Amazon Considering Buying Texas Instrument's Chip Business 108
puddingebola writes "From the article, "Amazon is reportedly in 'advanced negotiations' to acquire Texas Instruments' OMAP chip division, bringing chip design for its Kindle tablets in-house, and helping TI refocus on embedded systems. The deal in discussion, Calcalist reports, follows TI's public distancing from its own phone and tablet chip business in the face of rising competition from Qualcomm, Samsung, and others, though Amazon taking charge of OMAP could leave rivals Barnes & Noble in a tricky situation.'"
Re:Big Move (Score:5, Insightful)
eBook readers are less of a fad and more of an intermediary step between books and tablets. I have a Nook Color, which further blurs the line between the two (it's more of a tablet optimized for reading books and magazines).
Re:Whats the point of an intermediary step? (Score:5, Insightful)
Until tablets have a hell of a lot better battery life,
and a display that's as comfortable as e-ink
e-readers are not a fad.
Re:Whats the point of an intermediary step? (Score:4, Insightful)
The intermediary step is for the *technology*, not the *user*.
Dedicated eBooks have far, far better battery life, and are cheaper and often lighter. That means they work better in many of the use cases for the tech they're replacing, "paper books".
Tablets will eventually be able to encompass those features - they already do, for some people. Eventually. We're close enough that we can see the eReader is just a transitional phase, but it's a necessary stepping-stone.