Amazon has reportedly acquired Touchco, a New York start-up specializing in touch screen technology in an effort to play catch-up with the Apple iPad. 

The New York Times reported, the touch-screen technology is developed by Touchco and is substantially cheaper than the capacitative touch screens used for the iPad, their cost is at around $10 per square foot.�

The technology is called interpolating force-sensitive resistance (IFSR), the technique uses resistors to detect varying levels of pressure, and requires very little power.  The touch screens alllow the device to detect an unlimited number of simultaneous touch points, and to distinguish between the touch of a finger and the touch of a pen. 

The Kindle and Sony Reader’s displays are made by E-ink.  Amazon has resisted adding touch screen technology, on the basis that this would affect legibility.Touchco’s technology has claimed to be completely transparent, so the screen clarity would not be affected.  It would also allow the Kindle to move to color screens, as E-ink doesn’t expect a color screen until next year.

That’s right. The highly credible Wall Street Journal announced Apple will ship the first tablets in March.

Previous reports suggested Apple is planning to announce the touch screen device at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco sometime between Jan. 25 and 27. The tablet, which hasn’t been officially named yet, is likely to measure 10 inches and offer Wi-Fi connectivity. The paper also reported Apple is working on two different finishes, possibly white and black finish like the iPhone, for the tablet.

The price however is still unknown. According to other reports the 7 inch tablet will cost $700 and the 10.1-inch about $1000. Freescale Semiconductor announced earlier this week that it has a $200 tablet coming out later this year.

A recently published patent from Apple depicts pen-based handwriting recognition software that would work with tablet-like devices.

The described invention (screenshot at right) demonstrates a method to make digital handwriting recognition better than technologies used in the past. An “ink manager” would attempt to recognize full phrases before sending them to the handwriting recognition engine, as opposed to sending separate strokes.

“The present invention, in large part, relates to the observation that client applications and handwriting recognition software in pen-based computer systems can make far more accurate ink-related decisions based on entire ink phrases, rather than individual ink strokes,” the patent states.

Though the patent relates the technology to traditional tablet devices, we doubt we would see it applied to Apple’s touchscreen tablet, which is rumored for an early 2010 release. Tipsters in several reports have described the rumored tablet as a 10.7-inch iPhone.

Assuming Apple’s tablet is indeed a larger iPhone, it’s unlikely it will feature a stylus-based interface since the iPhone was designed for finger interaction. It’s odd, actually, for Apple to be thinking about pen-based computing. Steve Jobs in January 2007 denounced the stylus when introducing the iPhone at Macworld Expo:

Oh, a stylus, right? We’re going to use a stylus. No. Who wants a stylus? You have to get ‘em and put ‘em away, and you lose ‘em. Yuck. Nobody wants a stylus. So let’s not use a stylus. We’re going to use the best pointing device in the world. We’re going to use a pointing device that we’re all born with — born with ten of them. We’re going to use our fingers. We’re going to touch this with our fingers.

A stylus-controlled Apple product, tablet or not, would severely undercut Jobs’ statement now, wouldn’t it?