Kindle News: Kindle app for iOS gets X-Ray feature. Also, new "FreeTime Unlimited" parental control plan. Kindle Fire HD 8.9" software update v8.1.3

Two Amazon announcements this week and a Kindle Fire HD 8.9 tablet S/W update

First:
Photo credit: Ben Rotman at Lost at e minor.

See the larger version of the penguin-x-rays image and more at that site.

  Also, indie publishers, Rotman has an intriguing excerpt (involving a seemingly sleepless child whose nights are spent exploring his urban surrounds on the trains of Paris) from "an as yet unpublished screenplay."

  Also check out the whimsical flip flops by Kusa at the end of the page.
  (I don't know him -- I found his x-ray images for the blog and enjoyed them and the site.)

Others of you who may be more interested in crafts, might enjoy the feature on Izziyana Suhaimi's "black and white pencil and watercolor drawings with colorful ornate embroidery in her seductive textured illustrations."

All right, when here, I've been gathering and organizing material for some HowTo-oriented articles, but they're not ready at the moment.  After that off-topic intro prompted by the X-ray feature, I'll bring you the latest commercial Kindle-related news from Amazon.

  Note to Kindle-Edition blog subscribers: Remember that if you click to follow a link, you can click on an article and then choose Menu/ArticleView to read it in a special book-like format.


Kindle for iOS gets X-ray support
PC Magazine's Stephanie Miot relays an alert on the Kindle for iOS app update.

For those who've seen the name of a character on a page and wondered WHO that was in pages past, Amazon's X-Ray can be a Godsend.  I've appreciated it most in books like Columbine and for the many characters in Steve Jobs's life.  X-ray links you to every appearance of that person in the book, in context of a paragraph for each.  True for topics, ideas, etc.

This update for iOS also has manga image rendering improvements.


Kindle FreeTime Unlimited
The key word in the BusinessWire release is Unlimited - and it's an optional upgrade over the free version of FreeTime, which is available for the new Kindle Fire models announced in September 2012.

  For families who could benefit from this new content service "for kids ages 3-8," it features unlimited access "to thousands of titles including exclusive-to-Amazon Android apps and games—all curated for age-appropriateness."

  The new feature is priced at $2.99/mo. per child for Prime members, or $6.99 per month per family ($4.99 per child or $9.99 per family for non-Prime members).  It'll be available "as part of a free, over-the-air software update that will be automatically delivered in the coming weeks."

  Owners of any of the new Kindle Fires can try it at no cost during the first month of use.

  Per the press release, some of the benefits mentioned:
  For children:

• They can explore all the content on their own and pick for themselves what to read, watch or play next
• With individual profiles, everything in their library is theirs—no sharing a home screen with siblings or parents and no losing their place in a movie or TV show when someone else picks up the Kindle Fire
• They can easily explore their favorite topics...

For parents:

• All apps have in-app payments, advertisements and social media removed
• No worries that the young'un will run up a bill
• All-you-can-eat pricing means no negotiations with the kids about what to buy or rent
• All content has been pre-screened for age-appropriateness.

For details on the content (which includes "Popular Kids Movies and TV Shows" and how it all works, see the BusinessWire release.

As an aside, when I worked for a science-education museum, I was advised not to refer to children as "kids" as that word refers more to goats :-).  In real life, that's the general word though.  "The kids [don't] want to do that!"


Software Update for Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch tablet
Software update v8.1.3 was just released and was received at my Kindle Fire Hd 8.9" tablet sometime in the last two days.  When an update happens, your tablet may act strangely when you fire it up and it decides there is enough battery power remaining to download and install the new upgrade.

  The software update info, including how to tell which software version you have currently, and a guide to how to get the update manually (for what appears to be just a maintenance (glitch-fix) update) is on Amazon's KFHD 8.9" software page.

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Current Kindle Models for reference, plus free-ebook search links.
NOTES on newer Kindles.

US: Updated Kindle Fire Basic  7" tablet - $159 Kindle Fire HD 7" 16/32GB - $199/$249 Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 16/32GB - $299/$369 Kindle Fire HD 8.9" 4G 32/64GB - $499/$599 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $69/$89 Kindle Paperwhite, WiFi - $119/$139 Kindle Paperwhite, 3G - $179/$199 Kindle Keybd 3G - $139/$159, Free but slow web Kindle DX - $379 $299, Free, slow web

UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £69 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £89 Refurb'd Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB Kindle Paperwhite, WiFi - £109 Kindle Paperwhite 3G, UK - £169 Kindle Fire 2, UK -  £129 Kindle Fire HD 7" 16/32GB, UK - £159/199

OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $89 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB France Boutique Kindle Deutschland - Kindle Store Italia - Kindle Store Spain - Tienda Kindle

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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. )
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Kindle News: Personalized JibJab Video Gift Cards... PRIME monthly pricing paused?...Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch tablet released 5 days early...Adobe Photoshop in Kindle Fire "PS Touch" app version

KINDLE NEWSBITS

Consumer Electronics Daily News posted the Amazon JibJab Gift Card image above and accompanying story on Amazon's Video Gift Cards, announced Jan. 16.

Customers can now "create free, personalized "JibJab Starring You®" videos featuring a photo of their own face or faces of their friends and family," personalized "for over a dozen occasions."

  These can also be shared through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and email, while keeping the gift card details private, they report.

  There are over 50 JibJab videos that can be personalized, and since they're gift cards, you choose how much to gift someone, the upper limit being $2,000 (!) and you can then choose to email it or post it to a friend's Facebook Wall (without details, I presume from the description above).  The recipient can then use the gift card at Amazon at their convenience.
  They're delivered instantly if you want or they can be scheduled for a future date.  These never expire.  I should hope not (unless the friendship falls apart before one is used).   :-).


Amazon's Test of Monthly Prime Program Subscriptions has already ended
That was fast!  Engadget's Jon Fingas reports that Amazon stopped the new Prime price-test program, having "completed" its testing and is no longer taking sign-ups.  Don't know if that's The End of that or a lull before an official offering.  While the yearly rate of $79 (which breaks down to $6.58/mo.) is better than, say, $8/mo (which would make $96 for a year),  many do prefer not to be committed to a year, so it'll be interesting to see whether they do go ahead with an official month-by-month offering as an incentive to try it.

  I'd think the expense of turning that 'on' and 'off,' while applying appropriate shipping costs, might make it not that worthwhile to Amazon, but I've no idea.


Kindle Fire HD 8.9" released finally
The Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch tablet started shipping a few days ago, before the estimated Nov. 20 date.  I ordered the 8.9" model with 4G/LTE cellular network access and won't see that model until next week sometime.

Gizmodo's Kyle Wagner, 7/16/12, writes some quick impressons:

' The first thing you notice is how much nicer the 8.9-inch tablet is to hold one-handed than a 10-inch tablet... That’s partially because of the largeish bezel, which makes it nice to hold.  But because of that, partially, it’s not small in the way the iPad Mini is.  The Mini feels like a really big small tablet, while this one is more of a small big tablet. Comics, for example, are totally readable without zooming in.

Speaking of the screen: It’s great.  We did a quick, unscientific comparison against the Nexus 10′s monster of a display, and the Fire mostly held its own.  Its blacks are a little blacker, though the Nexus looks a little brighter on a white background (though there’s some disagreement here about that).  Text looks lovely on both, but the whites are different.  At a glance, the Kindle’s contrast seems easier on the eyes while reading...'

Adobe Photoshop Touch ("PSTouch") app for Kindle Fire HDs
Engadget's Joseph Volpe writes, on Nov. 15, 2012,  about Adobe's Photoshop Touch app (v1.4), which was apparently modified from the one for Android (still at v1.3)  to optimize or customize the app for the newer Kindle Fire 7-inch and 8.9-inch tablet sizes.

  Android-type app fonts are quite scalable and will adjust with little loss of sharpness perceived.  The overall layout has been changed somewhat, and there is a new anti-lens-flare feature.
  The PS Touch app for Kindle Fire is not being offered at Google Play market, as of today, 2 days later.
Google Play does not acknowledge the Kindle Fire devices.

  I actually do have the original PS Touch Android app from Google Play, which is optimized for larger-sized Android tablets (and there's a version for iPad 2's and above also -- iPad 1 users were upset it wasn't available for that model because the hardware couldn't handle it), and I use the original Android app on my Samsung 10.1" Galaxy Tab.

  The PS Touch Android apps can run only on v3.x  (Honeycomb) or above, so do not work with the earlier Kindle Fire (Generation 1).  The latest app version  is optimized for Android 4.x, and since the old Kindle Fire is at v2.x ("Gingerbread"), it's not included.  All later Kindle Fires are at v4.03 currently.

Adobe Photoshop app and the regular Photoshop program
  On May 10, 2012, I went to an Adobe Headquarters demonstration of the new app in San Francisco, the demo sponsored by Adobe and a local photography group, which was a good-sized local crowd very interested in being able to edit with the familiar, powerful features of Photoshop, on a tablet.  These demo events are nicely free in San Francisco.  The person just behind me in the line for our name tags got a ticket which won an iPad 3.  I should have been one-person late :-)    Never enough different types of tablets.

  Adobe's PSTouch app  is based on the well-known Photoshop program which costs several hundred dollars, even at discount.
  The Android app, at $9.95, actually includes a lot of popular Photoshop editing features like layers, masks, extractions, compositing, cloning, etc., and comes with a large tutorial group, though I can't say that the tutorials are  that intuitive.  I did bungle my way through the exercises before going to the Adobe Demo, and I wound up able to send some quickly-edited pictures to friends during a vacation.  Here are some photos from that Adobe event -- and the 7th pic in the set is of my 10" Samsung Tablet, which I bought refurbished ("cheap"), displaying the app's tutorials on my lap while I watched the large-screen demos.

  Is this app worth $9.95?
  If you already use or appreciate what the expensive Photoshop program can do, the app will be well worth the $10.
  But it could well be "overkill" for others when capable and simpler editing apps are available at lower cost and even for free for the kinds of things most like to do when sharing pics quickly via email or Facebook.

  As for the Adobe demo event, I also took a photo of one shot they displayed after photographing a member of the audience, adding, almost instantly to her photo, a pirate's hat and eye patch.  What struck me about it was that she looked like "Christina" from Grey's Anatomy :-).
  Am I off-topic enough?

---

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!