Amazon's Jeff Bezos files patent for cloud-powered tablets

Amazon has been on a mission to offer the least expensive tablets and e-readers that it can. The Kindle Fire kicked off the trend of $200 7" tablets, and the Kindle e-reader has dropped to just $69 for the basic model. It looks like Amazon's Jeff Bezos is looking to make even less expensive tablets by shifting the processing power to the cloud, according to a newly filed patent.

The idea in the patent is to offer a tablet with a very basic processor, and a smaller internal battery that would function more like a "remote display". The major processing power would be shifted to the cloud, and these "remote displays" would be able to be made much thinner and lighter, because they wouldn't need such powerful internals. 

The patent also has some very interesting additional functionality, including touchless gesture control. But, the most interesting is a touch-sensitive back panel that would measure the size of the hand using the device, and use that to detect when a child is using the device and enable parental controls and lock down purchasing content. 

source: USPTO