Quanta, a Chinese hardware manufacturer, is reporting that they have received an order from Amazon to build new Kindle tablets, potentially with fringe field switching display touchscreens that may or may not mimic the screens found in devices like the Nook Color.
What is FFS? I’ll let Wikipedia answer that.
Known as fringe field switching (FFS) until 2003, advanced fringe field switching is a technology similar to IPS or S-IPS offering superior performance and colour gamut with high luminosity. AFFS is developed by Hydis Technologies Co.,Ltd, Korea (formally Hyundai Electronics, LCD Task Force).
AFFS-applied notebook applications minimize colour distortion while maintaining its superior wide viewing angle for a professional display. Colour shift and deviation caused by light leakage is corrected by optimizing the white gamut which also enhances white/grey reproduction.
In short it would be a color screen with some of the readability characteristics of e-ink. Not much else to go on now, but it sounds pretty cool.
UPDATE – Thanks to Mike, below, who brings us this info on the screens:
As the signature TFT-LCD technology of BOE, Advanced Fringe Field Switching (AFFS) increases transmittance in a LCD panels to such an extent that a full 180 degree viewing angle is made possible. This technology also offers improved visibility, more realistic image and color representation, and reduced power consumption.