Black, unassuming, about the size of a pack of chewing gum: On the surface, the Fire TV 4K Select stick released in mid-October looks just like any other streaming device made by Amazon. Plug it into your TV, and you’ll be greeted by Amazon’s tried-and-true living room interface, complete with icons for popular streaming apps like Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video.

And yet, the Select streaming stick is unlike any of its predecessors.

That’s because the device is running Vega – a new, Linux-based operating system Amazon has quietly been building over the past couple of years as a replacement for its legacy, Android-based Fire OS. The company plans to eventually launch Vega across a wide range of devices, including smart displays, streaming devices, even car dashboards.

The adoption of Ve

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