Amazon’s acquisition of Touchco, hints the launch of a touch screen kindle e–reader.

"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", he added.

Touchco, developed by NYU's Media Research Lab, specializes in touch screen technology. It uses a technology known as ‘Force Sensitive Resistance’ that has been in place since 1979.

“The technology allows variations in pressure on a thin-sheet material to be converted into varying electrical conductance", said Ken Perlin, professor of computer science at NYU and co-Founder of Touchco.

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

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

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