When most people think about ebooks, the Amazon Kindle comes to mind. In South Africa it might also be the Gobii eReader. eBooks are now becoming more main stream and is no longer an exclusive club of users who read books on a digital device. The Amazon Kindle has primarily been black and white since inception but yesterday Amazon announced that they have acquired Liquavista NV from Samsung to build screens for mobile devices..
“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 announcement has the potential to indicate that colour screens might be on the horizon for Kindle. Low power colour screens might be a massive asset for Amazon as it could entice more customers globally to buy Kindle devices.
Liquivista, based in the Netherlands was not able to become an asset for Samsung and thus Samsung decided to sell them. Liquivista uses electrowetting that ensures low power colour screens are a reality but clearly this technology had no gain for Samsung. Samsung is seemingly also doing some cleaning of assets. The mere fact that they sold to Amazon indicates to me that they thought long and hard about who is to be the new owner of Liquivista. The sale price has not been disclosed but Liquivista adds a whole lot to the Amazon device business.
How long before a colour screen Kindle is available to the public?
