We live in interesting times.  The Kindle has been out a couple of years.  The Nook just started shipping a few days ago and is expected to hit the shelves Friday.  The iPad is still sixty days out.  The Sony Reader frankly doesn’t matter because they suck.  So what lies in the future?

Prices will rapidly drop.  There is only a single eBook reader I can buy today; the Kindle.  By weeks end I might be able to buy a Nook, though I suspect they will be sold out. Some time in April I might be able to get my hands on an iPad. Once several options hit the market, expect the prices to south of $200 bucks fast.

Ebooks will come down in price.  Sure, the whole Amazon thing de-listing certain publishers and Apple setting a price point higher than the typical $9.99 is all the news right now.  Trust me, all it will take is *one* of the big publishers to realize that keeping prices low while more readers hit the market is the key to sales.  Remember when a CD with only a single (and maybe a B-side track) was $3.99?  That’s the same thing happening here.  Today you would be crazy to pay that much for a single thanks to iTunes. Publishers desperately want to keep the dead tree model afloat.  I don’t blame them.  But the first to see what’s coming and embrace it is going to win big.  And if they don’t, the little guys (That would be ME!) are going to eat their lunch.

But weather I am right or wrong about that doesn’t matter much.  The dust will eventually settle. Now check out what we should be able to buy just before Christmas.

Amazon has acquired Touchco, a New York-based start-up specializing in touch-screen technology.  We all know what that means.  This, coupled with the Mirasol stories about something happening with Qualcomm’s color display and Amazon’s Kindle (with hints from Qualcomm reps), indicate we may see an additional, quite different Kindle by September-October or so, at which time the non-touchscreen models will likely go down in price.

The NY Times story by Nicky Bilton and Brad Stone reports that the staff of 6 for that start-up will merge with Lab126, Amazon’s Kindle hardware division, which has recently had ads for 40+ new technical employees)

Like the Mirasol technology, this one will be somewhat less expensive (relative to similar items of their types) for makers also.  The report says that

‘ Touchco uses a technology called interpolating force-sensitive resistance, which it puts into displays that can be completely transparent and could cost as little as $10 a square foot. The capacitive touch screens used in the iPad and iPhone are considerably more expensive. Unlike those screens, the Touchco screens can also detect an unlimited number of simultaneous touch points.

Touchco’s technology uses resistors that are sensitive to different levels of pressure. It has said its screens can distinguish between the touch of a finger and the pressure of a pen or similar pointing device. The company had designed its technology to work well with full-color LCD screens, similar to those used in the iPad and Hewlett-Packard’s coming line of tablet PCs. The technology could allow Amazon to introduce a full-color touch-screen Kindle, raising the question of whether the device’s current displays, which are made by a company called E Ink will play a role in the next round of reading devices. ‘

The caption under the photo describes a feature not mentioned in the body of the article: “Touchco’s technology is fully flexible, as pictured here, which would allow for a more robust Kindle.“

Couple that with the demo of the Marisol technology for video along with Touchco’s $10 per square foot screen technology and the future is looking to be quite interesting.

Click the picture above and go check out the video of it playing…um…video.  As a PDF Publisher digital content publisher I am fairly excited about where we are heading.