There is speculation that Amazon’s Kindle ereaders are in for a major upgrade, following the retailer’s acquisition of innovative Dutch e-ink company Liquavista from Samsung.
Amazon was playing down any near term product plans, saying in a statement: “We are always looking for new technologies we may be able to incorporate into our products over the long term. The Liquavista team shares our passion for invention and is creating exciting new technologies with a lot of potential. It’s still early days, but we’re excited about the possibilities and we look forward to working with Liquavista to develop these displays.”
This comes as Amazon is getting increasingly serious about developing a wide range of devices which will drive increased uptake of its content, applications and stores. It is expected to announce its first smartphone this year, possibly sporting a 3D screen, while it has added several Kindle Fire tablet models to the original Kindle ereaders. The ebook devices proved Amazon’s concept that an affordable, portable device with a smooth user experience would boost sales of its really important offering, digital content.
The most obvious use of the Liquavista technology would be to bring full color e-ink to the Kindle family, and perhaps a dual-mode tablet with a choice of LCD and non-reflecting ebook displays. It is somewhat surprising that Samsung, which acquired Liquavista in January 2011, has sold it on. The Korean firm has been investing heavily in enhancing its display technologies, both for its own Galaxy family and for the merchant market.
Liquavista was a spin-off from Philips, and uses ‘electrowetting’ technology for displays for ereaders, handsets and other mobile gadgets. Its system is distinguished by its low power consumption, about 10% of usual displays even with bright color, and by its ability to operate in different modes (transmissive, reflective, transparent and transflective). Electrowetting is considered especially suitable for power efficient, high performance video display. Samsung has reportedly helped it to adopt a simpler, more standard LCD-like manufacturing process to reduce cost.