Monday, May 31, 2010

August 2010 Kindle maybe code-named 'Shasta' and may have WiFi

'Shasta' WiFi Kindle?

Engadget's Thomas Ricker reports today that the thinner (why?) faster, higher-contrast Kindle possibly due in August may have WiFi capability for use with home or office WiFi networks or hotspots you find (preferably free) at coffee shops or bookstores and of course at airports where they unfortunately usually cost a bit.

This would be in addition to the current 3G cellular wireless capability that, at no added cost, lets you use the Kindle for googling something wherever you are (albeit slowly), in a bus or as a passenger in a car or sitting on some park bench or beach somewhere.  This is if you are a U.S. resident or live in Japan, Hong Kong, or Mexico, and CEO Jeff Bezos has said that he hopes to expand to other countries the web-browsing capability that has been in Kindles since 2007, which is useful for patient users who access mobile-device-optimized versions of websites (as are used by smartphones).

  The screen capture at the top left displays the results of an internal Amazon device query which shows entries for "Shasta" and "Shasta WiFi." Ricker feels this would seem to indicate that Amazon's next Kindle will come in two flavors: WiFi + 3G and 3G-only (Engadget's source isn't sure).  He also feels there's even an outside chance that one could be a WiFi-only device, which would mean that the future Kindle could be made less expensive but would not allow downloading of books from wherever you happen to be, as the current Kindles do.

  He points out that the original Kindle was apparently code-named "Fiona" after Fiona Hackworth in Neal Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age.  Kindle users may have noticed that links to Amazon often have an initial target destination at Amazon (a folder or directory) named 'fiona'...

  Richter adds that many of the names in the device list show above -- "Nell (the protagonist), Miranda (mother figure to Nell), and Turing (i.e., Turing Machines) -- are all related to that very same story. What we can't figure out is how the word "Shasta" fits into all this so lay it on us Cyberpunks if you know.

Update: Freddo411 seems to have nailed it in the comments: Shasta, Lassen, and Mazama are all volcanoes in the Cascades.
"



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Saturday, May 29, 2010

Kindle v2.5 update delayed - Also, a thinner B/W Kindle may come in August


AMAZON KINDLE SOFTWARE UPDATE VERSION 2.5

From the Kindle Software Upgrade v2.5 help page today, at the top, where Amazon asks users to monitor the page for further news, we see:
' Kindle Version 2.5 Overview

We know Kindle customers are anxious to receive the 2.5 software update, so we wanted to provide you with some details about its status. We've rolled out the 2.5 software release to a set of Kindle customers and have received great feedback from these early customers. Based on this feedback, we are making some small adjustments to improve the experience further. We will be rolling out the 2.5 software update to more users over the coming weeks. '
The broader delivery of the new update was to be in late May (which is now), but as of 5/28 they're continuing to roll out the software slowly to more (not all) users 'over the coming weeks' after small adjustments.  Forum members are a bit restless.

No real bugs have been reported on the forum, but it is clear that most who received it recently really need to have the Home page listing of Collections in alphabetical order (they're shown the listing in that order when users do the Add files to Collections process).

Also, there is some slowness in load time that is probably caused by the association of any file with several Collection categories -- so, the info needs to be gathered and in place for the screen display by Collections, which are user-set and changeable -- in my case, I am changing things frequently as it's flexible and it takes time to know what works best for the individual.

A POSSIBLY THINNER, FASTER KINDLE IN AUGUST?
Bloomberg's Peter Burrows and Joseph Galante report today (May 28) that Amazon "plans to introduce the next version of its Kindle electronic-book reader in August, according to two people familiar with its plans."
' The device will be thinner and have a more responsive screen with a sharper picture, the people said, who didn’t want to be identified because the plans aren’t public. The new Kindle won’t include a touch screen or color, they said. [Emphases mine.]

...Sony also added a service that lets users download books wirelessly, matching a feature of the Kindle. '
Sony's doesn't involve free global access to Wikipedia 24/7 nor the free basic web browser in the U.S. and Japan for accessing mobile-device-optimized websites but the Sony (Daily Edition) costs $400 to the Kindle's $257.

Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos, earlier this week, said that the company was still concentrating on committed book readers who would gravitate toward very portable, less expensive dedicated e-readers and that the committed book readers comprise about 10% of households.  He seems to be lowering expectations in the face of writers who keep comparing small dedicated e-book readers that use eye-relieving e-Ink (similar to print on paper and superior when reading outdoors) to the larger and more costly multi-function iPads, including the $629 iPad that has the 3G cellular wireless capability which then requires a data plan by the month costing $15-$30/mo.

 Also, a color display screen isn't in the offing for the Kindle for some time because '“I’ve seen some stuff in the laboratory, but it’s not quite ready for prime-time production,” Bezos said May 25 at the company’s annual shareholders meeting. '  The Bloomberg report continues:
' The new version will have sharper contrast that makes e-books look more like real books, the people familiar with the product said. The delay during page turns also will be shortened... '
What's interesting is that, despite purchasing Touchco recently, Amazon says that it's not going to touch-screen technology yet (which some Kindle owners are glad about as they don't look forward to fingerprints on the screen but I don't see why Amazon can't make one Kindle with a touch screen and one without.

To contact the reporters on this story: Peter Burrows in San Francisco at pburrows@bloomberg.net; Joseph Galante in San Francisco at jgalante3@bloomberg.net Last Updated: May 28, 2010 20:20 EDT



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Friday, May 28, 2010

Black Kindle DX? Also, DOJ Apple Anti-Trust Inquiry and tactics examined

A BLACK KINDLE DX?
A rather weak rumor based on a very fuzzy photograph has it that Amazon may be planning to unveil a Kindle DX with a black bezel.  It's hard to imagine that the photograph shows this but the configuration is somewhat similar except that the bottom keyboard area looks raised.

The Kindle has become a generic word so that I've seen people talking about buying a "Sony type of Kindle."

In a forum thread this week, several Kindle owners reported being asked if the Kindle each had been reading was an iPad.  All these strange devices can look alike for people new to the portable e-reader market.  The device, whatever it is, was being photographed with a very costly camera, at a coffee shop in Seattle. Yes, that's not a strong indicator.  But the CrunchGear writer, Devin Coldewey, wrote in the comments area that the tipster was told that Amazon was shooting video.  Another commenter felt it was thicker looking.  I agree, although that could be from shadows.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE EXAMINES APPLE'S TACTICS
The New York Times Brad Stone reports on the anti-trust inquiry by the DOJ into Apple's "allegations that Apple used its dominant market position to persuade music labels to refuse to give the online retailer Amazon.com exclusive access to music about to be released. "
' Billboard magazine reported that representatives of Apple’s iTunes music service were asking the labels not to participate in Amazon’s promotion, adding that Apple punished those that did by withdrawing marketing support for those songs on iTunes.
. . .
“Certainly if the Justice Department is getting involved, it raises the possibility of potential serious problems down the road for Apple,” said Daniel L. Brown, an antitrust lawyer at Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton.
. . .
The Federal Trade Commission is moving ahead with a separate investigation of Apple’s rules for developers who create applications for the iPhone operating system, according to a person familiar with that discussion.

That inquiry, initiated by complaint from Adobe Systems, the maker of the Flash format for Internet video, is said to be in its early stages as well. '
More details at The NY Times.

I'd wondered if Adobe would be starting action, seeing that Steve Jobs has gone out of his way to publicly badmouth Adobe's Flash, which I imagine he should be free to do, but he's also trying to get the big websites to stop using it in favor of HTML5, which would take some time.  And now he's prohibited developers from using Flash to develop their apps for iPad even as a first step that is then converted and not run as Flash.  Before the iPad they were able to do that.



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Kindle to be in ALL Target stores June 6 - CONFIRMED

In a blog article on May 13, I wrote that Reuters had reported that Target "is also set to offer Amazon.com Inc's Kindle in all of its stores on June 6, the lone bricks-and-mortar retailer to offer the top-selling product in the growing electronic-reader market."

  I saw no other articles on this but Reuters was right.  How they knew that is a slight mystery.  Bloomberg Businessweek reported last night that "Target announced the expansion May 17 and executives discussed it on a conference call two days later. "

  Bloomberg Businessweek' Joseph Galante goes on to say:
'The Kindle will go on sale in Target’s 1,740 U.S. outlets on June 6, said Joshua Thomas, a spokesman for the chain.  The move expands a pilot program that Amazon.com, the largest online retailer, started last month in 103 Target stores.
. . .
“We’re currently the exclusive bricks-and-mortar retailer for this popular e-reader which practically flew off the shelves during our 100-store test,” Kathryn Tesija, Target’s executive vice president for merchandising, said last week on the call.
. . .
The Kindle sells for $259 and isn’t available in other stores.  The device will be displayed prominently at the front of aisles in the electronics section [and] will be available for customers to handle, Thomas said. '


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Kindle for iPad App Now Available Globally


Amazon announced
today that the free Kindle for iPad app for reading Kindle books on iPad "is now available in all countries where the iPad is offered.

 The app lets users select from hundreds of thousands of books available in the Kindle Store on iPad and features Amazon Whispersync technology that saves and synchronizes customers' last page read, bookmarks, notes and highlights across their Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, iPad and more.
"

The press release itemizes the current features:
  * Automatically Syncs with Kindle and Kindle Compatible Devices: Amazon's Whispersync technology automatically syncs customers' last page read, bookmarks, notes and highlights across Kindle, Kindle DX, Kindle for iPhone, Kindle for Mac, Kindle for iPad and more. Customers can read on their Kindle, read some on their iPad or Mac, and always pick up where they left off.

  * Beautiful User Interface: The Kindle App user interface is tailored to the large size, look and feel of iPad. The new user interface with bold colors, animation and seamless user experience make Kindle on iPad a unique reading experience.

  * Customizable Appearance: Customers can choose to dim iPad's screen within the app to make reading easier regardless of the ambient light or time of day. Readers can also choose from three different background colors and alter the font color and size to customize the reading experience and help ease the strain on their eyes.

  * Page Turn Animation: Kindle App for iPad offers an interactive experience with page turn animation designed to replicate the look of a page turning in a book. Customers who prefer a simpler, unadorned reading experience can choose the "Basic Reading Mode" option and turn off animation.

The Kindle App for iPad is available for free from the App Store on iPad or at www.itunes.com/appstore.


 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
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Thursday, May 27, 2010

New Penguin Kindle Books due back by Monday

(SEE earlier story).

Amazon Kindle forum members noticed the new Penguin Kindle books were disappearing from sight again, and this is the norm after an Apple-type "Agency model" agreement is made based on Steve Jobs's arrangement with the Big5 publishers, a requirement for them to use his iBookstore, and their agreement is that no pricing at other online e-bookstores can be below Apple's pricing with the Big5.

Before coming back online with the generally higher pricing on new books, Amazon servers must reflect new pricing on all Penguin e-books and Amazon will add a disclaimer on each Penguin e-book that the publisher now sets the price.

According to Publishers Weekly, "Penguin has settled its differences with Amazon and its frontlist e-book titles should begin appearing in the Kindle bookstore no later than Monday, CEO David Shanks and publisher Susan Petersen Kennedy confirmed in an interview Wednesday morning at BEA."

DIRECT LINKS to PENGUIN and PENGUIN-RIVERSIDE ONLY:
Penguin Kindle Books
 .  By Publication Date
 .  By Bestsellers

Penguin-Riverhead Kindle Books
  .  By Publication Date
  .  By Bestsellers

PENGUIN HARDCOVERS
In the meantime, a few newer Penguin hardcovers that Amazon was selling for $9.99 until the newer Penguin Kindle books come online permanently (until the next pricing war) are still available too, probably for another day, since they priced them lower as a measure compensating for Penguin's not allowing the Kindle-book versions to be available until the new contract was completed, but Amazon has begun changing some of these already.

Thursday night, the hardcover of Roger Lowenstein’s The End of Wall Street” has a full price of $27.95, and Barnes & Noble’s website is selling it for $20.12.  On Amazon, it’s $9.99 on 5/27 - $10.95 on Amazon.   The price went up immediately after I wrote this blog entry, so I've corrected it.  Strangely, it's still less than Barnes & Noble's pricing, so the Apple iBooks store must be at $10.95.
  Or there’s Anne Lamott’s Imperfect Birds — $25.95 full price, $18.68 on Barnes and Noble, $11.69 $17.13 on Amazon.  The price went up immediately after I wrote this blog entry, so I've corrected it.

  The hardcover pricing may not have to match the Apple Agency-model pricing by Monday, but I don't know whether they're part of the new book pricing model or not.  I do know Amazon lowered the pricing to make some newer books available to customers at a lower cost during negotiations on the new Agreement and will bring the pricing back up now that the Agreement's been made.

So, if you're interested in getting any Penguin or Penguin Riverhead (Anne Lamott et al) hardcover books at the lower prices, take a look.

  Be aware that only a few of their hardcovers are priced as low as $10 though.

Again, here are links to hardcovers for just Penguin and Penguin Riverhead.



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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

New Penguin Kindle Books are coming online. Agreement reached. Update for Penguin Links

(SEE UPDATE below.)

On the Amazon forums in a thread discussing all the Penguin Kindle books seen coming back online at Amazon, Amazon's customer service team suddenly posted that the new Penguin Kindle books are finally on their way online at the Kindle bookstore.

Here's the message as posted and they'll likely have more later:
"Posted on May 26, 2010 11:50 AM PDT
Amazon Kindle Customer Service says:
(AMAZON OFFICIAL)

Amazon has reached an agreement with Penguin and we are happy to announce that we will  soon be offering their complete selection of digital books on Kindle."
Read the thread for details on the books people have been waiting for and now finding.  Happier Days.
   ALSO:
UPDATE - 5/26/10, 5:15 PM - (Original posting 5/26/10, 12:58 PM)
  DIRECT LINKS to PENGUIN and PENGUIN-RIVERSIDE ONLY:

Penguin Kindle Books
 .  By Publication Date
 .  By Bestsellers

Penguin-Riverhead Kindle Books
  .  By Publication Date
  .  By Bestsellers



 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Kindle news: Software v2.5 rollout?, Target's Kindles, Kindle for PC on Asus netbooks - Update

Kindle software update, version 2.5, is said to be starting its official rollout, per Engadget, which has photosev taken with a flash for some reason so we see a big white glare in the middle of each picture, and the display-text they want to show us is then hard to read.  The picture I used here is from Crunchgear's story.  Both websites used a Kindle DX in their photos.  But I have the software installed on my 6" U.S. Kindle.

HOWEVER, I have to add that the "proof" that Engadget offers is not strong:
'...we've got pictorial proof that the new code is being pushed out as we speak.  This particular unit is a Kindle DX, and it's not hesitant in showing off the social networking features we were promised. Feel free to poke around in the gallery below, and then fire up your own Kindle to see if you've received an OTA surprise. '
The picture of a Kindle with the release version features showing is not actually proof that it's being 'pushed out' now (though I sure hope it is), as it was being pushed out to a smaller subset of customers when first announced a few weeks ago and other websites showed images back then.  I do see forum notes that a few are reporting getting updates yesterday and today though.

  But the software should be in broad release any day as they announced it would be in late May.  Even then, the automated Whispernet releases of software updates are usually slowly distributed.  And this is a 10-meg file, with some Kindle owners  in areas with weak-wireless reception.

UPDATE 5/26/10The same message thread I linked to above has a later post from Evelynne, who let us know a customer rep she contacted said that the delivery was on target and used the words 'real soon'...

  Frankie Sutton at the Amazon Kindle boards contacted Amazon Kindle Support to ask about the update and received a reply which included the portion below, which is of special interest because of the apparent confirmation that there'll be a manual-update available to us:
'...Once the Kindle 2.5 update is officially released, you can download latest version or update the Kindle software by following the instructions on the below link. You can check the below link, about when the Kindle 2.5 is available. "
   www.amazon.com/kindlesoftwareupdates '

TARGET: KINDLES "flying off the shelves"
Wall Street Journal's Karen Tally reports in the expanded version of their article that "On Monday, the retailer said it is expanding the electronics and videogame sections in most of its stores by 30%.   Target recently struck a deal to become the first brick-and-mortar store to carry Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle e-reader. 
  In a 100-store test, the Kindle e-readers "flew off the shelves," the company said. "

  (That paragraph is behind Wall St. Journal's online paywall.)


AMAZON KINDLE FOR PC TO BE BUNDLED ON SOME ASUS NETBOOKS & NOTEBOOKS
Liliputing's Brad Linder reports that Some Asus netbooks and notebooks will ship with Amazon’s Kindle eBook software for PC.  The software makes it easy to find, purchase, and download eBooks from the Amazon Kindle store and read them on a computer without even needing to own a Kindle.  These will be on models sold at the Amazon store and will include other models than the ones identified this week.
  Props to Amazon for getting the ready-to-use app on Asus laptops, since the software is free for anyone to download but most new netbook users probably wouldn't even know it exists.

Linder wonders: "Could we eventually see dedicated eBook readers with access to Amazon’s digital book store that aren’t the Kindle?  Or maybe we’ll see Kindle software on future Asus Android or Windows tablets?  Or maybe not."

Buyers will see these first on the Asus Eee PC 1005PE-Mu27 netbook and the UL30A-X5K and UL30VT-X1K thin and light notebooks.  These are models in stock at Amazon with the Kindle software already installed.

Asus' netbook users for these and some other models are automatically set up to use, on existing WiFi networks, "Amazon’s Whispersync technology which saves your notes, highlights, bookmarks, and last-read page so that you can start reading a book on a netbook and pick up where you left off on another PC, Mac, iPhone, Kindle, or other device."

Readers can choose from white, sepia (my favorite) or black display modes, and adjust the brightness of a text from within the application (very useful).

Here's more information on the free Kindle for PC for those who haven't read about it yet.



 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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Sunday, May 23, 2010

The Eken M003, another new e-reader, this one in color

In sometimes keeping up with news of the Kindle's competition in the Kindle world, here's Goodereader's story on the Eken M003 e-reader, which has an 8" LCD color display with rather low image resolution and also smaller internal storage space than usual.

  As a result they'll be offering this for about $240 in the U.S. apparently.   It's already been released in China.  The device does have an SD slot with the capability to hold 32K of books on an SD card.

  I'm not at all sure people want color without good resolution and with what looks like low contrast (similar to the older Flepias) or an e-book reader without an e-bookstore, but while it doesn't have direct cellular wireless downloads as the Kindle and new Sony do, it does offer WiFi Network access capability (home, office, hotspots).

I don't know what to think of the photo as the unit looks squat but I notice the hands look flattened as well, so that may be an error in maintaining the proper aspect ratio of the photograph when re-sizing it.
'  It currently runs Google Android 1.6 and has a full color 800×480 resolution 8″ LCD display.  It has a 600MHz VIA processor, 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, 128MB RAM, and an SD card slot for up to 32 GB of extra memory.

Other features include support for MSN, Google Talk, an audio input and output, two stereo speakers, and comes pre-installed with the Google Chrome lite browser. '
The photo shows the Chrome Lite web browser running on it.


 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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Saturday, May 22, 2010

Amazon splits Bestsellers into Top 100 Paid and Top 100 Free

Amazon's splitting of  Top 200 Amazon Kindle Bestsellers  into groupings of 'Top 100 Paid' and 'Top 100 Free' categories could not be done better for fair exposure of both paid and free books.

Those interested also in the New York Times Bestsellers available on Kindle can see those here.  Note that with the Big5 publishers going for the Agency model for pricing, the NYT bestsellers are now "From $9.99" instead of mostly $9.99.

On the same page as the NYT bestsellers are another category, "New and Noteworthy - Recently Published Books Available on Kindle" which currently carries nine Kindle books, with pricing from $4.99 to $9.99.



 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
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Friday, May 21, 2010

Kobo Reader or Kindle - A follow-up as Kobo reaches Australia


About two weeks ago, I wrote a blog article on the press treatment of the new barebones Kobo reader vs the more capable Kindle because the vast majority of the articles don't mention the many reading features that the Kobo doesn't have while saying that the Amazon needs to compete on its price, going lower to match the Kobo.

  Actually, Amazon has needed to have a no-features reader for some time, as the Sony does, because some people really don't want or need anything more than the text from the books, at a doable price for them.  And the Kobo pricing is attractive.

  But that means reports comparing readers should mention the various reading features that are on one but not on the other.  For some reason, that's rare in articles on the Kobo vs Kindle.  They do point out that one doesn't have wireless downloads of e-books (it IS an expensive feature if via cellular wireless).

  Reading-features like the more basic study tools are important to some.
1. an in-line dictionary
2. searching of book for words, a character in a book, or an event
3. the ability to highlight and take notes and refer to them

See more feature-set differences described earlier.

  Those added features won't be important to others, which means the features do need to be discussed so that buyers know what they're getting (or not)  for the price asked if deciding between readers.

  Many want readers for their children, but for older students they may want the added study tools while not realizing that one reader doesn't have them.

  The ability to access, while reading a book, Wikipedia for more information at no added cost, globally, is not a small consideration for students.  As we've seen, the cost of 3G cellular wireless on an iPad is an extra $130 (on top of the $500 model)  for the capability plus $15-$30 per month.  So this is somewhat valuable for the extra $100 between the Kobo and the Kindle.

  Where the Kobo is very good for students or anyone is its ability, in the U.S.  to enable borrowing of e-books from public libraries which the Kindle does not do.   The Kobo also has an SD slot for expansion to allow more books to be stored, as its internal storage holds about 33% less than the Kindle.

  While I consider being able to listen, via the Kindle, to mp3's nice enough and feel that the text-to-speech for books, newspapers and personal docs can be useful for brief periods, I wouldn't look for them in an e-reader or consider them important.

 The latest articles do mention the worth of wireless access to books.
  In the U.S., Japan, Hong Kong and Mexico, Kindle users can also use google and look up text info from almost anywhere they are, though this is useful mainly at mobile-device optimized websites, as larger images are slow to load.  Amazon says it hopes to enable web-browsing internationally eventually, depending on regional telecommunication pricing arrangements they can get.

  Kindle owners who are U.S. residents, or are in the mentioned regions where the web browser is enabled, have access to the text of the full New York Times and several other newspapers, in mobile-device optimized format.
  Granted - it's not pretty at all, and gadget press have tended to call it "dowdy"-looking, but some actually don't mind reading mainly-words when wanting information and when there's no added charge for it and you can access it while sitting on a bus. 

  See the mobiweb entry for how that's done and for a file that provides the links in book-form.  This file works only with the Kindle though.

  There is a flood of Kobo vs Kindle reports especially from Australia, where the Kobo was recently released and I've been asked a few times for my take on the Kobo.    Here are two longer reports that are informative and balanced.

1.    Techlogg

      The report is from Australia where they have more limited wireless,
      so they can access only the Amazon store and Wikipedia.
' ...the jewel in the crown for the Kindle is its built-in worldwide 3G connectivity that allows users to buy books directly from the Amazon.com website without having to touch a computer or browser. What’s more, the 3G service is free. You don’t need to sign up for any contracts – you just activate it and away you go.

  The Kobo requires ebooks to be purchased via its webstore through a computer.
The Kindle 2 is more technically advanced than the Kobo but for those wanting to dip a toe into the ebook waters without having to deal with overseas purchases, the Kobo is going to be very hard to beat at its $199 [Aus., equiv $149 US] price tag.'

2.    APCMag.com News, another Australian news site
       This is a hands-on report with photos.
' Kobo lets you browse your personal library, choose a book, turn the pages and bookmark your place before you stop reading.  That’s as complicated as it gets, precisely because that’s as simple as it should be.  Like the original netbooks, Kobo is designed around pretty much one key task. '
  They point out that the feel of the unit is good but that the rubbery navigation button will be frustrating to southpaws.  That would be true of the Kindle's navigation button as well.
' But Kobo cuts some corners to keep the price down. The display shows only eight levels of grayscale (eight shades from white to black), so while the screen has decent contrast – especially in a well-lit environment – it’s not as ‘rich’ as Kindle’s 16-shade screen.

Page turning is also noticeably laggard, with each flip of the virtual page briefly pausing to show what looks like a photographic negative before the new page appears.  It’s a bothersome and distracting trait, especially when you turn pages twice as often as on a regular book (because you’re only able to see one page at a time on the screen).

The Kindle’s page-turn response is faster, snappier and less intrusive – evidence of a faster processor, superior operating system and/or display IO.

In addition to the inbuilt 1GB of flash memory, which Borders says can hold 1,000 typical books (one hundred public domain titles are preloaded), Kobo sports an SD card slot for adding thousands more titles to your grab-and-go library.

Publications in ePub and PDF formats (both open and DRM-protected) are first downloaded to your Windows or Mac system and then sideloaded onto Kobo over a USB cable or off the SD card.
Want Wi-Fi or 3G access to the bookstore so you can browse, buy and download on the move? Then Kobo’s not for you. But that won’t bother the bulk of consumers who are already comfortable using the same PC-centric approach for loading music into their iPods.
... as a starter, the $199 [Aus., equiv $149 US] sticker on this sweet, simple and rather stylish ebook reader could make the Kobo as hard to put down as any best-seller. '


 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Hands on:Kindle for Android prototype - a report by ArsTechnica

This is an UPDATE to the blog article on the Kindle for Android app that is coming this summer.

Ars Technica's Ryan Paul reports on a hands-on demo on the prototype, which Amazon brought to Google I/O. As mentioned earlier, it has the usual Kindle app features, including syncing across all supported devices.
' Screen readability is good and offers a solid reading experience. Users can select from several different font sizes and background colors. Options include a sepia mode and a white-on-black mode for night reading. The application user interface has a brightness adjustment slider, but it wasn't yet functional in the prototype that I tested.

The application lacks a built-in bookstore, but it can automatically sync content that the user has purchased. To add a book from the device itself, the user visits Amazon's website, purchases a book, and then uses the reader application's synchronization feature to pull it down onto the device.
  When the user deletes a book from the device in order to free up storage space, it is still accessible from an "archive" menu which can be used to re-download the content. '
He notes that if you want to read free e-books from places like Project Gutenberg's site, you'll still need a separate third-party reader application like FBReader or Aldiko. Ryan adds:

' I often read e-books on my cell phone when I travel.  I recently managed to get through two William Gibson novels during the flights to and from the Ubuntu Developer Summit that took place earlier this month in Brussels.  Getting e-books on my phone today is often a bit of a chore.  The ability to buy books over the air and have them available and fully synced on all of my devices will be a welcome addition to the Android platform. '


 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

AmazonCrossing to publish translated foreign-language books


From AP
Amazon publishes translated foreign-language books

Amazon is launching a book imprint, AmazonCrossing, to publish foreign-language literature translated into English.
' The first book will be "The King of Kahel," 2008 winner of the prix Renaudot French literary prize. Its author, Tierno Monenembo, was born in Guinea and now lives in France. The book is due out in paperback and in an electronic Kindle version on Nov. 2.

Amazon said it will use customer reviews and other data from its websites around the world to choose AmazonCrossing titles. '
AmazonEncore reissues books it considers exceptional but overlooked.

A press release has a bit more:
' "The goal of our publishing programs is to introduce readers to terrific authors they might not otherwise have the chance to know," said Jeff Belle, Vice President of Books. "Our international customers have made us aware of exciting established and emerging voices from other cultures and countries that have not been translated for English-language readers. These great voices and great books deserve a wider audience, and that's why we created AmazonCrossing."

"As president of the Nobel Committee for Literature, I have seen how recent laureates--Elfriede Jelinek, Imre Kertesz, JMG Le Clézio, Herta Müller--were virtually unknown and unprinted in England and U.S. and only after the Nobel Prize were they able to find readers in English, yet they are in my view equal to anyone writing in English," said Per Wästberg, President of the Nobel Committee for Literature. "AmazonCrossing deserves praise and support. Such translation and distribution of good literature from so-called minor languages can only stimulate our cultures and inspire writers to widen their horizons."

"There are many thousands of books out there worthy of being translated and published in English, but that are currently unavailable to us monolingual readers," said Chad Post, Publisher at Open Letter Books. "The more international books that are available in English, the better. It's exciting to see a company like Amazon investing in such a worthy cause like AmazonCrossing, and in a way that will definitely help expand the audience for literature in translation."

Tierno Monénembo's "The King of Kahel" was originally published in France in 2008 and was the winner of the French literary prize, the prix Renaudot, which is awarded to the author of an outstanding original novel published during the current year. Based on the life of Olivier de Sanderval, a man who journeyed to Guinea to build an empire by conquering the hostile region of Fouta Djallon, the book explores how Sanderval braves all dangers to build a railway that will bring modern civilization to Africa. Born in 1947 in Guinea, Monénembo was exiled to Senegal and the Ivory Coast before moving to France to pursue a doctorate in biochemistry. He is the author of nine books and one stage play. '
Update - Wall St. Journal adds some interesting info on translation costs:
'Although translated works have often had a difficult time gaining wide readership in the U.S., there have been a number of exceptions, including the books of such authors as Umberto Eco, Irene Nemirovsky, and Haruki Murakami. Most recently, a trilogy of novels written by the late Stieg Larsson became international best sellers.

Still, translations can be expensive. Chad Post, director of the University of Rochester's Open Letter Books, which specializes in literature in translation, said translators typically command between $100 and $125 per thousand words. A 60,000-word novel, for example, could cost between $6,000 to $8,000 to translate. Well-known translators, he added, command as much as $175 to $200 per 1,000 words.

"There's a perception that books in translation don't sell as well, so you have to spend more on marketing than you might with a typical American author," he added. "You have to spend more to get their name into circulation." '


 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
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AmazonEncore to publish bestselling author J.A. Konrath's upcoming book

This is an update to the February 16 blog article on Authors and Kindle publishing, which I'll include here in full for those who receive this blog on their Kindles.

ShakenThe reason I'm attaching the Feb. 16 article is the somewhat groundbreaking news that Amazon's AmazonEncore will directly publish the newest book in bestselling author J.A. Konrath's Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels series, "Shaken."  The Kindle edition of "Shaken" will be available in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore) in October  ($2.99 on pre-orders)  but the print version of the book won't be available until February 2011.

  That is noteworthy and may raise alarm bells with publishers already tender over the idea of Amazon (and, the NY Times mentioned, Apple) working directly with "self-publishing" authors.

As described in the earlier article, Konrath has also written under the names Jack Kilborn and Joe Kimball and has published over a dozen books using Amazon's Digital Text Platform (DTP) with quite a bit of success noted with sales of his Kindle books.
' "My Kindle readers have been incredibly faithful fans and I'm excited to be able to release the Kindle edition of 'Shaken' several months before the physical version is available to purchase," said Konrath.  "Since it's easier, faster and cheaper to create an e-book than it is a physical book, Kindle owners will get to read the seventh Jack Daniels before everyone else.  The ability for authors to reach fans -- instantly and inexpensively with a simple press of a button -- is the greatest thing to happen to the written word since Gutenberg." '

UPDATES
Here's an interview by mediabistro's GalleyCat with Konrath about the AmazonEncore deal.  Another interesting Q&A, by himself, is at his site today in connection with this book.

Also, Konrath has a guest post by Boyd Morrison, who was signed by an imprint of Simon & Schuster after his Kindle books took off -- it's a fascinating read.  Don't miss it.

There's also an excellent interview at mediabistro with Karen McQuestion, whose recent successes were mentioned in the earlier article below. GalleyCat asks her about her publishing contract with AmazonEncore and the movie deal written about earlier this year.
  Her Kindle books can be found here.
End of Updates

EARLIER RELATED ARTICLE FROM FEB. 16
In A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, Joe Konrath, aka Jack Kilborn, continues to write about how he has managed to do very well on Amazon book seller lists with the many books and short stories he releases through the Kindle Digital Text Platform ("DTP") feature, and this is before Amazon starts paying 70% to publishers using the platform in June 2010.

The current blog entry, titled "Kudzu and Kindle," explains:
' There's a plant known as kudzu, which is widely hated in the south because it takes over cropland. It grows fast, and uses runners to spread. Kudzu can quickly saturate an entire field. One patch becomes two patches, then four patches, then sixteen patches, and pretty soon it's everywhere you look.

I'm noticing a similar phenomenon with writing in general, and ebooks in particular. '
There have been a number of success stories though the weed-like aspect threw me, including (of the ones I've run across) one writer (Boyd Morrison) whose Kindle book was doing very well, partially with the help of some exposure at the three most-attended Kindle community forums, and he subsequently was signed with Simon and Schuster, an end obviously helped by the attention his Kindle book was getting at Amazon.

  Here's a far more detailed story of how a very proactive Morrison marketed his books (and himself, an important factor) to build on his writing and some great blurbs from bestselling authors (whom he'd met years ago at a writer's conference) for books that had received rejection slips.

  In the Q&A session quoted, he mentions and links to the Kindle forums in which he received very positive responses and gives tips on how not to overmarket ('spam') the forums since that would only irritate the assembled who will associate some bad things with the titles of one's novels :-)

  As his writer friend, Susan Tunis, describes at her blog, he took his rejection slips in stride and just started working on a new story.  But he was
' a pretty savvy guy... He didn't just offer them for sale, he joined several online Kindle user's sites and made contact with potential readers... Before he knew what was happening, unknown, unpublished author Boyd Morrison was climbing the Kindle bestseller charts.  His agent thought it might be time to shop The Ark again.

Suddenly the New York houses were a lot more receptive.  And Boyd may well have made history.  He may be the first author to turn Kindle success into a major publishing contract!  Boyd has a two-book deal with Simon and Schuster and The Ark has also been sold in seven foreign markets!   You'll see the hardback release of The Ark on store shelves next summer... '
Obviously, some very effective writing was at the heart of the success but the Kindle provided the opportunity.

The Kindle book A Scattered Life, by Karen McQuestion, was recently optioned for a film - announced by the author in the Kindle forums.  It's been quite popular and has 25 customer reviews, with an average of 4-1/2 stars, and is #2 under 'Family Relationships.'

Jan Curran, writing of her new life in what's termed an "active senior living facility," has had an enthusiastic response from Kindle readers on the forums, and her book, Active Senior Living, currently has 14 customer reviews, and an average rating of 5 stars out of 5.

The level of success varies of course but it's at least easier to find an audience now and actually be read -- and be paid for it.

Joe Konrath ends today's advice on his blog with:
' I used to be known as the guy who wrote nine unpublished novels and got over five hundred rejections before landing a book deal.

Now I'm known as the guy who pays his mortgage selling books on Kindle that NY rejected.

Be the kudzu. Join the revolution before everyone else figures this out and it's harder to get noticed. '

AND FROM A KINDLE READER'S POINT OF VIEW
I noticed the following comment under JA Konrath's blog post on "Kudzu and Kindle" and remembered that I see this change of heart on almost a daily basis as I wander the news columns and comment areas.  It usually comes from writers, those for whom words are Life, but who love traditional books and have resisted the Kindle.
' I just received a kindle for my birthday, and I had a very negative view of the thing.  Now that I'm using it, I LOVE it. I can see more and more people moving in this direction. '


 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Kindle for Android announced as "Coming soon"

Kindle for Android has been announced as
"Coming soon" with details at
http://amzn.to/kindleforandroid, including a sign-up box for e-mail notification when the app is available for download.

In addition to being able to buy a book from the Kindle Store optimized for your Android phone and getting it auto-delivered wirelessly, the features include the basic ones in other Kindle mobile apps (including the Blackberry) and adds:

  * Read in portrait or landscape mode
  * Tap on either side of the screen or flick to turn pages

Technical details are as follows:

  * Requires Android OS 1.6 or greater
  * Requires an SD card
  * Supports Droid Incredible, Google Nexus One, HTC MyTouch,
        Motorola CLIQ, Motorola Droid,
        and many more Android phones

There is no date or date range given on the product page, but their Seattle press release states that it will be "coming this summer."



 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
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Sunday, May 16, 2010

The Paypal Wars - a Kindle book I'd not noticed


The Paypal wars
- Having joined Paypal from the beginning, I'm surprised this book got by me, but it's in Kindle version now for $2.85.

  The full title is The PayPal Wars: Battles With Ebay, the Media, the Mafia, And the Rest of Planet Earth and it's by Eric M. Jackson.
  39 customer reviews with an average rating of 4.5 stars out of 5.  The paperback price is $10.85.

From the Publisher:
' ... winner of the 2005 Writers Notes Book Award for best business book, winner of the 2005 DIY Book Award for non-fiction, and runner-up in the 2004 USA Book News' Best Book Award for business.

  ... Tom Peters -- management guru and author of the classic "In Search of Excellence" -- said this book "kept me up all night reading" and declared it "the best description of 'business strategy' unfolding in a world changing at warp speed."  It's been called "an absorbing insider's story" by the Washington Times and hailed for its "engaging narrative [that] reads like a spy novel" by Reason Magazine...

  ... This candid insider's account shows firsthand how PayPal launched its online payment service and set out to revolutionize the world's currency markets.  But when the startup's plucky entrepreneurs found themselves confronting eBay (their #1 source of customers!) as well as organized crime rings, money-grubbing lawyers, and even regulation-happy NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the entire venture takes a turn for the worse. '
For more details, see the description from the book's "inside flap."

The author was director of Paypal's marketing program, so this will be from that perspective.  Other online reviews mention that the book explains some of Paypal's bad reputation in the past and there are still strong complaints online, though I've personally had no problem with it.
 As most will know, Paypal became a fully-owned subsdiary of eBay in 2002, 3 years before this book was released.



 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
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Friday, May 14, 2010

Kindle Software Update v2.5 progress report

KINDLE SOFTWARE UPDATE VERSION 2.5 PROGRESS REPORT
Blog entry expanded May 14, 2010 and June 9 - Original posting 4/28/10

Click to SKIP to v2.5 and v.252 features info.

This is an expansion of the original blog article on the coming software or firmware update v2.5 for Kindle 2 and Kindle DX.  This is separated from other news that was included in the original entry, and there is a wonderful online introductory tutorial link added.  I received my update recently and will add a few words on that, but most Kindle owners will get this probably during the last week of May.  Kindle forum members are seeing more updates happenng now, and there is added word on how that is done as well.

The Kindle Chronicle's Len Edgerly pointed me to the good news on April 18 that Amazon had announced the new Kindle software update that was promised to hit our Kindles before the summer -- a main focus of Kindle owners having been ORGANIZATION of books on the Kindle for some time, and they added social-networking features that will of course help bring attention to their books.

  Update 2.5  is still being rolled out to a "limited group of users" in what would normally be termed a "beta" phase for feedback from the beta software users, with a broad release date in late May.  It's not an official beta but if the 'broad release date' was late May and some members had reported getting the update already, it has provided time to 'adjust' the software update based on reports from the earliest group.  In fact, Amazon has indicated that Kindle Support needed to handle a more limited number of feedback reports and has made some adjustments already based on what they did hear.

  Wording on the page had indicated the update would not be for the original Kindle 1, no real surprise, as the screen-handling of the cursor navigation for the Kindle Klassic, as it's often called, is "indirect" and uses entirely different software instructions from the "direct" screen cursor access for the current Kindle 6" and Kindle DX.
  But a note from Customer Support to a Kindle 1 owner suggests strongly that they may well be working on a similar organizational feature for the Kindle 1.

 Answers to questions we had initially are in the online documentation.
  I've linked to Amazon help pages for each new feature when I've found one, as those describe how these new features work.

THE LIST OF COMING ENHANCEMENTS - emphases mine:
* Collections: Organize your books and documents into one or more collections.



Sorting Content and Using Collections


Once you have this software (most of us in late May), we would still go up to the top of the HOME screen and navigate the SORT options, which will now include "Collections," which are categories we create.  The set-categories given us before (Personal Docs, etc.) are no longer shown.

The HOME screen will look the same, but when we go up to the SORT options area at the top of the screen, we'll be able to view the Collections we've created.  You can see that the categories or collections are shown along with the number of books or documents in those collections.  The default option will remain "Most Recent First" unless we arrow over to Collections option and click on it.

Collections are created from a Menu option on the Home screen and can be renamed or deleted later (see screen image below).

  A book can be in several collections, but even if it is in only one collection, the deletion of that collection won't affect the book, which will then just show on the Home screen.


  Collections can be transferred across registered Kindle devices and you'll be able to import collections from your other Kindle devices under the Archived Items page, using "Add Other Device Collections.

  If you re-download a deleted book, it will download to the collection or category it was a part of before.

* PDF Pan and Zoom: Zoom into PDFs and pan around to easily view small print and detailed tables or graphics.
+
  Zooming on Images and PDF Documents
  That page will show how it's done for books and for PDF documents.

* Password Protection: Password protect your Kindle when you're not using it. 
  Here's the guide.  This feature is Off as a Default and is optional.
    The password is set from the Menu/Settings screen and you provide a hint.
    If you don't remember the password, you'll get a phone number for
    Customer Support who will help you reset it.

* More Fonts and Improved Clarity: Enjoy two new larger font sizes and sharper fonts for an even more comfortable reading experience.

* Facebook and Twitter Posts: Share book passages with friends on Facebook and Twitter directly from your Kindle.

    Sharing Highlights and Notes on Facebook and Twitter
  The linked Amazon help page for this (just above) details how this is done.

* Popular Highlights: See what the Kindle community thinks are the most interesting passages in the books you're reading.

  Annotations: Highlights ...
    Part of this feature is already included in our private, password-protected Annotations webpage (we have this page if we left Annotations Backup enabled in the Menu/Settings options).
   Here's an example of what highlights for a book look like on our private annotations webpage (ignoring my own idea of privacy for a moment) before the recent addition of  "popular highlights.".

  If three or more people highlight overlapping portions of a passage, this will trigger the alert, in your book, that others have highlighted a given passage.  You can turn this feature off under Menu/Settings.

  I think I'll turn this off until I've read the chapter or book because I don't want to be influenced by what others highlighted while I'm still reading.  I don't read movie reviews in detail for the same reason.  I'd like to read just what the author wrote, without cues from others.  The feature is probably very useful for bookclubs though.
(Often wished-for enhancements that are Not on the list: Direct editing of PDFs and ability to directly-read non-rights-protected ePub w/o converting them first).

THE COLLECTIONS FEATURE
This feature is especially well thought out, so it's intuitive, logical, and therefore easy to use.   It has a tag-type structure, so that you can have a book in several groupings at any time.  There is only one level of groupings though.  Already I have 25 named Collections under which I want to find things.   But it's still brought my list of 200 books and documents way down.  And it's really easy to find the books I'm in the mood to read now.
   I wish only that we could mark and move several books at once into this or that collection, but let's not get greedy.  Yet.

  Update, 5/16/10 - I also really need that the Home listing of Collection groupings (when we've chosen that sorting method) be in alphabetical order.  Right now it appears to be by most recently accessed collection.  Thanks to Elmo for the reminder.  Kindle users should contact kindle-feedback@amazon.com so that their feedback is recorded and the various desired items counted.

PAN AND ZOOM ON PDFS
This is very effective for zooming in on a selected area (zoom box size is not extendable as they fit what your chosen magnification is).  Using the  'Aa' font-key, we can choose magnifications of 150, 200, and 300x.  And the resulting scaled-up text is VERY clear.

  I'd like, though,  a smoother way to move to another part of the page, to the right especially, when using the moving box border.

HUGE FONT SIZEThe Amazon Customer Service Team mentioned on the official Kindle forum and on Facebook earlier that this update promised before Summer would include a font that is twice the size of the current largest Kindle font.  The new fonts really ARE huge..
  There'd also been some hope that Kindle menu-options would be included in text-to-speech by then but I don't see that audio feature listed.  

FACEBOOK/TWITTER HIGHLIGHTS SHARING FEATURE
  The Facebook/Twitter features are ready, and the online-tutorial I'll link to shows you how to use it and what we'll see when we send out a highlighted section for others to read.  Those familiar with Facebook and Twitter know that these two companies ask you to link other webpages or processes to your page on their sites.  Some will be more comfortable with that than others.  Some already do like the feature quite a bit.  I decided to test it out and here's what the Facebook portion of this shared-highlight looks like there:

The actual highlight I made (and the nicer aspect of this is that we can make a longer highlighted passage this way) is linked to at Facebook (or at Twitter if you choose that) and the passage is then shown at an Amazon page made for that. Here's how the highlighted portion appears at your shared highlight page at Amazon.

  News writers seem to find this by far the most interesting feature though Kindle-owners have long pushed for the other new features.

  Not only is Sharing across cables apparently sexy (newswise), but few e-readers have easy wireless access, not to mention almost-anywhere-anytime 3G Wireless access at no added cost. So, you could be sitting on a bus, or a bench somewhere, reading a passage you want to share with friends, and you can just highlight something of interest to friends at Facebook or Twitter and send it off.  The advantage for Amazon is obvious.

WHEN DO MOST OF US GET THE V2.5 UPDATE? (Only  maybe 20,000+ have already received it, according to one report on the 13th). This firmware update is still being methodically rolled out and delivered over Whispernet (Kindle Wireless) with no manual-download option for now.

  What I did - I plugged in the adapter at night after turning Wireless ON through the Menu system, just in case,  but, again, most of us won't get this until late May.  It's *important* also to remember to turn Wireless OFF after you remove the power adapter the next morning to avoid fast battery drain once you've  downloaded any subscriptions/periodicals that might be coming in that day.   I did appreciate the early birds taking care of any bugs before the rest of us get it though :-)

EXCELLENT HANDS-ON GUIDE TO UPDATE v2.5
Ars Technica's Jacqui Cheng has a fine hands-on report on the Kindle software upgrade, thoroughly illustrated.  Don't miss this one.

HOW THE KINDLE V2.5 UPDATE IS SENT AND RECEIVED
S. Foster at the Amazon Kindle Community forum discussions reported very interesting info as interpreted from a phone conversation with an Amazon Customer Service rep on May 13.

Essentially, it's a very large binary file that's being sent over the air - about 10 megs. That's an expensive Whispernet update -- best to do it only once. So far, he reports that the rep said that about 20,000 devices have received the update in this feedback/problem-solving phase and that there were of course a few problems but that these have been corrected and the full rollout has been scheduled for..."soon."

Wave 3 started a few days ago. The file is so large that it can take 2-4 days to download in smaller chunks to the Kindle. If your Kindle is receiving now and then a chunk or two, it'll tend to be slower during those times.

See the full report at the Kindle forums.



 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
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(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Thursday, May 13, 2010

Kindle to be in ALL Target stores June 6

Reuters wrote last night:
  "[Target] is also set to offer Amazon.com Inc's Kindle in all of its stores on June 6, the lone bricks-and-mortar retailer to offer the top-selling product in the growing electronic-reader market."

This started with a pilot program in 100+ stores in Florida and in the Headquarters store in Minneapolis.  So, in June,  instead of the current opportunity to try out a Kindle for 30 days at home, with full refunds available if not interested in it, the Kindle-curious will be able to try them out at Target stores near them.

  It'll be interesting to see if people are more inclined to get one at the store or order from Amazon with the current sales tax advantage.  Word is that Target's stated return-policy will be similar if not better, although Amazon Kindle Support is known to be easy to deal with.  The convenience of a store in either case can't be underestimated, which is why Amazon is finally doing this.



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   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
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Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Amazon's new Shopping App for iPad - Update

UPDATE - Interesting assessment by Geek magazine, with an excerpt given below.

This new Amazon app for iPad differs from the Kindle for iPad, which is for Kindle-library book access on the iPad.

This app is for shopping at Amazon while you're on the iPad and it would include the Kindle bookstore as well as all the other areas of Amazon.
  Sam Hall, director of Amazon Mobile was quoted in a PR release as saying that "This application offers customers a unique, interactive experience that takes full advantage of the visual and tactile nature of the iPad." Key features of the app as described by the press release:
' * Purchase using Amazon's 1-Click ordering and Amazon Prime
  * Track packages or modify orders using the Your Account feature
  * Receive personalized recommendations
  * View editorial and customer reviews
  * Browse Amazon's Bestsellers, Gold Box Deal of the Day and Lightning Deals
  * Access Wish List and Universal Wish List
  * Watch movie trailers and listen to song samples '
The Amazon app itself is free and downloadable by iPad owners at http://www.itunes.com/appstore and at that Amazon app's Amazon page.

More detailed information about the Amazon shopping app includes fuller descriptions for the summary points there:
' * Intuitive and Clear
  * Personalized
  * Fast
  * Convenient
  * Secure '
Geek's enthusiastic review calls it "awesome" a couple of times and includes the following:
' Optimized specifically for iPad, the app takes advantage of the “generous display size” to show off products in their full glory, including awesome image galleries, detailed product descriptions, as well as editorial and customer reviews. We’re not talking about dumb web pages rendered inside an embedded browser, but a brand new layout that feels nimble, responsive, and a pleasure to use. '


 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

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(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Free Kindle books to go off Bestsellers list and onto own bestseller list

Amazon's been busy this weekend getting more changes in place, and a lot has happened in the one day I was not able to be here.  I'll keep them separate.

First, the Kindle books change that affects all of us, Free Kindle Books to go on own list, which I think was inevitable considering complaints that something offered for 'free' cannot be normally be said to be 'sold' and certainly not convincingly 'best'-selling.

Add that the Big5-Agency-model books priced higher than $9.99 almost surely are not selling as well as the Big5 had hoped and there will be pressure to highlight them, and then there's the need for Amazon to make book profits despite their battles with the Big5 to avoid the higher pricing.

So, this is a compromise that probably can work fairly well, because Amazon customers in the habit of looking for free non-classics (using my shortcut currently to get at the meat of these) would still be able to find those when they're on a list of their own.

  Publishers Weekly, quoted by L.A. Times, writes:
'...Amazon’s practice of including free downloads in its list of most popular Kindle titles. It will soon no longer be an issue.  A representative at the e-tailer has confirmed that the company will be splitting its Kindle bestseller list, creating one list for paid books and another for free titles.  The date for the switch is vague—the rep would only say it will happen in “a few weeks” '
I found it interesting that HarperCollins was quoted as thinking this MIGHT make free promos less effective while they have been the one of the Big5 most using the free-promo feature.

  I think that both lists will be used by customers and that the bestseller listing of free books will make it that much easier to find them for those who are especially interested in those.

  In fact, it could also mean that some people will now never even see the buyable Bestsellers because of this. Sometimes it's good to be careful what you (Big5) wish for.

Image credit: switched.com

 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle


(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Monday, May 10, 2010

Amazon offers buy-back or trade-in program on over 1 million textbooks

 
New Amazon feature for textbooks:
  In addition to Amazon's discounted textbooks store, which offers savings of up to 30% off the list price of over 100,000 new textbooks and up to 90% off the list price of millions of used textbooks,  Amazon now offers a textbook buyback program,

"Students just visit www.amazon.com/buyback, and search for the books they want to trade.  Then students can print a pre-paid shipping label and drop the package in the mail.

  Once the book is received and verified by the third-party merchant that purchases the titles, an Amazon.com Gift Card will be deposited into the student's Amazon.com account.

  This gift card can be used toward the purchase of next semester's books, or the millions of other items on Amazon.com."
A couple of examples:  On their current listing of Popular Titles Eligible for Buyback, the first book (on anatomy) has a list price of $149 and a Trade-in Value of $87.50.  The second book (on accounting) has a list price of $161.90 and a Trade-in Value of $93.

  So, the discount can be close to 60% with the added benefit of being able to avoid bookstore lines and buyback deadlines.  Rather than cash to be used anywhere, though, students get an Amazon Gift Card in their Amazon.com accounts, usable for other items at Amazon.



 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle


(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Saturday, May 8, 2010

The attractive but bare-bones $149 Kobo called a "Kindle killer" by press. Update

I've started another blog, E-readerworld, to focus on news of other e-readers since I'm interested in the technology in general but some Kindleworld blog followers prefer the focus on mainly the Kindle.   Among other e-readers there,  I've started following the Kobo, since it's due here in June and is partnering with Borders.

However, it seems there can't be a day without dozens of columns saying what new device now WILL (finally) kill the Kindle, since it seems to be a bit harder to kill than had been thought (wished ?).    Maybe it would help if some writers even read about the features of each device and compared those.  Before the money is put down, most consumers do comparison-shopping.

This won't be about those strange columns though. 
  However, even Consumer Reports' Paul Reynolds, in an otherwise neutral article, feels the Kindle will need to reduce its price again to approach the Kobo pricing because it's felt Amazon needs to be more competitive with other e-readers even when they don't have many (basic) features the Kindle has.

  Whatever happened to the idea of features-comparison?

  UPDATE - 5/10/10 - 11:14 AM
  I just saw that Paul Reynolds made a gracious reply to my comment to him at Consumer Reports.  Part of my concern had been that probably 99% of the online articles on this topic cite, at best, the wireless feature (and that there are costs associated with it) but don't mention the many reading-associated features that one model has that the less-expensive one doesn't and which I feel people should read about when price difference is the key focus.   The explanation Paul Reynolds gave was very well stated. [End of udpate]

As an e-reader customer I wouldn't mind any price decreases.
  But, should all models with varying features, say, by one manufacturer be priced as if they were nearly the same?  Each added feature brings more cost.  That's probably as old as the first humans on the planet.

The underlying thought by many technology reporters about e-readers seems to be that any device that is "just" a book reader has to be of very low value.  I've seen that in many stories - that the pricing should be $50 or $99  at the most.   Some of it comes from research in which people were just asked at what price would they consider an e-reader.  Counted are those who wouldn't even particularly want one.

Mashable's Lauren Indvik writes that "The Kobo e-reader is very similar to Amazon’s Kindle 2 both in functionality and in appearance, but at $150, is almost half the price."

I added a comment to the "very similar...functionality" description.
"Actually, the Kobo e-reader is not very similar to Amazon’s Kindle 2 in functionality unless you count only showing the text on an e-ink display.

  Here's what is part of the Kindle functionality but not at all present in the Kobo:
         [  I've separated the features by lines here. ]
  . an in-line Dictionary
  . a Text-search mechanism (for the book or the device)
  . the ability to Highlight or make Notes
       (and to see them automatically organized and viewable
        on a private webpage if wanted)
  . the ability to use 3G wireless and at no added cost, 24/7 in the States
  . the ability to use Wikipedia via 3G globally for free
       while reading a book and wanting to know more about
       a word or phrase or a character in the book.

*Less important functionality* that the Kindle has but the Kobo doesn't:

  . Text-to-speech on any documents, periodicals, or books while busy
      w/other things but wanting to continue 'reading' 
  . the ability to listen to mp3's in the background.

The Kobo can't use WiFi networks instead [of 3G celluar], as the Nook does.

However, the Kobo does have the Adobe licensing to use the public library and if your local library 'Overdrive' program has a lot of good e-books, that's worth quite a bit.  [ It also reads ePub files.]

Too many are looking only at price (which isn't done normally because you usually have cost-comparison of features),

With the Kobo and its $149 - you get what you pay for, bare-bones functionality. For $110 more, the Kindle gives a lot more long-term value. That free 3G access for mobile-text webbing is useable anywhere, including when in a bus or in some waiting-room somewhere.

The Kobo has neither 3G wireless nor WiFi - it's actually quite limited for $149. [Bluetooth transfers can be relatively cumbersome.] BUT I recommend it for the public library access for some, though that depends on what the local library stocks in the way of e-books and how many can borrow one at the same time..

Amazon has 20,000 or more free books, easily downloadable 24/7 from anywhere. The Project Gutenberg's 30,000 files can be downloaded directly to the device over the air at no cost via the "Magic Catalog."

WORD doc files are accepted by Amazon for free conversion to Kindle format, which is very helpful, but these can also be done [converted] by the user.

Also, the 16 shades of gray [Kindle] vs 8 shades [Kobo] can make quite a difference in photos."
Well, that's my bit for the current onslaught of articles about the Kobo as "Kindle Killer" - a term much loved by the media for some reason. 



 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
   Check often:  Latest temporarily free non-classics or late-listed temporarily free nonclassics.
  Also, a prepared links that confine searches to mid-range priced e-books. Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle


(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

Friday, May 7, 2010

Amazon Web Services to power Netflix's technology infrastructure


From Seattle (Business Wire) - Netflix Selects Amazon Web Services [AWS] to Power Mission-Critical Technology Infrastructure

'... Netflix members' movie lists, website search, movie transcoding, recommendation system and more will all be powered by AWS, representing many of the most critical pieces of the Netflix technology infrastructure.
...
' AWS] lets us focus on innovation that enables a great member experience, without requiring us to devote time and energy to building undifferentiated data centers," said Kevin McEntee, Netflix Vice President of Engineering. '

The details of what will be done for Netflix and its customer base are at the link but it includes utilizing Amazon Web Services:
' to transcode and store the movie subscription service's growing movie content library for delivery on new platforms, including the Nintendo Wii and the Apple (News - Alert) iPad. The flexibility and scalability of AWS allows Netflix to utilize vast numbers of servers to transcode and store TV episodes and movies into new formats quickly, and AWS pay-as-you-go pricing ensures that Netflix pays only for resources used.
...
...Netflix runs several of its website application functions on AWS, and is rapidly migrating more of these components to AWS. The important functions migrating to AWS include the delivery of movie and member metadata within the Netflix website
...
... Netflix is using Amazon Elastic Map Reduce to analyze streaming sessions and extract business metrics around performance, viewing patterns and more, which enables Netflix to continue to improve the quality of streaming. '
Amazon has been providing this type of service to large companies for awhile, yet I keep reading news stories that Amazon has no  'hardware or software' expertise and that they should stick to selling books and  home products.



 See the ongoing Guide to finding Free or Low-Cost Kindle books and Sources
  Check daily: Latest free non-classics.  Shortcut http://bit.ly/latestfreenonclassics.) Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle


(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
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Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Sending your WORD Doc files to the Kindle

          

KindleToday
points us to a New York Times article with a tip on How to Move Your Own Documents to Kindle.   By "Your Own" they mean reports or memos you've created yourself with Microsoft Word.

What they describe is well presented.  I'd explained some of this in a previous Kindleworld blog article, and since I included links in it, I'll include some of that here, with slight re-wording.  See the NYT article for other details, including other formats that will work for this.

  For your own WORD Docs and even for more complex pages from the Web (multi-column, for example), you can Highlight text you want, Copy it, open up Microsoft WORD, Paste the copied section to a new blank document, and Save the file.

  Just make sure your margins will work with the Kindle screen in portrait orientation if you intend to read it in vertical mode, or make sure they work with the Kindle screen in the wider view offered by the Kindle's Landscape mode.  This will all depend on the font size you decide to use.  Use narrower margins to be on the safe side so that you don't need to experiment as much.

  The saved WORD Doc file can then be sent to [you]@kindle.com, etc., and Amazon will send it back, converted for the Kindle.  That's just one of many ways to do it.

  Be sure to set up a [you]@kindle.com address first, of course.  This is done at your Amazon "Manage Your Kindle" page near the top at the left.  Here's a guide for using that management page.

  You can then email these new Doc files to [you]@kindle.com (direct to your Kindle).   Amazon charges 15c per megabyte per file, rounded up, to send one of your personal documents (non-Amazon books) direct to your Kindle, after a conversion by Amazon if needed.

  You can instead email items to [you]@free.kindle.com -- at no cost, as implied -- and then use the usb cable to move the converted files to your Kindle or Kindle DX.

 (Other alternatives are to do it yourself, converting the file with MobiPocket Reader or saving the Doc file to HTML in WORD and converting it through Calibre, though these would take more time.  But you'd have some control over the layout.)

  This is one of my favorite Kindle capabilities, as I often look up places I'm visiting on a weekend and then I send the info and even things like boat schedules to my Kindle.  This came in handy when I wanted to take a different boat back from Angel Island after deciding to stay there longer than first intended.  I turned on the Kindle's 3G wireless while at the Angel Island store, googled the Tiburon ferry and got the boat schedule and directions to the ferry from where I was.

  Also, I had earlier copied Yahoo map driving directions from home to the ferry site and back, and did put those on the Kindle also. 

  When I got back, I made an intro page of the trip for friends in simple webpage format and then while using a browser to view it, I highlighted and copied it to a narrow-column DOC file and put it on the Kindle as a memento.




US:
Kindle Fire  7" tablet - $199
Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $79/$109
Kindle Touch, WiFi
- $99/$139
Kindle Touch, 3G/WiFi - $149/$189
Kindle Keybd 3G - $189, Free, slow web
Kindle DX - $379, Free, slow 3G web
UK:
Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £89
Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £109
Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi, UK - £169
Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149
  Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB
OTHER International
Kindle NoTouch Basic - $109
Kindle Touch WiFi - $139
Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi - $189
Kindle Keybd 3G - $189
  Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB

Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
  Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button

Below are ways to Share this post if you'd like others to see it.
-- The Send to Kindle button works well only on Firefox currently.

Send to Kindle


(Older posts have older Kindle model info. For latest models, see CURRENT KINDLES page. )
If interested, you can also follow my add'l blog-related news at Facebook and Twitter
Questions & feedback are welcome in the Comment areas (tho' spam is deleted). Thanks!

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