Apple expands Kendall Square space
Apple expands Kendall Square space
Apple is quietly expanding its Kendall Square research office, according to an article in BetaBoston, a website operated by the Boston Globe.
The expansion will add to the current office located at MIT-owned 101 Main Street just West of E90. News of Apple’s first Cambridge office originally broke in a January 2013 Boston Globe article. At the time, the space fit just four to five employees.
It was later revealed in a July 2013 xconomy.com article that the small office was used to house a small team of researchers working on Siri, including former employees from Nuance, a company with an important role in providing the voice technology that powers Siri.
“Apple’s Siri currently relies on licensed Nuance speech recognition technology,” according to an appleinsider.com article.
The expanded, 13,000 square-foot office will provide Apple with enough space to hire around 65 additional people who will likely join those already in Cambridge working on Siri and voice-related technologies. The appleinsider.com article suggested that the extra office space might be an indication that Apple is trying to develop in-house technologies that will replace what has been provided by Nuance.
Apple is not the only company to have kept the details of a 101 Main Street office under wraps: Amazon established its own office there back in 2012, and it is still unclear what the retailer is doing with the research and design space, according to a Boston Globe article.
—William Navarre