Amazon vs. Apple ..new touch for Kindle
by flotruglio on feb.05, 2010, under are you curious?
In a sign that Amazon wants to upgrade its Kindle e-reader to compete head-on with the Apple iPad, Amazon has acquired Touchco, a start-up based in New York that specializes in touch-screen technology, a person briefed on the deal said Wednesday.
Amazon will merge Touchco’s technology and staff members into its Kindle hardware division, Lab126, which is based in Cupertino, Calif., this person said.
Touchco, which began as a project at the Media Research Lab at New York University, had roughly six employees and had not yet turned its technology into a commercial product. The terms of the deal were not known.
An Amazon spokeswoman, Mary Osako, said the company would not comment on speculation. Ilya Rosenberg, a Touchco co-founder, declined to comment.
Touchco uses a technology called interpolating force-sensitive resistance, which it puts into displays that can be completely transparent and could cost as little as $10 a square foot. The capacitive touch screens used in the iPad and iPhone are considerably more expensive. Unlike those screens, the Touchco screens can also detect an unlimited number of simultaneous touch points.
Touchco’s technology uses resistors that are sensitive to different levels of pressure. It has said its screens can distinguish between the touch of a finger and the pressure of a pen or similar pointing device.
The company designed its technology to work well with full-color LCD screens, similar to those used in the iPad andHewlett-Packard’s coming line of tablet PCs. The technology could allow Amazon to introduce a full-color touch-screen Kindle, raising the question of whether the device’s current displays, which are made by a company called E Ink, will play a role in the next round of reading devices.
