NY Times reports that Amazon has acquired the multi-touch company Touchco. Touchco is a startup company that was recently profiled in the New York Times for producing cheap, pressure sensitive, multi-touch panels:
In contrast, Touchco uses a technology called interpolating force-sensitive resistance, or I.F.S.R. This technology uses force-sensitive resistors, which become more conductive as you apply different levels of pressure, and then constantly scan and detect different inputs.
The Touchco website mysteriously shut down over the new year and all its YouTube videos set to private. We received a number of emails from those speculating who might have bought out the startup.
As it turns out, Amazon will merge Touchco with its Kindle group and is expected to try to add features to the Kindle to better compete with the newly announced Apple iPad. There is some question about whether Amazon will continue to stick to e-ink or switch to a color display better suited for multimedia.
