Look out World — It’s Time for a Touchco Kindle!
It’s no wonder why Amazon has acquired Touchco, a start-up company based in New York that specializes in touch screen technology. The Amazon Kindle needs an upgrade – and fast – in order to compete with the big Apple and its iPad, the multi-tasking gadget soon to hit the hands of hard core fans.
Touchco is an infant company with no released commercial products, and began their project at the Media Research Lab at New York University. Six employees have worked to create flexible technology and multi-touch technology that will allow more than one user to touch the device simultaneously.
Although tightly under wraps, it is speculated that Amazon will move staff members and Touchco’s technology into the Kindle hardware division in Cupertino, CA.
Here are specifics about Touchco’s technology. It is called interpolating force-sensitive resistance. It can be put into transparent displays and could cost only about 10 bucks a square foot. The iPad and iPhone capacitive touch screens used now are more expensive. Unique to Touchco’s technology, these screens can detect an unlimited amount of simultaneous touch points.
The technology uses resistors that are sensitive to different levels of pressure.. For example, it is said that it can tell the difference between a finger-touch, and the pressure of a pen. Touchco’s technology works with full-color LCD screens that are similar to the iPad and Hewlett-Packard’s up and coming tablet PCs.
Using this technology, Amazon could offer the world a full-color touch screen Kindle. With this said, E-Ink’s end may be close at-hand. While it is good for reading books for long periods, this technology can be cumbersome with reference works, multimedia, and connections to other entertainment sources.
Amazon has to react. They can either drop the price of the Kindle to compete with the iPad, or come up with an entirely new gadget. The acquisition leads to the assumption that the Amazon is going to go with the latter, and create a product that can fiercely compete with the iPad. Additionally, this revamp may lead to Amazon changing the current Kindle keyboard to a virtual one.
Amazon realized that competing with Apple is a smart idea. They are in the process of creating apps similar to apps that users can access for the iPhone and eventually the iPad. If Amazon wants to stay on-top of the e-reader world, a new and exciting gadget is needed. With the release of the iPad, e-reader owners may be thinking of retiring their Kindle for the Apple megastar.
An interesting side note, Touchco took everything off of its YouTube page, and their website has a simple note that reads: “Thank you for your interest in Touchco. As of January 2010, the company is no longer doing business.” For now, the business interests and goals of Touchco-now-Amazon-owned are already on an entirely new level: keeping the Kindle fire burning.