Amazon Kindle prepares to take on Apple's latest, iPad

The unveiling of Apple's new iPad has had competitors scrambling to improve their products — and one has turned to NYU.

Amazon has acquired Touchco, a start-up company developed by NYU's Media Research Lab that specializes in touch screen technology, hinting that a touch-screen Kindle e-reader may be in the works. Neither side has disclosed the terms of the deal.

Touchco uses a technology known as "Force Sensitive Resistance" that has been in place since 1979, said Ken Perlin, NYU professor of computer science and co-founder of Touchco.

The technology allows "variations in pressure on a thin-sheet material to be converted into varying electrical conductance," Perlin said. The Touchco team developed a method, known as Interpolating Force Sensitive Resistance, that can distinguish between the different pressures recorded.

"With an IFSR sensor, even if a pen tip lies completely between the sensors in the IFSR array, you can still track the position and pressure of the pen with high accuracy," Perlin said. "And you also get all of the advantages of a multi-touch sensor. So, for example, you can write with a pen using one hand, while simultaneously making multi-touch gestures on the same surface with the other hand."

The technology developed by Perlin and his colleagues is expected to dramatically change Kindle's hardware.

"Amazon's acquisition of Touchco will certainly help it in improving Amazon Kindle by introducing touch screen and colors," said Sandeep Aggarwal, business analyst and founder of Cognition Consulting Private Limited. "However it will still lag behind iPad until Amazon Kindle improves on its rudimentary browser and e-mail functionality and introduce media functionality to it."

But Charles Murphy, clinical professor of finance at Stern, thinks Amazon is simply playing defense.

"Amazon is attempting to protect its business model and market share," he said.

Clarissa Wei is a deputy city/state editor.