How scared is Amazon of the Apple iPad?

Amazon has been twitchy lately. They suddenly offered new deals to their suppliers for eBooks. Then they offer risk-free Kindles to some high-value customers. Then they de-list Macmillan's books over a contract dispute. All of that tightly around the Apple iPad and their new iBookstore. Clearly, Amazon is terrified of this threat to their business model.

The newest evidence of Amazon's paranoia? They have bought a multi-touch display company called Touchco. This is likely for future Kindles, which would imply that they are abandoning e-Ink technology central to current Kindles in favor of a more Apple-like technology.

A better ATM experience

I'm assuming that pretty much everyone in our audience uses an ATM on a fairly regular basis, so that means you're familiar with the way ATMs work. One of my pet peeves is figuring out which button I'm supposed to push for each option. When I heard that Wells Fargo was going to touch screen ATMs I thought that sounded cool. It turns out that they did more than just make the screens responsive to touch, they hired a user interface team that made the whole system more logical. It almost makes me wish I had an account at Wells Fargo.

The article is on the technical side, but the pictures prove the point if you don't want to read the whole thing.

First Modbook Review

The Modbook was first announced over a year ago as a third-party attempt to produce a line of touch-screen Macs. It missed several shipping deadlines, but finally appears to be reaching consmers. Click thru for one of the first reviews of the first touchscreen or tablet Mac.