ConsumerIT - For Europe's High Volume PC Retailers, Distributors & Builders

If one is to believe TechCrunch, the much rumoured Amazon tablet "is very real," bears the name "Amazon Kindle" and is a 7" Android-based device.

We've been hearing Amazon tablet rumours for a while now-- most recently saying the company put orders for touch panel displays for 2 different devices codenamed "Coyote" and "Hollywood."

TechCrunch speaks of a 7" tablet with a capacitative touchscreen (not e-ink) running a custom Android version that "looks nothing like the Android you're used to seeing".

Amazon integrates its services in the devices-- with a Kindle app serving as ebook reader and Amazon Android Appstore handling app store duties (with Android Market "nowhere to be found").

The device itself apprently comes in rubbery black (similar to the PlayBook) and lacks cameras. It will be wifi-only-- at least until launch.

The 7" Amazon tablet should come out soon (in October) with a 10" version following next year.

TechCrunch concludes by saying Amazon is also working on a multi-touch screen/e-ink hybrid device "that's nowhere completion". More news will surely be available, as soon as it leaks out.

Go Amazon's Kindle Tablet is Very Real (TechCrunch)

Go Amazon's Future Tablet Plans?

Your more artistic customers should find Wacom's Inkling rather interesting-- it turns real ink drawings on paper into digital art, without the need of a scanner.

The Inkling consists of a traditional ballpoint pen and a digital receiver tracking and recording pen strokes with 1024 sensitivity levels.

The receiver clips to the edge of paper or sketchbooks, and is adjustable for left or right handed users. Once finished from a drawing, the user presses a button to make the Inkling record a new file.

It connects to PCs via USB for file transfer through Wacom's Sketch Manager software (included).

Wacom says the Inkling stores "thousands of sketches" and exports layered files directly into Photoshop, Illustrator and Sketchbook Pro as well as saving images in jpg, bmp, png, svg and pdf formats.

Go Wacom Inkling

HP will produce one last TouchPad run to "meet unfulfilled demand" sometime in the near future-- despite recently announcing the end to webOS hardware manufacture.

How come? Very simple, actually. We all know there's one thing customers really like-- and that's a good bargain. And following the announcement, HP slashed remaining TouchPad inventory prices to $100 (16G model) and $150 (32GB)...

Now retailers report cases of TouchPads (mysteriously?) vanishing from their shelves, with Best Buy selling 350000 TouchPads in just 24 hours.

Will HP resell the newly manufactured tablets at the same low, low price? Probably... not-- iSuppli estimates a 32GB Touchpad costs HP $318 to make, while the 16GB model costs $296.

Either way, HP got one of its wishes fulfilled-- the TouchPad is now the no. 2 best selling tablet on the US market  following the iPad (what else?) according to Fast Company.

Go More TouchPads on the Way Announcement

Go The Strange Case of the Disappearing TouchPads

Go Out of the PC Business: HP's Garage Sale

Go HP TouchPad Carries $318 Bill of Materials (IHS iSuppli)

Go HP's Dead TouchPad Claims no. 2 Best-Selling Tablet Spot (Fast Company)

Who says mp3 player cases can't be dynamic? Improv Electronics launches the Skin Flik, the colour-changing device case for iPod Touch 2/3G.

The case carries a Reflex electronic skin with integrated LCDs, alongside a touch sensitive strip. Swiping a finger over the strip lights up the LCDs, causing the colour change.

The LCDs lie beneath a clear plastic lens printed with a graphic image, parts of which remain clear to reveal the skin beneath.

It also doesn't use power from the device, as it uses two 3V coin cell batteries (included).

Go Skin Flik