Amazon's recent acquisition of a tech startup is fueling rumors that the company's Kindle will soon have a touchscreen interface of its own.

The company, called - appropriately enough - Touchco, has developed a touchscreen technology that supposedly can be implemented for a fraction of the cost of the capacitive screens found on devices like the iPad. It's a resistive technology, which makes us a little uneasy; resistive touschscreens can have problems with multi-touch and can sometimes distort the display when in use. Touchco claims its "interpolating force-sensitive resistance" is both transparent and able to handle multiple simultaneous inputs, so maybe this is time for us to reconsider our prejudice.

The obvious drive behind the move would be that Amazon wants to more directly compete with the iPad. It could also help bring the Kindle's cost down, if adding a touchscreen means the company can remove the Kindle's keyboard components and rely on a virtual keyboard instead.

This deal just went through, and Touchco hasn't yet manufactured any commercial-ready screens featuring its technology, so it will likely still be some time before Amazon manages to work the tech into the Kindle. Odds are we can expect to hear something more official within the next year or so.

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