Archive for the ‘Kindle International’ Category
Kindle 3 for New Zealand; eBook Price War Heating Up in UK no comments
New Zealand is finally being included in the Kindle family with the introduction of the new Kindle 3 ereaders. The Kindle 3 can be ordered from and shipped to New Zealand. Orders placed now for the Kindle 3 will ship on Sept. 10, 2010. The 6-inch latest generation Kindle with 3G + Wi-Fi is $189 USD and the Wi-Fi only Kindle 3 is $139. The Kindle 3 for New Zealand will not come with an AC adaptor, but will include a USB cable to use for charging. There will initially be 380,000 English-language ebooks available from Amazon for Kiwis to choose from.
The ebook price war brought about by Amazon opening the UK Kindle Store continues to escalate. WH Smith has dropped the price of all of its ebooks by 50 percent and some top selling fiction titles are 66 percent off. Even so, many titles still seem to be slightly more expensive than Amazon’s. Waterstones’ ebook prices seem to be the highest of the three on the titles I checked.
Amazon launched its UK Kindle Store earlier this month with over 400,000 titles. I have not been able to find any hard numbers as to how many ebooks are offered by WH Smith, whose ebook store is powered by Overdrive. Waterstones seems to only have a little over 30,000 ebooks available.
WH Smith has also lowered its price on the Sony Pocket Edition Reader to £99 to match the £99.99 price over at Waterstones.
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Amazon’s UK eBook Pricing Lower than Competition no comments
The Register is reporting that Amazon’s ebook pricing is lower than that of other sellers in the UK. A sample of 36 books that the Register compared was around 30 percent less than the same ebooks at Waterstones, and almost 25 percent cheaper than WH Smith. The ebooks at Waterstones were actually more expensive than the paper copies.
In the US Amazon offered lower prices on ebooks until the agency model, which lets publishers set the prices of their ebooks, took effect. For titles coming from publishers who have not adopted the agency model (Random House, of course, being the largest of these) prices are still usually lower at the Kindle Store.
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Amazon Gets Exclusive eBooks from Author F. Paul Wilson; New Christopher Moore no comments
Amazon announced this morning that they have added another author to the list of those who have made their ebooks available exclusively in the Kindle Store for reading on the Kindle ereader and the various Kindle for (insert your device here) apps.
This time it is sci-fi and horror writer F. Paul Wilson, who will be adding the five books in his LaNague Federation series. The five books are:
- An Enemy of the State
- Wheels Within Wheels
- The Tery
- Dydeetown World
- Healer
Wilson has won the Stoker, Inkpot, Porgie and Prometheus awards and has written over 40 books.
Bite Me: A Love Story – New Christopher Moore Today
If you are a fan of Christopher Moore and his sick sense of humor then you probably are already aware that his newest book Bite Me goes on sale today. This is the third book of his campy vampire series. Bite Me is available for $9.99 in Kindle edition, 
or from the Sony Reader Store.
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Worldreader Update no comments
Worldreader is experimenting with supplying Kindle ereaders to children at a school in Ghana. After the first week of the trial Worldreader has an encouraging update on their blog that is well worth reading.
Apparently some of the kids just won’t stop reading on their Kindles. When asked how the Kindle could be improved they asked for Kindle lights so that they could continue reading after dark.
So far there don’t seem to be any broken ereaders.
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Kindle for Mac Released no comments
Amazon has just announced the release of the promised Kindle for Mac
From Amazon’s press release:
With Kindle for Mac, readers can take advantage of the following features:
- Purchase, download, and read hundreds of thousands of books available in the Kindle Store
- Access their library of previously purchased Kindle books stored on Amazon’s servers for free
- Choose from 10 different font sizes and adjust words per line
- Add and automatically synchronize bookmarks and last page read
- View notes and highlights marked on Kindle, Kindle DX, and Kindle for iPhone
- Read books in full color including children’s books, cookbooks, travel books and textbooks
Several features will be added to the Kindle for Mac app in the near future, including full text search and the ability to create and edit notes and highlights. Kindle for Mac is available to customers around the world as a free download.
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Happy Birthday Kindle 2 – Where is Kindle 3? 1 comment
Happy birthday Kindle 2! Amazon announced the Kindle 2 ereader on February 9, 2009, and began shipping it on February 24. It has already been a year since the Kindle 2 was released. Are we going to see Amazon release a new version of the 6-inch Kindle ereader this month? If not, when can we expect Kindle 3?
In the latter half of 2009 we had many rumors and announcements of new ereaders that would be unveiled at CES in January. Sony released its new family of ereaders and Barnes & Noble announced the nook, which promptly sold out in preorder.
At the time it seemed likely that Amazon would release Kindle 3 before the holidays because of all of the new competition. In retrospect (which like hindsight has that famous 20/20 vision) it would not have made much sense for Amazon to release a new ereader at that time. Instead the Kindle 2 was made available internationally. In addition Amazon improved the Kindle family’s feature set and has announced more feature upgrades to come. In retrospect this was probably the best and only course that Amazon could have taken.
Why do I say this? Because the technology needed to make a dramatically different and better Kindle was not yet in place. If Amazon had released a new ereader at the time it would have probably had only incremental improvements and therefore the firmware upgrades to the features of the existing models made much more strategic sense.
So now it has been a year since the Kindle 2 was released, and there is even more competition – including the iPad. Tech companies need to release new models at least once a year or they become obsolete, right? Well, if Amazon were to introduce a new Kindle now what new technology might it contain? And if they were to wait just a few more months would it make a big difference in what new tech they could put into a new ereader?
Endless Ideas has announced a new BeBook ereader – the Neo, which will be available on February 25. One of the new ereader’s features is a chipset by Freescale that Endless claims makes it 2 1/2 times faster than other ereaders already on the market. Marvell is also making faster chipsets to work with e-ink displays that promise page turns of 3 times faster than current ereaders.
Amazon bought a touchscreen technology startup last week. While we don’t know how long it will take to integrate this into any new Kindle design, let us assume that they could introduce a new Kindle 3 ereader within the next month or so that would include their newly acquired touchscreen tech.
So say that we have a new touchscreen Kindle ereader at the end of the month with a faster processor and probably an appearance upgrade as well as a few miscellaneous hardware and feature upgrades. A faster Kindle would mean faster page turns, easier menu navigation and library management, and would no doubt better handle the Kindle apps that Amazon has promised for later in the year. The appearance upgrade is important as well – especially after the nook.
No doubt about it – this would be a nice evolution of the Kindle. But what if Amazon were to wait a few months more? What other new ereader tech is coming in the near future?
Prime View International makes the e-ink displays used in the Kindles and most other ereaders at the moment. PVI is working on flexible e-ink screens using a plastic base rather than the current easy to crack glass-based displays. These new shatterproof e-ink displays should go into production towards the end of the 2nd quarter this year. In the beginning these flexible screens will no doubt be more expensive than the current screens, but with time they will become cheaper than glass displays to manufacture.
If you were to add a flexible display to the faster, better looking touchscreen Kindle 3 described above, then you are talking about a major advance. I don’t think that it would make sense for Amazon to introduce the next Kindle ereader before all of these features are available to go into it.
And what about color? This is probably the next new feature that gets the most hype. Right now there are at least three color display technologies on the way that Amazon could choose from:
- Qualcomm’s Mirasol – By all accounts Mirasol should go into production in the 3rd quarter, so it should just make it into ereaders in time for the holidays. The demos that I’ve seen so far look good, but seem to have a slightly metallic and sepia cast – although this may not be present when the technology is ready for market.
- Liquavista – Liquavista probably won’t be ready for market until the beginning of 2011, at least from what I have heard so far. Liquavista displays do look nice. This type of display reminds me of a comic book page; not the newer vividly colored comics, but the older ones with somewhat more muted colors.
- PVI is also working on color e-ink displays. Color e-ink might be ready in time for the holiday season, but most likely will not be ready until the beginning of next year.
Amazon could also conceivably use a Pixel Qi display to bring a color Kindle to market sooner, but Pixel Qi seems more suited to multifunction devices and I doubt that Amazon wants to get involved with that. On the other hand …
Is it possible that Amazon is planning to introduce a multifunction tablet-like device to compete directly with the iPad? My feeling is no, because I think that most long-form readers who buy and read the most books will want to do so on a reflective display such as e-ink. Amazon is, after all primarily in the business of selling content. But a Pixel Qi screen with its switchable modes would accommodate comfortable reading without eyestrain as well as the other functions one would expect from a multifunction device. In addition Amazon does have the sales figures for Kindle books going to iPhones, Kindle for PC, etc., so I think that it could possibly happen if they feel that the buyers of such a device would also be active ebook purchasers.
Okay, so time to get out the crystal ball and make some predictions. Making
predictions is always fun, especially for those who get to laugh at the predictor when all goes awry. So here goes.
Kindle 3 will be faster, look better and have a shatterproof touchscreen. I think that it will ship in July, or at least be announced around then. I also expect that Amazon may have a couple of different models of the smaller format Kindle, just as Sony has the Pocket Edition and the Touch Edition. Or possibly the current Kindle will continue to be sold at a lower price than the newer model and serve as a lower priced option. There is also a good chance for a Kindle for Kids with a shatterproof screen.
Color Kindles won’t arrive until the holidays or until after the beginning of next year, unless Amazon brings out a multifunction device with a Pixel Qi display. Not everyone will need a color ereader or want to pay the extra price for one, so the black and white models will not disappear.
Whatever happens, 2010 is becoming more and more interesting for ereaders and their users. All of the hardware competition will continue to drive innovation, which will be great for readers – as long as the publishers allow the ebooks to continue to be reasonably priced.
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Amazon Announces New Kindle Features to Help Blind and Vision-Impaired Readers 1 comment
In a press release this morning Amazon is announcing that it is working on new features that will make its Kindle ereaders easier for blind and vision-impaired readers to use.
“Kindle is for anyone who loves to read—in fact, we’ve heard from thousands of vision-impaired customers and customers with learning disabilities over the past two years who have been helped tremendously by Kindle,” said Ian Freed, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “With some key modifications, we believe Kindle can be a breakthrough device for the blind, and the team is excited about making these enhancements.”
The new enhancements are said to include an audible menu system and a new seventh font size that will be twice as large as the current largest font. Expect these new features to reach your Kindle ereader by summer 2010.
All of this is no doubt in response to the Kindle DX’s university trials getting shut down recently by the National Federation of the Blind, which says that the Kindle DX ereaders discriminate against the visually impaired. This due to the fact that even though the Kindle’s Text to Speech feature is of benefit to those with visual impairments, it is often very difficult to impossible for the people who need the feature the most to operate the controls without the aid of a sighted person.
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Kindle eReader Now Available in Canada no comments
Amazon now lists the Kindle international version as being available in Canada. This apparently occurred overnight as I checked Amazon’s site last night because, wouldn’t you know it, I mentioned the Kindle ereader’s Canadian unavailability in my last post yesterday evening.
Kindle Canada will come with Whispernet. Your personal docs can only be transferred via USB from your computer – wireless delivery is not available at this time. Blogs and web browsing are not available, but the newspaper selection will include Canadian newspapers.
The Canadian Kindle ebook store opens with 300,000+ titles, with best sellers and new releases priced at $11.99.
The Kindle ereader must still be ordered through Amazon’s US store and is not available from Amazon.ca.
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Sayonara, Kindle 2 with U.S. Wireless no comments
Amazon has phased out the U.S. version of the Kindle 2. A note on Amazon’s site says “Due to strong customer demand for the newest Kindle, we are consolidating our family of 6″ Kindles. We will continue to fully support Whispernet for all U.S.-only Kindles.” There are still refurbished Kindles
The Kindle with U.S. and international wireless has been reduce in price to $259, which is the recent price of the U.S. only version.
This is probably a bummer for people like me who don’t have a good signal relationship with AT&T, but there were people who had the same problem with Sprint.
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Lots of Press Releases Today, Timed to Steal Thunder from Amazon’s Launch of Kindle International no comments
Today there were several press releases, some of which did not contain a lot of new information and seemed timed more to distract from Amazon’s launch of the International version of the Kindle rather than to provide us with much new material.
Plastic Logic announced that its upcoming ereader will be named the Que and will debut at the CES this coming January 7th in Las Vegas. They released more photos, but nothing really new: only side views, no views of the actual display. In fact we see more of the hand model in the photo than we do of the Que.
The Que will have a screen size of 8.5 x 11 inches and will be mainly aimed at business users. It will have an e-ink based touchscreen that will be shatterproof. Supported formats include PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. AT&T will provide 3G connectivity, and Barnes and Noble will provide books for Plastic Logic’s upcoming ereader. Wi-Fi is also indicated.
Irex also put out another press release about their upcoming DR800SG, which was supposed to become available at Best Buy Stores later this month. The press release now says “later this fall”, so not sure if it will still be this month or not.
The DR800SG will also have a larger 8” screen and will be priced at $399. AT&T will also provide the 3G connection for this ereader, and Barnes and Noble is providing the ebookstore.
A new ereader from Spring Design named Alex was also introduced today. 
This ebook reader also sports a smaller LCD screen below the e-ink display similar to that shown in leaked photos of Barnes and Noble’s Athena which is expected to be unveiled at B & N’s press conference tomorrow. There is some speculation in fact that this is B & N’s new ereader, although the pictures look different.
Spring Design’s new ereader will feature a 6” e-ink screen and a 3.5” color LCD display. Not exactly pocket-sized. There is an SD card slot for added storage. Spring Design says that the Alex will release to “selected strategic partners” by the end of this year.
The Alex is based on Google’s Android and will have full browser capabilities, so this ereader should work well with Google Editions. It is more of a multimedia device though than current ereaders like the Kindle or Sony. I can imagine it being very easy to get distracted from reading with this device.
“This is the start of a whole new experience of reading content on e-books, potentially igniting a whole new industry in multimedia e-book publishing for secondary authors to create supplementary content that is hyper linked to the text. We are bringing life to books with audio, video, and annotations,” said Dr. Priscilla Lu, CEO of Spring Design. “This gives readers the ability to fully leverage the resources on the Web, and the tools available in search engines to augment the reading experience.”
Meanwhile, back at the launching of the Amazon Kindle with US and International Wireless, it seems like more of a tempest in a teapot with little enough thunder to go around. Looking at Amazon’s websites outside of the US it would be hard to know that something “groundbreaking” was taking place. The Kindle is not displayed on Amazon UK’s homepage, nor can it be found on the electronics or books category main pages. It was also MIA at other Amazon international sites I looked at until I finally found it in Japan. I guess if you are big in Japan……
It is increasingly looking as though the launch of Kindle International is aimed primarily at Americans travelling abroad. It also seems as though the international release was a rushed job because of the competition from all of the recently announced new ereaders which will be coming to market soon.
