Archive for October, 2010
Lower Priced Kindle 3 Covers & Jackets no comments
I need a cover for my Kindle 3, and I’ve been waiting for more covers to hit the market as nothing has really grabbed me yet. I really like the Cole Haan covers, especially the woven leather model, and seriously considered buying one for my Kindle 3. But I hesitated at spending almost as much again for the cover as my Kindle 3 Wi-Fi ereader cost — at least until more case makers get their Kindle 3 covers and jackets out.
I have an Octovo Vintage Leather cover for my Kindle DXG (review), and really like it — as does most everyone who sees it. I’ve been waiting for OCTOVO
UPDATE: OCTOVO has finally released their Kindle 3 covers.
BoxWave Sienna Leather Elite Kindle 3 Case
Amazon has a page with covers and cases for the Kindle 3
For now I bought the Sienna Leather Kindle 3 cover from BoxWave. This one is very reasonably priced at $23. This cover gets quite good reviews for the Kindle 2 and Nook models.
This case is a faux leather that looks 
realistic enough unless next to real leather (if you want real leather I would recommend the J-Tech covers below in this price range). It looks something like a vintage saddle brown leather. The lining is a charcoal grey microsuade that looks quite nice with the graphite case of my Kindle 3.
To protect the screen there are reinforcing plates sewn inside both the front and rear covers. The Kindle is held in place by elastic corner bands and a magnetic snap is used to hold the cover closed. With the cover on my Kindle 3 Wi-Fi weighs in at 14 ounces — the cover itself is about 5.5 ounces.
One thing that is different about the BoxWave cover is that the fastening strap is attached to the front and snaps on the back panel. Most ereader covers I have seen seem to have the strap sewn onto the back and fastening in the front.
It took me awhile to get used to this, as it seems like you are holding the ereader backwards. Actually, though, 
putting the strap on the front solves one sometimes annoying problem with some ereader covers: in some covers the strap, especially when the cover is new and the material stiff, curls over the ereader and onto the screen. This is distracting and requires tucking or holding the strap back.
The Sienna Leather Kindle 3 cover is practical and functional. It should serve well to protect your ereader. BoxWave also makes a similar cover in real black leather for the same price.
TrendyDigital Folio Case for Kindle 3
TrendyDigital’s Folio Case has pockets for papers and business cards as well as a pen holder. This case uses elastic corner straps to hold the Kindle 3 in place.
Double zippers are used to close the Folio case. This type of closure can help to prevent dust and splashes from reaching your Kindle 3. The Folio Case is made of faux leather and costs $25. TrendyDigital also makes this cover with a world map print on the outside.
TrendyDigital also makes its waterproof covers for the Kindle 3.
J-Tech Digital Leather Kindle 3 Covers
J-Tech Digital makes a series of genuine leather covers for the Kindle 3. 
These cases also use elastic corner straps to hold your ereader in place. A magnetic snap on the flap is used to hold the cover closed. Pen holders and slots for business cards and papers are built-in.
J-Tech currently makes several colors of leather covers for the Kindle 3: brown, dark grey, pink and purple. All are priced at $30.
Incipio Tech. Kindle 3 Leather Sleeve
One of the great things about the Kindle 3 is its light weight. No matter which cover you get, you are adding weight to your ereader. There is something to be said for a sleeve design to protect your Kindle 3. 
This style of case affords protection for your ereader when not being used or during transport, but when you are ready to use it you just remove your Kindle and read it au naturel.
Incipio’s sleeve for the Kindle 3 is a simple and elegant envelope-like design. Available in brown, this case runs $25.
Other Kindle 3 Covers
Another manufacturer of covers for the Kindle 3 worth checking out is rooCase. It has a number of different designs and styles, and while the Kindle 3 has not been out long, this company is getting good customer reviews on its Kindle 3 covers already.
Duragadget
Eco-nique makes a Kindle 3 cover covered in hemp fabric for something a little different. Besides the normal book style cover this one is also available in a flip top design. This cover is a bit more expensive at $40.
Whichever case or cover you choose for your Kindle 3 ereader, do make sure that it is indeed for the Kindle 3. Amazon’s search results tend to mix covers from all of the different Kindle models. Make sure the description says “Kindle 3,” “Latest Generation,” “ 3rd Generation” or “Kindle Wi-Fi,” etc.
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Free Kindle & Nook ebooks – 10/31/2010 no comments
A few free ebooks at the Kindle Store; some of these are also free at Barnes & Noble or Kobofor other ereaders:
Spinning Forward by Terri DuLong (4 stars/33 reviews) Contemporary fiction. Also free at B&N.
Cool Beans: A Maya Davis Novel by Erynn Mangum (4 stars/12 reviews) Faith-based contemporary fiction.
Half Past Dead by Zoe Archer and Bianca D’ Arc (4 stars/4 reviews) Paranormal romance. Also free at B&N and Kobo.
Dancing In The Lowcountry by James Villas (3 1/2 stars/5 reviews) Contemporary. Also free at B&N; costs $0.9 at Kobo.
Kaplan New GRE: An Introduction to the GRE Revised General Test. Also free at B&N.
Unti James Novella by Eloisa James. Pre-order – due Feb. 1, 2011. No info on what this one is about. From the author of A Kiss at Midnight, which is an historical romance.
Barnes & Noble is also offering Gone, Baby, Gone 
by Dennis Lehane for $1.99. This is a good deal as this title is $9.99 at the Kindle Store, as it presumably was at B&N. Dennis Lehane has a new book, Moonlight Mile, which will go on sale next week.
I’ve updated the New eBook Releases page with some of the ebooks coming out in November if you want to check out what’s new.
eReader & eReader Covers on Sale
Newegg.comnow has the Ectaco jetBook mini for $99.99 with free shipping. Newegg also had the Cruz Reader for $169, but seems to be sold out at the moment. Borders.com
looks like the best place to buy the Cruz Reader ($169) for now.
This is a good time to be in the market for a cover or case for your Kindle 2 ereader. Most of the manufacturers seem to be trying to get rid of their stock. Amazon has a page of Kindle 2 covers
If you are looking for a cover for the new Sony Touch ereader, Amazon has good prices. The lighted cover for the Sony PRS-650 is $31.21 at Amazon vs $50 from Sony.
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Site News no comments
The site got hacked and I’ve had to restore the posts of the last week. Hopefully everything is there, but the dates are now off.
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Is This the Future of Enhanced Books? no comments
Researchers at Keio University are working on an ink-jet printer that can print aromas. The system uses the same technology as a standard inkjet printer, though to synthesize a wide variety of scents you would 
need thousands of scent components — unlike printing color pictures where you just need inks in the primary colors that can be mixed as needed.
Could we someday see pbooks enhanced with smell? And if that works will the technology migrate to ebooks? That is a scary thought — could Kindle 14 come with a scent emitter that would release smells associated with whatever you are reading? Perhaps the smell of decaying paper for those who miss paper books?
Trying to recreate the olfactory aspects of a recreated scene is nothing new. AromaRama and Smell-O-Vision both famously tried and failed to make movies into smellies. Even the idea of printing out scents using an inkjet is not new. A few years ago HP apparently filed for a patent on a camera that had a miniature gas chromatography probe to capture scents that could then be printed out using a special inkjet printer.
Source — NewScientist
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Free Kindle Books – 10/26/2010 no comments
A few more ebooks that are currently free in the Kindle Store:
Spiritual Rhythm: Being with Jesus Every Season of Your Soul by Zondervan (5 stars/4 reviews)
The Fearful Rise of Markets: Global Bubbles, Synchronized Meltdowns, and How To Prevent Them in the Future, by John Authers (5 stars/7 reviews) Finance.
Curious Folks Ask: 162 Real Answers on Amazing Inventions, Fascinating Products, and Medical Mysteries by Sherry Seethaler (4 stars/52 reviews)
Your Secret Name: Discovering Who God Created You to Be by Kary Oberbrunner (5 stars/22 reviews) Religion.
How Netflix Produces Happy Endings by New Word City (no reviews yet) Business.
The Truth About Starting a Business by Bruce Barringer (4 stars/2 reviews) Small business.
The Truth About Public Speaking: The Essential Truths in 20 Minutes by James O’Rourke (no reviews yet) Public speaking.
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James Patterson Joins Kindle Million Club no comments
James Patterson has become the second author to sell more than one million Kindle books and is now a member of the Kindle Million Club. Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy was the first author to achieve the one million mark and the first member of the Club. Only paid Kindle book sales count toward membership.
…As of yesterday, James Patterson has sold 1,005,803 Kindle books.
Patterson is the author of more than 65 books that span the genres of suspense, fantasy, romance, historical fiction and children’s. His many books include the popular Alex Cross, Women’s Murder Club and Maximum Ride series. His novels have won numerous awards, including the Edgar, the BCA Mystery Guild’s Thriller of the Year award, the International Thriller of the Year award, and the Reader’s Digest Reader’s Choice Award. One of Forbes magazine’s Celebrity 100, Patterson’s titles have been adapted into both feature film (“Along Came a Spider” and “Kiss the Girls,” starring Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman) and a television series (ABC’s “Women’s Murder Club” starring Angie Harmon).
Patterson is a prolific writer with 72 titles
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Paypal Announces New Payment Solution for Digital Goods no comments
Paypal today unveiled a new payment solution for making micropayments for digital goods. This could conceivably work for magazines and newspapers that would be willing to sell access to single stories. I know there are times when I would gladly pay for an individual piece of content that I can’t access without a subscription that I am not interested in getting.
PayPal today announced the upcoming availability of PayPal for digital goods, a new in-context, frictionless payment solution that lets consumers pay for digital goods and content in as little as two clicks, without ever having to leave a publisher’s game, news, music, video or media site. The online equivalent of dropping a quarter in the slot to buy a newspaper or play a video game, PayPal’s new solution solves a key problem for the digital goods industry by offering a faster, safer and more cost-effective way to send and receive micropayments globally.
“The decision to purchase digital goods and content usually happens on impulse, so the act of paying needs to be as quick as that impulse”
The new solution offers PayPal’s competitive fee structure for micropayments, with pricing at 5 percent plus 5 cents for purchases under $12 — lower than the fees typically charged by payment processors in the digital goods industry. Every time a customer purchases content, publishers and merchants get paid quickly, giving them fast access to their funds. PayPal for digital goods will be available late fall this year. At PayPal’s second annual Innovate developer conference, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg announced that Facebook will integrate PayPal’s new digital goods payment flow to make PayPal the way to make purchases on Facebook.
Several additional companies, including Autosport.com, FT.com, GigaOM, Justin.tv, Ooyala, Plimus, Tagged, Tyler Projects and Ustream announced that they are also using PayPal to monetize the growing opportunity in digital goods.
“Our readers want their news on demand, whether they’re on a laptop, a mobile phone or a tablet,” said Mary Beth Christie, head of product management at FT.com. “PayPal helps us provide the experience our customers expect, along with flexibility to experiment with payment mechanisms for subscriptions. This gives our customers the flexibility to pay for what they want, when they want.”
“The decision to purchase digital goods and content usually happens on impulse, so the act of paying needs to be as quick as that impulse,” said Sam Shrauger, PayPal’s vice president of global product strategy. “PayPal for digital goods is an ideal solution for game developers, newspapers, bloggers, media companies, and anyone who is looking to monetize premium digital content around the globe.”
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Liquavista Announces Flexible Display Prototype no comments
Liquavista today announced the creation of the first flexible electrowetting display prototype.
“We’re really excited to be able to demonstrate yet another significant benefit of electrowetting display technology with the development of these prototypes.” Said Guy Demuynck, CEO Liquavista. “Bringing to market a unique display that can run video in color at low power and has the added advantage of an unbreakable screen which is lightweight, thin, flexible and robust will enable consumer electronics manufacturers to increase the durability of devices, reduce manufacturing costs and create new product designs to open up new markets.
“This new prototype is a first important step in paving the way for high volume manufacture of displays on flexible substrates” added Johan Feenstra, Liquavista’s CTO and Founder, “This clearly demonstrates that electrowetting technology is not only compatible with standard glass substrates but can in fact be manufactured on any substrate. The pace at which we have been able to continue to show advanced technology features is further proof of the simplicity and versatility of our technology.”
Liquavista’s displays are based on the principles of electrowetting and bring bright and colourful images and video that ensures excellent indoor and outdoor readability but uses dramatically less battery power. The technology is uniquely suited for colour and video electronic paper displays because of its very high reflectivity and its intrinsically fast video-rate switching speed. It is ideal for manufacture on flexible substrates as it does not require high temperature processing, has no demanding encapsulation requirements and is independent on cell gap variations.
In the future, consumers will want products that not only support full color and video but offer readability in all lighting conditions and gives them the freedom and portability of paper. Liquavista’s displays possess all the features to fulfil this desire.
Below is a video form Liquavista of their flexible display prototype.
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Borders Promotions no comments
Today Borders announced several promotions on the various ereaders that it carries. The sale starts today and runs through Oct. 31.
Some of the offers:
- Pre-order the Velocity Cruz Tablet at $299 and receive a $25 Borders gift card.
- The Velocity Cruz Reader (my review) is marked down to $169.99 from its regular price of $199.99.
- The Kobo eReader is also marked down $30 to $99.99. Borders is also offering double Borders Bucks with the purchase of the Kobo eReader.
- The Aluratek Libre is also currently priced at $99.99. This price will be good until Nov. 15.
- Buy the new edition of the Sony Touch (my review) or the Sony Pocket ereader and get a free Sony lighted cover.
- Buy any ereader and get a 20 percent discount on accessories.
More details at Borders.com.
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Kindle 3 Selling Really, Really Well no comments
Exactly how well we don’t know as Amazon won’t release actual sales numbers for the Kindle ereaders due to competitive reasons. But in a press release today Amazon says that it has already sold more Kindle ereaders so far this month than in the entire fourth quarter of 2009. This is pretty amazing if you remember how hot ereaders were last Christmas.
Kindle books are also selling like hotcakes:
… Kindle book unit sales continue to overtake print on Amazon.com, even while print book sales continue to grow. During the past 30 days, Amazon.com customers purchased more Kindle books than print books–hardcover and paperback combined–for the top 10, 25, 100, and 1,000 bestselling books on Amazon.com.
"For the top 10 bestselling books on Amazon.com, customers are choosing Kindle books over hardcover and paperback books combined at a rate of greater than 2 to 1. Kindle books are also outselling print books for the top 25, 100, and 1,000 bestsellers–it’s across the board," said Kessel. "This is remarkable when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover and paperback books for 15 years, and Kindle books for just 36 months."
Other recent milestones for Kindle include:
- In the 12 weeks following the introduction of the new generation Kindles, Kindle devices or Kindle-related items such as Kindle books and covers represented 15 of the top 15 bestselling items on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk combined.
- Amazon sold more than 3 times as many Kindle books in the first nine months of 2010 as in the first nine months of 2009.
- The Association of American Publishers’ latest data reports that e-book sales grew 193 percent between January and August 2010. Kindle book sales growth during the same period exceeded this rate.
The Kindle Store now has more than 720,000 books.
