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Kindle Gets Update, Battery Improvements, PDF Support

Cory Bohon — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:40:22 -0600

An update to the Kindle 2 gives users better battery life and native PDF support.

The latest generation Kindle has increased in battery life by 85%. According to the Amazon press release, "Kindle now has battery life of up to seven days even with wireless turned on, a significant improvement from the previous battery life of four days."

The Kindle now has built-in PDF support without having to convert files over Whispernet, which used to have usage fees associated with it. This functionality was previously reserved for purchasers of the Amazon Kindle DX.

The press release goes on to say:

"Amazon also announced today that previous purchasers of the new Kindle will also receive the 85 percent battery life improvements with wireless on, and native PDF support via a firmware update automatically delivered via Whispernet wireless. Native PDF support will also be available for some earlier versions of Kindle via an automatic Whispernet wireless firmware update. "

All of this is good news to previous Kindle purchasers and new ones alike.

via Gizmodo

More Choose Your Own Adventure On iPhone -- Courtesy Of Kindle

J.R. Bookwalter — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:49:15 -0600

The classic Choose Your Own Adventure series already had a brief flirtation with the iPhone a year ago (courtesy of Magnetism Studios) with a 99¢ app featuring two books — Return to Atlantis and Journey Under the Sea. But now, you can collect nearly 30 more titles, courtesy of the free Amazon Kindle app.

Timed with their 30th anniversary, parent company Chooseco, LLC recently inked a deal with Amazon to make their titles available on the Kindle, including the ever-popular The Abominable Snowman and Terror on the Titanic.

The series, which has been helping kids read for three decades now, was launched in 1977 with R.A. Montgomery’s Journey Under the Sea (written under the pen name “Robert Mountain”). In 1979, Bantam Books took over the series and christened them Choose Your Own Adventure.

This is an extra benefit to iPhone and iPod touch users, since the free Amazon Kindle app (and soon, a Mac version of the desktop software already available to Windows users) already opens up the e-book floodgate, negating the need to buy Amazon’s pricy hardware.

Kindle versions of the Chooseco titles are only $5.59 each, and Amazon is offering a free download of House of Danger (Choose Your Own Adventure #6) for a limited time. As always, Kindle books have to be purchased via their website first, then they are wirelessly transferred to your device. The iPhone app includes a “Get Books” link to a mobile version of the Kindle Store to enable purchasing from your device.

Amazon Bringing Kindle Software to Mac

Cory Bohon — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:20:24 -0500

Amazon has the e-Book market cornered with Kindle, Kindle for iPhone, Kindle for PC, and soon to be Kindle for Mac.

Last week Amazon announced that PC users will be able to read their Kindle books on their PC, but Fast Company is now reporting that the same Kindle software will soon be heading to Mac as well.

An Amazon spokesperson told them, "Yes, we are working on a Kindle app for Mac."

This new way to read Kindle books will help Amazon stay the big dog when it comes to e-Books. It will be interesting, however, to see how the Kindle is affected by the Barnes and Noble Nook reader.

via MacRumors

Barnes and Noble E-Reader Images Leaked?

Cory Bohon — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:09:46 -0500

E-Book readers seem to be all the craze now days. Pretty soon you'll never have to worry about paper cuts again. The Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader are the big dogs in the market, but Barnes and Noble could be releasing their own device soon as well.

Gizmodo believes they have the first images of such device from B&N. According to the description Gizmodo gives us, this device will have an e-ink display like the rest of the gang, but will also feature a full color Multi-Touch display below the main screen. The device also runs Android, Google's open source mobile operating system for mobile smartphone devices.

The interesting information that's going around is that since Barnes and Noble is also a book publisher, we could be seeing a steep discount on the electronic editions of its books.

The rumor is that we might hear an announcement about this device by next week, but don't hold your breath.

Amazon Kindle DX

Roberto Baldwin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:23:00 -0500

Amazon is positioning the Kindle DX as Newspaper 2.0. With a larger screen, it tries its best to mimic your favorite daily read without getting your fingers all inky. Amazon has deals with many of the big national and international papers, but it remains to be seen if dead-tree versions can be supplanted by expensive electronics.

The Kindle DX shares many of the same features of its little brother (5 out of 5 stars, Aug/09): the ability to download content via Whispernet, the nonglare screen, and cutting-edge digital ink. Of course, the Kindle DX is bigger--the screen is 9.7 inches diagonally, compared to the Kindle’s 6-inch display. And the DX has packed on the pounds, weighing in at 18.9 ounces, half a pound heavier than the Kindle.

Bigger isn't always better.

In addition to screen real estate, the DX offers a few new features of its own. A welcome addition is the native PDF support, which means you can put your own content on the device without paying Amazon’s conversion tax. The DX also sports an accelerometer, which will auto-rotate the display into landscape mode, useful for complicated PDFs or textbooks.

Amazon boasts over 300,000 Kindle titles available for purchase. With 3.3GB of storage available for content, you can cram 3,500 of those books on the device. That’s a lot of reading material. And there’s the rub. In order to recoup your initial outlay of cash, you need to read like nobody’s business. Throw in some periodical subscriptions and the Kindle DX might become cost effective…someday.

Reading on the Kindle DX is still a joy if you can get over the extra weight of the larger device. Size is where the DX wins--and fails. We found ourselves flying through books thanks to the larger screen. Finding a comfortable position during marathon reading sessions was a little bit harder, however. Lefties will certainly miss the left-hand Previous and Next Page buttons as well. What’s more, the keyboard on the DX is a step backward in execution. The tiny chiclet-style keys never feel quite right and the top row shares letters and numbers.

Besides newspaper readers, Amazon is hoping that the DX will be a hit with college students. We can certainly see the advantages of a Kindle versus multiple heavy textbooks, but the lackluster keyboard is going to be a huge hurdle for many students hoping to take notes alongside their digital texts.

Amazon.com Offers Up Snow Leopard Pre-Orders

Cory Bohon — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 18:20:24 -0500

Mac OS X Snow Leopard is almost ready to pounce on a Mac near you, but the first store offering pre-orders for the new OS isn't in fact Apple, but rather Amazon.com. You can now pre-order several different flavors of Snow Leopard straight from the online store. They currently offer pre-orders for:

- Mac OS X Snow Leopard (single-user) for $29

- Mac OS X Snow Leopard (family pack) for $49

- Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server for $499

- Mac Box Set with Snow Leopard for $169

- Mac Box Set with Snow Leopard (5-user) for $229

... and we mock Microsoft for offering up seven different versions of Windows. Unfortunately there is no estimated date for shipping, but Apple has already said the product will be released in September. Amazon notes that this product will only work on Intel-based Macs, and only if you're upgrading from Leopard. They note that Tiger and previous users will need to purchase the Mac Box Set in order to get Snow Leopard.

Amazon Kindle

Will Smith — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:36:00 -0500

The thinner, lighter Kindle is a tree-hugging book fiend's dream gadget

Steve Jobs once famously dismissed Amazon’s original Kindle, bluntly saying, “People don’t read anymore.” Steve, we hate to say it, but we disagree. Despite the miracle of the iTunes Store, where pop-culture connoisseurs enjoy instant gratification for their junk food entertainment cravings, the literati persist. And they want instant gratification too.

Like its predecessor, the second-gen Kindle delivers an exquisitely iTunes-esque experience for hundreds of thousands of books. It’s fast and easy—just open the Kindle Store, find the book you want, click Buy Now, and read the first page in about a minute. It’s really that simple. The Kindle comes equipped with a Sprint-powered 3G connection to the Internet. There’s no monthly fee, and the service works wherever Sprint offers data connectivity. If you live in an area not covered by Sprint’s network, you can download books from Amazon and transfer them to the Kindle using an included USB cable.

The Kindle features an improved black-and-white e-Ink screen, perfect for reading text. E-Ink manipulates electrically charged black-and-white microcapsules suspended in a solution to display multiple shades of gray, and the technology has a few major advantages over backlit LCDs. First, it only draws power when the screen changes, which means that a single battery charge will last a very long time under typical use conditions. Our test unit would easily last through a week of nightly use and could hit two weeks if we turned off the wireless connection when we weren’t using it. E-Ink’s other advantage is that it remains visible in extremely bright light. We were able to read the Kindle at midday in the California desert, just like a paper-and-ink book. The 600x800 screen on the Kindle displays 16 shades of gray (the original used just two) and refreshes faster than the original Kindle.

The second-gen Kindle delivers instant-access to a massive library, but this time it comes in an Apple-sexy, ultrathin shell.

Amazon sells most best sellers and new releases for $9.99, and, in fact, most books for the Kindle currently sell for less than $10 (textbooks are more expensive). While the Kindle store boasts more than 275,000 titles, we found the selection to be spotty outside
the best-seller lists in many genres. Before you shell out $360 for a Kindle, you should make sure that your favorite author’s books are available by pointing your browser to www.amazon.com/kindlestore. The price differential between Kindle and paper versions is of bigger benefit if you frequently buy hardbacks or trade paperbacks—you’ll recoup the cost of the Kindle in 25 to 45 book purchases. Blog, newspaper, and magazines are also available for nominal monthly fees, usually ranging from $1 to $10 per month.

There are several experimental features included gratis with the Kindle: a basic Web browser, an MP3 player, and a text-to-speech app. The slow refresh rate doesn’t lend itself to Web browsing, and the MP3 player is something of a battery killer, but the text-to-speech app might attract audiobook aficionados. Unfortunately, the stilted, robotic voice is difficult to listen to for an extended length of time. The Kindle also syncs your last read position with the Kindle iPhone app—allowing you to read on one device, then switch to the other without missing a paragraph.

The overall experience with the Kindle is nigh-perfect, although it’s definitely more expensive than we’d like. Voracious readers will quickly recoup the purchase price on the money they save not buying paper books, however, and the convenience factor can’t be discounted. Wireless access to hundreds of thousands of books from Amazon’s store, plus thousands more titles in other supported formats (AZW, TXT, Audible, unprotected MOBI, and PRC) from other sites is ever so convenient. We still think that all eBook readers should offer native PDF support, but it’s a minor omission. At the end of the day, we’d much rather read Neal Stephenson’s 920-page opus Anathem on the 10.2-ounce Kindle than the 2.8-pound dead-tree edition.

Amazon's Free 'Kindle for iPhone' Now Available

Lisa Weddle — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:48:07 -0600

There is often a battle on the bus I take to work of which commuters have the coolest gear. While some smugly surf the net with their iPhones, others are proving their intellectual superiority by whipping out their Kindle. Well, chalk one up for the iPhone/iPod touch users, because they just got their "Kindle" for free.

The Kindle for iPhone app allows iPhone and iPod touch users to shop Amazon's Kindle Store, download books wirelessly (most average $9.99), and read them on their device. The app includes a feature called, Whispersync, which allows users to switch back and forth between a Kindle device and Kindle for iPhone (just in case you've got both) while keeping bookmarks and reading location synchronized between devices.

Other features include:

- Buy a Kindle book from your Mac, PC, or iPhone using a Web browser and wirelessly transfer the books to your iPhone.

- Read first chapters of any book for free before you buy.

- Download the Kindle books you already own for free - they are automatically backed up on Amazon.com

- Adjust the text size, add bookmarks, and view the annotations you created on your Kindle device.

Via MacRumors.com