Amazon’s Latest Acquisition – A Glimpse Of The Future?

There has been a lot of speculation as to when Amazon will release the next update of its hugely successful Kindle reader. The Kindle 2 reader launched in February 2009, a year and 3 months after the release, in November 2007, of the original Kindle. If we were to assume that gap between updates would stay pretty much the same, then the Kindle 2 – now just over a year old – is probably due for an upgrade sometime in the near future.

Since the Kindle launched in February 2009, a large number of new features by different manufacturers have hit the market, increasing the amount of user choice. In addition to the large range of dedicated e-book readers which include the likes of Sony’s Daily Edition Reader and Barnes and Noble’s nook, the new Apple iPad is perceived by many to be a potential threat to the Kindle as it can be used to read e-books. In summary, looking at both the increased competition from new readers (many of which incorporate added features and functionality) and the age of the Kindle 2, it seems that an update may be due fairly soon.

Which prompts the question – what features might Amazon decide to incorporate in an upgraded version? Amazon will almost certainly have a few surprises up their sleeve – but this acquisition gives a clear indication of at least one new feature that we may expect to see in future editions of the Kindle.

Amazon have acquired Touchco, a small start-up company who specialise in touch sensitive display technology. The technology is somewhat different to other touch screen displays currently available.It uses interpolating force sensitive resistance technology – which, unlike traditional capacitance-based touch screen technology, may be totally transparent. It may be used with both colour and E-ink technology displays. It is also, according to the New York Times, considerably cheaper than the capacitive type of touch screen used in the iPod and the iPad

Touchco are a spin off from a project at New York University’s Media Research Lab. They are thought to have no more than 6 employees. Although the technology was well advanced, it was still very much a research project – at the time of Amazon’s takeover no commercial application had been developed.

The Touchco technology could possibly be used to produce Kindles with touch sensitive controls and colour screens. The possibility of a more versatile Amazon Kindle, with a variety of different uses – not unlike Apple’s iPad – very definitely exists. Of course, this may not happen with the next release of the Kindle – it could be some way off in the future. Even so, this purchase by Amazon looks like a clear declaration of intent regarding the direction that the Kindle reader technology may take in future.