As some of you may know, Amazon announced on January 31, 2010 that they would reluctantly bow to higher price E-Books with Macmillan due to Apple’s aggressive negotiations with them and other publishers. So instead of Amazon’s standard $9.99 for an E-Book, Kindle customers will now have to pay anywhere from $12.99 to $14.99 for a Macmillan title. While Amazon regretted this decision, they expressed their hope that other publishers will not follow suite – a move that is likely to happen because of the iPad.

However, as reported by the NY Times, it seems that Amazon is doing some wheeling and dealing of their own by there yesterday’s purchase of Touchco – a startup company that produces cheap, pressure sensitivity, multi-touch panels that allows for more than one user. This technology called interpolating force-sensitive resistance, or I.F.S.R, becomes more conductive as you apply different levels of pressure and also constantly scans and detects different inputs. This technology will then be implemented into newer Kindle readers to add new features to challenge the iPad. Who knows, Amazon may also offer customers with a colored display.

Only time will tell what the fate of the Kindle will be, but it’s apparent that Amazon is not going down without a fight! Personally, it’s consumers like us who will benefit from this sort of company competition.