Apple’s full-color iPad tablet thingy is set to launch in the coming weeks and it’s predicted that the device will eat away at the huge e-book market share enjoyed by Amazon’s Kindle e-readers. Among the knocks against Kindles by some has been that their E Ink display — while much easier on the eyes than a traditional backlit screen — does not display color images, text or video. But that may change in the next year.

At an electronics trade show in China this week, Prime View International, the Taiwan-based company that produces the Kindle for Amazon, was showing off a number of e-readers that displayed color and could imitate video playback.

The moving pictures generated by these e-readers isn’t exactly video. It’s really just still frames shown in quick succession and the frame-rate does not meet the standard of 30 frames/second.

While there were no Kindles on display, Prime View International has the technology and says they expect to go into mass production on color screens this year. It would be up to Amazon whether they choose to make the technology available on the next generation of Kindles.

Color and Video for Amazon’s Kindle E-Book Reader? [PC World]

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