Amazon already dominates the pure eReader world with the Kindle, but the retailing giant is looking at extending the brand into other devices for other uses and is examining some significant technical upgrades across the line.
The work on the next generation of Kindles is being done at the Lab126 division of Amazon. The New York Times looks at the type of people and skills Lab126 is advertising for and comes to some fairly safe conclusions: that the next generations of Kindles will feature touch screens, color and more. No surprises there; the surprise would have been if the planning for the next generations didn't contain these features.
The more interesting speculation on the part of the Times -- and one you hear a lot in eBook circles -- is that Amazon will continue to treat its devices as single-use devices. There's a big debate in eReader circles over the future of the device as a single-use device (like the Kindle or Nook) or as an application as a multipurpose device (like the iPad). Truth is, we've cut way down on our Kindle usage after buying an iPad -- but at the same time we see a lot more Kindles used in public than, say, six months ago. Since Amazon and Barnes & Noble already position themselves to play on both sides of that fence, it's probably more irrelevant than you'd assume.
Still, it would make sense for Amazon to come out with a dedicated device for streaming movies or streaming music: Not everyone interested in movies and music wants an eBook reader, and there's presumably a lot of folks who would stream movies. (We already know how large the music-device world is.) And given how fast things change these days in the tech world, it's smart business for Amazon to try to stay several steps ahead of the competition.--Kevin Reichard
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