire and/or Amazon smartphone in the near future? How about if that device were exceedingly inexpensive? How about if that device were entirely free?

With devices like the recently reviewed Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7" tablet coming in for more of the tablet market and media sales market this season from the company that simply refuses to give up in the face of giants like Apple and Google, isn't it time they got back into the television business? No sense in leaving that massive screen to the likes of the HDMI port on their tablets now, is there?

Update: The WSJ has chimed in with its own inside sources, claiming the Amazon set-top box is "a small device that resembles a Roku" and which would "run apps and content from a variety of sources." The gadget is likely to have its own remote, though also be controlled through software for smartphones and tablets like Amazon's own Kindle Fire HDX; the STB, supposedly internally codenamed "Cinnamon", will support more than just Amazon's own services, too.

In fact, the company is said to be seeking partnerships with media app developers, cable TV providers, and others, and is believed to have given some a mid-October deadline for app submissions.