With the launch of the iPad not far off. Amazon seems to be stirring. Amazon is said to have purchased Touchco. This is the multi touch company whose tech is based of NYUs Department of Computer Science and Technology UnMousepad worked on by Ken Perlin. Does the name ring a bell? You know, the guy that came up with Perlin noise. He has a interesting blog on all sorts of stuff.

Merge Touchco with the latest KDK Beta(Kindle Development Kit) and you might get a decent platform.  Looks like Amazon will be aiming at similar market as the iPad. Now the iPad obviously already has a massive back log of apps from the iPhone. The eBook deals and eBook cost seem to be weighted on Amazons side.

Only time will tell.

Quick bit of code stick it on the first frame of new flash file and it will list all the FlashVars passed into the flash.

//creates the text feild on the stage

this.createTextField("vars_txt",3,100,100,Stage.width-100, Stage.height-100)

//sets the basic properties

vars_txt.multiline = true;

vars_txt.selectable = true;

//adds the title

vars_txt.text += "FlashVar : Contant of FlashVar\n";

for(var z in _root)

{

 //$version: version is on the root by default so it is excluded

 //vars_txt: is the name of the text field so it is also excluded from the list

 if(z !=  "$version" && z != "vars_txt")

 vars_txt.text += z + " : " + _root[z]+"\n";

}

Here is a cool tech demo of photosynth: http://labs.live.com/photosynth/
Whats even cooler is at MIX this year they annouced that the photosynth engine will be built in Silverlight