KINDLE IN THE PHILIPPINES

Score Free AudioBooks at BooksShouldBeFree & Colleges test Kindle e-book reader as study tool

2010-03-19T15:05:00.001-07:00

Headlines Click the headlines below to read full story

How Apple Stacked The Deck Against Amazon's Kindle App
Score Free AudioBooks at BooksShouldBeFree
Librophile Makes Quick Work of Finding Free Audio and Ebooks
Booksfree Is Like Netflix for Audiobooks
Which e-reader is for you?
Playing Tricks with eBooks
Colleges test Kindle e-book reader as study tool
PC Makers Ready iPad Rivals
Tablets, smartbooks aim to fill PC-phone gap
The Book Depository Offers Free Worldwide Shipping and Thousands of Free E-Books
Predicting iPad competitors
Nintendo getting on e-book reader train, too
The Majority of You Aren't Interested in Paying More than $10 for an E-Book
Hack Your Kindle to Support Bluetooth
Condé Nast Is Preparing iPad Versions of Some of Its Top Magazines
Free Kindle for PC App: Amazon Could have done More
Apple iPad to Arrive in Stores on April 3 Videogame makers racing to develop iPad games
Librophile Makes Quick Work of Finding Free Audio and E-Books
Another Reason For Why Not To Buy Apple iPad Now !
Librophile Makes Quick Work of Finding Free Audio and Ebooks
Apple's iPad Won't Tether with iPhone, Report Says
All about the Apple iPad (FAQ)
Report: Apple's iPad Won't Tether with iPhone
Scribd goes mobile, adds sharing to iPhone, Kindle
Five Tips to Prevent iPad Eye Strain

Turn Your Netbook into a Feature-Rich E-Book Reader
E-book readers are popular for reading digital books, but they've got their limitations. If you have a netbook, you already have a powerful and virtually unrestricted portable e-book reader on your hands. You just need to know how to set it up.
More

Publishers smile again as Kindle rivals emerge & Kindle Books in Snack Sizes

2010-02-12T15:09:00.001-08:00

Click the title below to read the complete article

Disney CEO seduced by iPad
Barnes & Noble rolls out second Nook update
Available Soon at a Barnes & Noble Near You: The Nook
Publishers smile again as Kindle rivals emerge
Survey: Interest in Apple's iPad wanes after launch
Kindle Books in Snack Sizes
Barnes & Noble's Nook Finally Limps Into Stores. Too Late? [MediaMemo]
Fear & Loathing Over iPad Pricing
Kindle Books in Snack Sizes

Apple Reveals the iPad Tablet & 8 Things That Suck About the iPad

2010-01-28T14:57:00.001-08:00

Click the title below to read the article
Apple debuts highly awaited tablet: the iPad
Apple Reveals the iPad Tablet
Apple tablet could write a new chapter for e-books
It's Official: Jobs Announces Apple's iPad
Apple's Tablet and the Media Hype Machine
Apple Tablet: What's the Killer App?
Apple's Tablet: Who'll Buy it?
Apple Tablet: What You Should Know
Edison's Kindle and Other Groundbreaking Gadgets
Apple Tablet Due on Wednesday, McGraw-Hill CEO Says
iPad Specs: What Apple Announced (and What We Still Don't Know)
State of the Tablet: Why Touch-based PCs Haven't Caught On
The iPad's Name Makes Some Women Cringe
A Video Demonstration of the iPad
Monitoring Twitter's iPad Commentary
Will the iPad Be as Much of an Enterprise Success as the iPhone?
Why the iPad WILL Kill Amazon’s Kindle
8 Things That Suck About the iPad
The netbook is dead: 10 things to know about the iPad

Amazon's Kindle gets its own application store & With Kindle, the Best Sellers Don’t Need to Sell

2010-01-23T13:54:00.001-08:00

Click the title to read more

With Kindle, the Best Sellers Don’t Need to Sell

Amazon's Kindle gets its own app store
Kindle beefs up for what Apple has in store
Kindle, Tablets Promote Gaming on the GoBuilding a Better E-Reader: A Developer's Daydream

Amazon is now ready to add the bigger 9.7″ Kindle DX to Philippine shipments

2010-01-19T00:55:00.001-08:00

After making the Kindle 2 available for Philippine customers last October, Amazon is now ready to add the bigger 9.7″ Kindle DX to that list. Aside from the larger screen (9.7″ on the Kindle DX vs. 6″ on the Kindle 2 ), the DX also has bigger capacity with up to 3,500 books (4GB built-in storage). The device also has an auto-rotating display so you can position it horizontally while reading. Of course, there’s the price difference — $489 — almost twice the price of the Kindle 2.

Amazon is accepting pre-orders now and will start shipping the Kindle DX on Janaury 19, 2009. Order page here http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015TG12Q?ie=UTF8&ref_=pe_15240_14063870_fe_img_1&linkCode=shr&camp=213733&creative=393173&tag=amboah06-20

E-Readers Done Right CES Show

2010-01-10T15:08:00.001-08:00

Crushed by an Avalanche of E-Books: A slew of new e-book readers (including the much anticipated Plastic Logic Que and iRiver Story), plus Amazon's announcement of a global Kindle DX and the unveiling of Microsoft-centric Blio software for graphics-heavy content, were the major symptoms of e-book fever at CES. If the makers can get the prices down, e-books could really go mass market.

Comments found online at PC World

E-Reader Done Right: I've seen a lot of e-readers lately, and in spending some quality time with Spring Designs' $349 Alex Reader, I came to appreciate much about the company's approach to e-readers. It doesn't have the biggest display, nor the most colorful one. But this Android-based device does have a highly usable and well-integrated LCD, and its ability to flow content browsed anywhere on the Web to the e-reader gives this model a unique edge over the competition.

Actually, I Liked This One Better: E-readers were one of the hottest categories of the show this year, and the most compelling new model we've seen is the Plastic Logic Que. This 10.7-inch reader sports a capacitive-touch display that lets you gesture through page turns; it also downloads books from Barnes & Noble's e-book store. It will be available in April in a 4GB Wi-Fi version for $649, and an 8GB version with Wi-Fi and 3G for $799.

At the Showstoppers party at CES in Las Vegas, senior editor Mark Sullivan took a look at Plastic Logic's CUE eReader and HP's first touchscreen netbook, the HP Mini 5102. And he walked away impressed by both: take a lok for yourself. Check out his video here http://www.pcworld.com/article/186501/the_impressive_cue_ereader_and_hps_first_touch_netbook.html?tk=nl_dnx_h_crawl

Samsung's New E-readers Add up to Four & China's Hanvon Aims for Europe With E-readers

2010-01-08T19:05:00.003-08:00

Samsung's New E-readers Add up to Four
Samsung is showing off 4 e-readers at CES, two more than previously announced.

Asus Unveils Netbook That Unfolds to Big-screen Tablet
Asustek showed off a few new prototype designs based on its 'wave' design effort, including a netbook that folds out into a big screen tablet PC.

Slates, E-Readers Face Off at CES
Tablet or e-reader: How do you know which is right for you?

China's Hanvon Aims for Europe With E-readers
Chinese e-reader maker Hanvon Technology is trying to sell more of its devices in Europe and the U.S.

A Deluge of Devices for Reading and Surfing

Microsoft upstages Apple's tablet HP Slate with an Amazon (AMZN) Kindle version

2010-01-08T14:12:00.001-08:00

Steve Ballmer demos an HP "slate PC" at CES and steals a bit of Steve Jobs' thunder

Steve Ballmer's keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Wednesday night ran for more than an hour and a quarter.

But what got the most attention from the press gathered to watch it were the three minutes Microsoft's (MSFT) CEO spent talking about his answer to the tablet computer Apple (AAPL) is expected to unveil in less than three weeks.

Ballmer displayed three versions of what he called "slate PCs" running Windows 7 — one from Pegatron Corp., another from Arcos, and a prototype from Hewlett Packard (HPQ) that Ballmer says is coming "later this year."

In a subtle dig at his competitors in Cupertino, he demoed the HP Slate with an Amazon (AMZN) Kindle version of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight." The book's cover shows a pair of hands cradling an apple.

You can watch Ballmer's full keynote here. The slate portion begins at the 49:30 mark .http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/ces/VideoGallery.aspx

Plastic Logic Que business e-reader & Samsung joins e-reader craze

2010-01-08T13:39:00.000-08:00

Plastic Logic flexes muscle for Que business e-reader
By David Lieberman, USA TODAY Several big-name newspapers, magazines, and blogs teamed up with Plastic Logic on Thursday to support its effort to establish its new...Continue reading here http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/01/plastic-logic-flexes-newspaper-muscle-for-its-que-business-e-reader-/1

Samsung joins e-reader craze
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY Add Samsung to the list of companies selling e-readers -- but at a much higher price tag than competitors Amazon, Sony and Barnes & Noble. Continue reading here http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/01/samsung-joins-e-reader-craze/1

MSI Dual-Screen E-Reader ! Has Intel Atom Z CPU, Runs Windows 7 via Engadget

2010-01-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

Engadget had the sheer pleasure of snapping the first press shots of MSI's secretly manufactured, yet-unnamed, Dual-Screen E-Reader. Here are the photos:

Opens like a book - runs Windows 7 OS

Works like a netbook with its touchscreen keyboard

Lid closed - shows time, battery and wifi connection status.
Hopefully, even the owner's name ~ like 'TechPinas' E-Reader' in marquee

Way to go, MSI! Is this how do you it? Work quietly, then surprise everyone with a product prototype?

MSI hasn't disclosed much information about this e-reader yet. All we know is that it runs on Intel Atom Z processor, has two 10" capacitive touchscreens and has enough powerful to run Windows 7.

Amazon takes larger-screen Kindle global

2010-01-06T15:09:00.000-08:00

LONDON (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc is to sell its larger Kindle electronic reader, aimed at students, businesspeople and newspaper readers, in more than 100 countries for $489, following the rollout of its original device last year.

Continue reading here http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/technology/6649660/amazon-takes-larger-screen-kindle-global/

Amazon Christmas day e-book sales beat print sales

2009-12-29T15:01:00.001-08:00

Tuesday, 29 December 2009 via manilatimes
On Christmas Day customers bought more electronic books than hard-copy books on Internet retail giant Amazon.com, the company said in a statement Saturday.

Amazon also said that its e-book reader, the Kindle, "has become the most gifted item in Amazon's history."

Continue reading here http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/tech-times/8636-amazon-christmas-day-e-book-sales-beat-print-sales

E-books spark battle inside the publishing industry

2009-12-28T04:52:00.001-08:00

You can read lots of books on Amazon's Kindle -- but the device's interface design isn't exactly on the cutting edge.

By Marion Maneker Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, December 27, 2009

The evolution of publishing from print to digital has caused a schism in the reading world. There are now two constituencies: readers (and writers) on the one hand, and the publishing world on the other. And they don't want to hear each other.

Readers want books that are plentiful and cheap, publishers want to preserve their profit, and authors want a larger share of revenue. The conflict has created a strident internecine battle inside the publishing industry. At issue are the price and timing of e-books, and who owns the rights to backlist titles. While publishers, agents and Amazon.com bicker, there is little time for conceiving new content that satisfies customer demand. If the book business doesn't tune in to that demand, it could wind up as a transitional source for the e-readers. Continue reading here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/24/AR2009122403326.html?hpid%3Dsec-tech&sub=AR

Using Amazon’s Kindle in the Philippines

2009-12-27T21:23:00.001-08:00

There are plenty of free ebooks online as well you can read on the Kindle.
From the unlawyer blog: The latest Kindle firmware update, Version 2.3, has a PDF reader already built in, so an updated Kindle can now read PDF files without being first converted into an AZW file.

On the negative side: since my Kindle 2 is associated with a Philippine address, I can only make purchases from the international section of the Kindle store. The selections are somewhat less due to what I think are Amazon’s limited rights to sell certain e-books outside of the United States. Plus, they cost more to boot – I suppose to help pay for the cost of sending all that data through a foreign mobile phone network. I might as well mention that certain elements of newspapers and magazines, like graphics and pictures, are omitted from the downloaded material if purchased from said store.Continue reading here http://www.unlawyer.net/?p=3025

My note: There are plenty of free ebooks online as well you can read on the Kindle.

Check out some at my postinghttp://kindlephilippines.blogspot.com/2009/12/you-can-find-more-than-ten-thousand.html

Amazon’s Kindle customers aren’t getting any happier about the end product.

2009-12-24T20:17:00.001-08:00

From MY Times blog: A quick perusal of the comments show customers repeatedly griping about poor screen quality, unattractive device design and the constraints of digital rights management software on books and newspapers. Mr. Bezos may be right when he says an e-reader is better than a book, but the customer satisfaction suggests why so many companies are rushing in to compete with his Kindle. Continue reading here http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/is-amazon-working-backwards/?ref=technology

E-readers and e-books: The new bestsellers & Amazon Kindle FAQ

2009-12-21T21:32:00.000-08:00

Click the headline below to read the whole article

E-readers and e-books: The new bestsellers

Amazon's Kindle to get audible menus, bigger font

Nook faces Amazon Kindle in snail-paced race

Not Yet the Season for the Nook

Showing off the Nook

Amazon Kindle FAQ

Publishers plan rival to Kindle format

Amazon Kindle officially selling like hot cakes - Gadgets
Legal Battles Over E-Book Rights to Older Books

Amazon Kindle Comes to iPhone in Over 60 Countries

Five Magazine and Newspaper Publishers Introduce Their Digital Newsstand

FREE Two-Day Shipping from Amazon Kindle Wireless Reading Device

2009-12-18T15:48:00.000-08:00

Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6" Display, Global Wireless, Latest Generation)
Price:$259.00 FREE Two-Day Shipping from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/dp/ref=pe_68470_13802220_tcg_html/B0015T963C

Taiwan Plans to Roll out E-readers in Schools & Amazon Kindle FAQ

2009-12-16T16:16:00.000-08:00

Click the headline to read more

Taiwan Plans to Roll out E-readers in Schools

Did Kindle Sales Get a Boost from Nook's Fumble?

Amazon Kindle FAQ

Nook faces Amazon Kindle in snail-paced race

Amazon's Kindle to get audible menus, bigger font

Amazon Kindle officially selling like hot cakes - Gadgets

Publishers plan rival to Kindle format

Showing off the Nook

Two Publishers Delay E-Books

Barnes & Noble Nook e-book reader arrives with wrinkles

Not Yet the Season for the Nook

Does the Amazon kindle have a backlight and does it hold a SD card?

2009-12-15T16:25:00.000-08:00

No real e-book readers have a back light. Backlight cuases eyestrain, so instead they use e-ink. This makes them much, much easier to read on a bright sunny day though. If you need a light at night, you can use a clip on light.

The Kindle 1 has an SD slot, but the Kindle 2 does not. You don't really need it as it holds 1500 books and archives ALL your Amazon books for you for re-download as needed.

Newer books you'll have to get from Amazon. You can get older books from any site that offers e-books without DRM (though some may need converted first). For public domain books I recommend Project Gutenberg or Manybooks.net. I think they're both formatting better than Google books.

No real e-book readers have a back light. Backlight cuases eyestrain, so instead they use e-ink. This makes them much, much easier to read on a bright sunny day though. If you need a light at night, you can use a clip on light.
The Kindle 1 has an SD slot, but the Kindle 2 does not. You don't really need it as it holds 1500 books and archives ALL your Amazon books for you for re-download as needed.

You need this light to use the Kindle for reading in the dark, it doesn't have backlight:
http://www.amazon.com/review/RV3IIPVW8NO6W?ie=UTF8&ref_=cm_cr_rdp_perm

It doesn't have SD card, but 2GB internal memory. And you just need to get the books directly from Amazon.

Does it have a backlight?
The Kindle does not have backlight for easy reading with your eyes. Read here and you'll know:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/tagging/tag/kindle/forum?ie=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&ref_=cm_cd_ef_tft_tp&cdThread=Tx164P1YL79AI6U
----------------------------------
you can find more than ten thousand free books for the Kindle. So no need to go to library to borrow them, you can actually own them:

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://manybooks.net/
-------------------------------------------
Review written by a person who has tried Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, and some other ebook readers. It is also the best review I've ever read about ebook readers:

Soul of the e-reader; Kindle 2 gets closer to delivering the promise., February 23, 2009
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3QM7LGL62MZ4X?ie=UTF8&ref_=cm_cr_rdp_perm

The Dinosaur & the Kindle, May 6, 2009
http://www.amazon.com/review/R9J54TZ1541OR?ie=UTF8&ref_=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Buy Amazon Kindle 2 now or wait for Kindle 3? & How much will it take for Kindle 3 to come out?

2009-12-15T03:00:00.000-08:00

Comments replies

Their next release will be the international DX early next year. No one knows when the K3 will come out, and it could be a year or two. Are you that patient? If so you're better than me! There's not even an announcement yet let alone a release date, though I'm sure its in the works.

IMO, the K2 is better than the Nook and the store is certainly better so Amazon already has B&N beat unless they can figure out all the problems they're having with the Nook software.

Oh and just so you know, you can read PDFs on the Kindle. Either natively or converted. I prefer conversion because they you can highlight, etc.
----------------------------------------
I own the Kindle 2 and I do think the Kindle 2 is a mature product that is worth to buy. It has price cut recently and it is now selling at a good price. When Kindle 3 comes out, it must be selling at a higher price, so you'll need to wait even longer.

This is a review from a top reviewer and a book lover, see how she says:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?i…

BTW, there are some websites like these two, where you can find more than ten thousand free books for the Kindle. So no need to go to library to borrow them, you can actually own them:

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://manybooks.net/

Reviews of the Amazon Kindle 2

2009-12-14T03:44:00.001-08:00

Review written by a person who has tried Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, and some other ebook readers. It is also the best review I've ever read about ebook readers:

Soul of the e-reader; Kindle 2 gets closer to delivering the promise., February 23, 2009
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3QM7LGL62MZ4X?ie=UTF8&ref_=cm_cr_rdp_perm

The Dinosaur & the Kindle, May 6, 2009
http://www.amazon.com/review/R9J54TZ1541OR?ie=UTF8&ref_=cm_cr_rdp_perm

you can find more than ten thousand free books for the Kindle. So no need to go to library to borrow them, you can actually own them: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page http://manybooks.net/

2009-12-14T03:43:00.003-08:00

you can find more thanyou can find more than ten thousand free books for the Kindle. So no need to go to library to borrow them, you can actually own them:

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://manybooks.net/ So no need to go to library to borrow them, you can actually own them:

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://manybooks.net/

Does the Amazon kindle have a backlight and does it hold a SD card?

2009-12-14T03:43:00.001-08:00

The Kindle 1 has an SD slot, but the Kindle 2 does not. You don't really need it as it holds 1500 books and archives ALL your Amazon books for you for re-download as needed.
Newer books you'll have to get from Amazon. You can get older books from any site that offers e-books without DRM (though some may need converted first). For public domain books I recommend Project Gutenberg or Manybooks.net. I think they're both formatting better than Google books.

No real e-book readers have a back light. Backlight cuases eyestrain, so instead they use e-ink. This makes them much, much easier to read on a bright sunny day though. If you need a light at night, you can use a clip on light.

The Kindle 1 has an SD slot, but the Kindle 2 does not. You don't really need it as it holds 1500 books and archives ALL your Amazon books for you for re-download as needed.

You need this light to use the Kindle for reading in the dark, it doesn't have backlight:
http://www.amazon.com/review/RV3IIPVW8NO6W?ie=UTF8&ref_=cm_cr_rdp_perm

It doesn't have SD card, but 2GB internal memory. And you just need to get the books directly from Amazon.

Does it have a backlight?

The Kindle does not have backlight for easy reading with your eyes. Read here and you'll know:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/tagging/tag/kindle/forum?ie=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&ref_=cm_cd_ef_tft_tp&cdThread=Tx164P1YL79AI6U

The Age of the Internet Tablet Is Nigh

2009-12-11T03:42:00.001-08:00

December 10th, 2009 from Mashable web: Much like the eReader space has been heating up (with a host of new entrants like the Nook and Que taking on Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader), the tablet device form factor race has seriously begun. Rumors have been flying about both an Apple Tablet and the Microsoft Courier, and now two new companies may have plans to bust out a tablet device: Dell and Asus.

Dell’s forthcoming tablet is still officially in the rumor stages, according to Pocket Lint. It will reportedly run AndroidAndroid and have a 5-inch screen, making it more akin to something like the Archos 5 Internet Tablet than either the Apple Tablet or the Courier, both reportedly featuring bigger screen real estate. Asus, too, who kicked off the wildly popular netbook craze with its line of Eee PCs, reportedly has plans to release an Eee Pad tablet device.

Continue reading here http://mashable.com/2009/12/10/age-of-the-tablet/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29

Not Yet The Season For a Nook

2009-12-10T14:42:00.001-08:00

Every one of the Nook's vaunted distinctions from Amazon's Kindle comes
fraught with disappointing footnotes. Read the story here
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/technology/personaltech/10pogue.html?ref=technology

Amazon Kindle e-book reader is great to bring with you when you travel

2009-12-09T15:09:00.000-08:00

Amazon Kindle e-book reader. It really is a great thing to bring around when you travel. It is smaller than a netbook but can store hundreds of books. One of the big advantages with Amazon is that it has a backup of all the books that you bought. Even if you lose a book, you can get another copy and all the books that you bought from them can be restored to you.

The 10 Best Books of 2009 & Taiwan to invest $65 million in e-book industry

2009-12-09T00:26:00.001-08:00

Click the headline below to read the complete article

The 10 Best Books of 2009

Some reflections on reading and e-readers

Nook In-Store Sales Are Delayed

Devices to Take Textbooks Beyond Text

Book Learning, Reading your kindle in the bathtub

Taiwan to invest $65 million in e-book industry

E-Readers: They're Hot Now, But the Story Isn't Over

2009-12-05T14:19:00.001-08:00

Books are having their iPod moment this holiday season. But buyer beware: It could also turn out to be an eight-track moment.

While e-reading devices were once considered a hobby for early adopters, Justin Timberlake is now pitching one on prime-time TV commercials for Sony Corp. Meanwhile, Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle e-reading device has become its top-selling product of any kind. Forrester Research estimates 900,000 e-readers will sell in the U.S. in November and December.

WSJ's Geoffrey Fowler joins the News Hub and discusses the "format wars" and other pitfalls to avoid when buying an e-reader this holiday season.

But e-reader buyers may be sinking cash into a technology that could become obsolete. While the shiny glass-and-metal reading gadgets offer some whiz-bang features like wirelessly downloading thousands of books, many also restrict the book-reading experience in ways that trusty paperbacks haven't, such as limiting lending to a friend. E-reader technology is changing fast, and manufacturers are aiming to address the devices' drawbacks. Continue reading here
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704328104574519851557848662.html

E-Readers May Hold More Surprises & Amazon says Kindle sales hit monthly record in Nov Yahoo

2009-12-04T16:06:00.000-08:00

Click the headline below to read the complete article

E-Readers May Hold More Surprises

Amazon says Kindle sales hit monthly record in Nov Yahoo

Barnes & Noble Delays Nook by One Week

Amazon Kindle boosts battery life, adds PDF reader

2009-12-04T14:14:00.000-08:00

To compete with the Nook, the Amazon Kindle patches some holes in its feature list.

Courtesy of Amazon.com Thanks to a software update, the Amazon Kindle will now enjoy better battery life and PDF support.

As shoppers draft their holiday wish lists, Amazon made a move today to nudge potential e-reader buyers into asking Santa for a Kindle.

A free software update will now patch up one of the frustrating holes in Kindle’s feature list and increase its battery life.

The e-readers can now get up to a week of power when its wireless antenna is turned on. Before, Kindles lasted about four days. This update makes the wireless features more energy efficient, so there is not a similar boost in the two-week battery life enjoyed when the connection is turned off. Kindle’s chief competitor, the Barnes and Noble Nook, will run for 10 days with wireless functions disabled. Read more here http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/11/24/amazon-kindle-boosts-battery-life-adds-pdf-reader/

Kindle for PC Beta Brings E-Books to Bigger Screens

2009-12-03T01:52:00.001-08:00

READ INTERESTING HEADLINES BY CLICKING THE LINKS BELOW

Kindle for PC Beta Brings E-Books to Bigger Screens

Did Kindle Sales Get a Boost from Nook's Fumble? & Barnes & Noble Delays Nook by One Week

2009-12-01T15:42:00.000-08:00

Barnes & Noble Delays Nook by One Week Barnes & Noble has delayed its retail debut of the Nook e-reader by one week. Click the headlline to read more

Did Kindle Sales Get a Boost from Nook's Fumble? Amazon knows about supply shortages, but this time the Kindle may benefit from its competitors' inventory control issues. Click the headlline to read more

Is there an e-reader shortage?

2009-12-01T15:26:00.001-08:00

Is there an e-reader shortage?
Click the title to read the article

Amazon's new Kindle firmware: PDF and more battery life

2009-11-30T15:17:00.001-08:00

READ INTERESTING HEADLINES BY CLICKING THE LINKS BELOW

Amazon's new Kindle firmware: PDF and more battery life

iPhone Owners Gobble Up Online Media

2009-11-29T00:24:00.000-08:00

According to a new study, iPhone owners are more likely to purchase online media such as on-demand TV on their phones than average consumers. Continue reading here http://lm.pcworld.com/t/776116/5419529/32781/0/

Why E-book Readers Make Bad Holiday Gifts

2009-11-29T00:22:00.000-08:00

Sure, the e-book market has never been better but that doesn't mean you should buy an e-book reader as a gift. At least not this year. Continue reading here http://lm.pcworld.com/t/776116/5419529/32779/0/

Nook E-Reader Sold Out for the Holidays

2009-11-21T15:16:00.001-08:00

CLICK THE HEADLINE TO READ THE COMPLETE STORY

Nook E-Reader Sold Out for the Holidays

Sony may not fill some e-reader orders by holidays

2009-11-20T15:59:00.000-08:00

Read the complete article here click the headline Sony may not fill some e-reader orders by holidays

Condé Preparing Wired for E-Reader

2009-11-20T15:58:00.001-08:00

Condé Preparing Wired for E-Reader
Read the complete article here

Cellphone Apps Challenge the Rise of E-Readers

2009-11-18T13:56:00.001-08:00

From the NY Times With Amazon’s Kindle, readers can squeeze hundreds of books into a device that is smaller than most hardcovers. For some, that’s not small enough. Many people who want to read electronic books are discovering that they can do so on the smartphones that are already in their pockets — bringing a whole new meaning to “phone book.” And they like that they can save the $250 to $350 that they would otherwise spend on yet another gadget. Continue Reading here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/technology/18reader.html?_r=1&hpw

Taiwan Firm Positioned for E-Reader Takeoff

2009-11-09T15:11:00.001-08:00

TAIPEI — With the market for electronic book readers set to take off, things are looking up for a little-known Taiwanese company that will probably supply most of the “e-paper” they use.
The company, Prime View International, said this summer that it would pay about $215 million to acquire E-Ink, which owns the technology for displaying text in the most popular readers, including Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader.

Prime View, often referred to as P.V.I., recently sweetened its offer and says it hopes to close the deal by the end of the year. It already manufactures e-reader display modules for the Kindle and the Reader.

“E-Ink is by far the leader” in the field, said John Chen, director of the display technology center at ITRI, a government-financed technology incubator in Taiwan. “P.V.I. is going to strengthen its leadership in the next year or two, before anyone else can catch up.”

Demand for e-paper is expected to rise, with Amazon expanding the availability of the Kindle to Europe and the U.S. book retailer Barnes & Noble creating its own e-reader to compete with Amazon and Sony.

The availability of more content and the ability to download material wirelessly has fueled demand for the devices.

DisplaySearch, a market researcher based in Austin, Texas, forecasts the global market for e-paper, including e-paper used in e-books, to hit $5.9 billion by 2015, from $400 million this year.
This is not the first time Prime View has jumped into a growing market early. It became the first Taiwanese maker of flat-panel screens in 1994. Ten years later, in a crowded market dominated by the likes of Samsung and LG Display, it decided to focus on specialty products like custom displays for medical devices.
In 2005, it acquired Philips Electronics’ e-

paper display unit, in an early bet on the industry.
“All the big companies like Samsung weren’t so interested in this market,” said David Hsieh, president of DisplaySearch’s Taiwan branch. “So Prime View found a good niche.”
It was also a good fit considering Prime View’s pedigree. The company is a subsidiary of Yuen Foong Yu Group, a Taiwanese paper and pulp company. The group started making toilet paper and paperboard as early as 1939 and began producing coated paper in the 1950s with Japanese technology, according to its Web site.

Now, one of Taiwan’s first mass producers of paper looks set, through a subsidiary, to become the world’s first mass producer of e-paper.

Analysts say Prime View’s production capacity, which includes factories in South Korea it acquired in 2007, make it the only e-paper company with the scale to meet booming global demand. And the ownership of E-Ink will mean they have no intellectual property issues to overcome and can make e-paper “from head to toe,” Mr. Hsieh said.

The company has its critics. Jeff Pu, an expert on the flat-panel industry in Taiwan, says Prime View has too much exposure in conventional liquid crystal displays. Prime View says that about half of its business concerns e-paper products.

A demand dip could be punishing, said Mr. Pu, who currently analyzes the mobile industry at Fubon Securities in Taipei. For example, he said, Prime View executives told analysts in April that its Korean factories were operating at 30 percent of capacity in the first quarter of this year, and that 65 percent was “break-even level.”

Mr. Pu also sees a price war coming, as AU Optronics, LG Display and others enter the e-paper market. AU Optronics has the most promising e-paper technology after E-Ink, the “microcups” technology owned by its subsidiary Sipix. Prime View will have to cut its prices after it loses its first-mover advantage, Mr. Pu said.

For now, Prime View is shrugging off such predictions. A company spokesman, Stephen Chen, conceded that capacity was low at the company’s Korean factories early this year but said that was because of the unusually bad economic downturn.

Mr. Chen said the company did not plan to license the E-ink technology to others and declined to comment on whether it might make its own e-reader.

“So far, for mass production and quality, E-Ink is the first priority for customers,” Mr. Chen said. “So I think we’ll keep the leading edge for some time — a few years is certain.” Read the original article here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/technology/09iht-epaper.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

Heavy Demand Delays Some Orders for Barnes & Noble e-Book Reader

2009-11-09T14:18:00.001-08:00

Demand for Barnes & Noble Inc.'s yet-to-be-released electronic-book reader is so strong that the retailer is telling customers that new pre-orders won't ship until Dec. 11.

In October, the nation's largest bookstore chain told its first wave of customers for the $259 Nook that the wireless device would ship Nov. 30. A second wave of customers was told it would ship Dec. 7. Now new customers are being told that their pre-orders will ship Dec. 11.

"Demand for the product in our stores and online has surpassed our expectations," said Mary Ellen Keating, a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble.

She declined to say how many Nooks have been pre-ordered since the retailer introduced the Nook on Oct. 20.

Ms. Keating said initial pre-orders will be shipped on Nov. 30 as promised. However, there has been so much interest in the Nook that customers who preorder the $259 device now will have to wait a little longer to receive them. "We are working hard to meet demand for the holidays," she added.

The Dec. 11 shipping date was reported on Brighthand.com. Barnes & Noble introduced its Nook to compete directly with Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle, e-readers from Sony Corp., and other devices. In October, Forrester Research Inc. issued a report projecting total e-reader sales in the U.S. will reach 3 million in 2009, with 30% of sales occurring in November and December.

"Consumers are excited about this device and as long as it arrives before Christmas they'll be happy," said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research, on Sunday. "We see Barnes & Noble playing a much larger role in 2010."

The Nook runs on Google Inc.'s Android operating system, and features an e-paper display from E-Ink Corp. for reading and a smaller color-touch screen for control and typing. Its wireless capacity will enable users to download books from the retailer's online bookstore.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808904574523994119321648.html

Tags: kindle in the Philippines

iPhone as an eBook Reader Threatens Kindle, Says Report

2009-11-08T21:58:00.000-08:00

Apple's iPhone is quickly becoming the ebook reader of choice for many, and could steal market share from Amazon's Kindle, according to a report from market research firm Flurry.

The iPhone and iPod Touch turned into a popular handheld gaming platform over the last year, as most of the apps released for the devices were in the games category. Even Nintendo acknowledged that iPhone games were among the reasons its DS portable gaming machine under-performed in sales.

And now it appears it is the Amazon Kindle's turn to take a beating, as book applications for iPhone exceeded the popularity of games apps in the last four months, according the Flurry report. In September, iPhone books (some running on Kindle for iPhone) overtook games for the first time, while one in every five new apps in the App Store in October were books.

Flurry's chart below shows a surge in book apps for iPhone releases from July to October, with book apps overtaking game releases in September.

The analytics firm predicts that Apple could steal market share from Amazon's Kindle, as more publishers release new book apps for the iPhone at "record rates." Amazon did not disclose how many Kindle units it had sold, however, Forrester research estimates that three million e-readers will be sold in the United States in 2009.

There are over 57 million iPhone and iPod Touch users worldwide. The Kindle is vastly outnumbered by Apple's touchscreen devices, despite the iPhone having a significantly smaller screen than Amazon's Kindle (6 inches). This makes the iPhone platform a larger gateway for book publishers.

Apple's widely speculated upcoming tablet, yet unconfirmed, could also pose a future threat for the already crowded ebook reader market by the likes of Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Sony.

Read the original posting here http://www.pcworld.com/article/181142/iphone_as_an_ebook_reader_threatens_kindle_says_report.html?tk=nl_dnx_h_crawl

"iPhone as an eBook Reader Threatens Kindle, Says Report" Comments

nonseq says: Mon Nov 02 06:09:54 PST 2009
I use my iPod Touch as a e-reader for Kindle and other formats and really really like it. I like it so much that I would not entertain getting a Kindle or other dedicated device. I am hopeful that an Apple tablet may actually be in the offing and if so, would buy one for that purpose.

Neither device should be too much of a threat to Amazon or Barnes & Noble or others as their profits will derive primarily from the sale of e-books and not hardware.

DebbieTT says: I'm afraid the iphone is going to change forever, the way we use: cell phones, GSPs, Kindle, books, the Internet, laptop computers, wi-fi, and other things we haven't even thought about yet. The iphone is 1 pretty amazing $99 device.

lutra says: Threatens Kindle? Well, I didn't buy a Kindle, that's for sure, but I did get the Kindle application for my iPhone. I've actually bought several books for it already and I really enjoy reading them on my iPhone. It's surprising how little battery usage it takes up. Honestly, using this kind of thing on a smartphone is going to be the way of the future for a lot of us. Why carry around a separate device when you can just use the phone you'll always have with you? So maybe the Kindle device itself is in danger, but Amazon can use existing technology to expand the department it created by introducing the device to us.

slayman says:

you dont have a clue what ebook readers are about. It isnt about having a portable device - people have been reading on their cellphones for, like, ever. With memory cards, you can carry thousands of ebooks on a phone/PMP.

ebook readers are about the display. All those cellphones and PMPs have (besides their puny displays and hours of battery life) have glare. If you have read on them for 30 minutes, you will have terrible eye strain. The ebook readers have (besides bigger, paper book size displays and days of battery life) no-glare, paper-like displays which is as easy on the eye as real paper, allowing one to read for hours without eye strain. Read the rest of the comments by clicking above at the original link above

E-books' holiday charge

2009-11-06T12:54:00.000-08:00

As sales soar, digital works face season's crucial test
Technology is stalking your bookcase.

It has already taken over your photo albums and emptied your film canisters. It overwhelmed your music collection and flooded Goodwill with CD towers. It canceled your newspaper subscription. (Sniff, tear.)
And now, digital evangelicals believe technology is on the verge of supplanting those dusty, yellowed tomes that weigh three times more than an iPod and don't even come with any cool free apps.

Sales of electronic books jumped 68.4 percent last year and skyrocketed 177 percent to $96.6 million for the year through August, according to the Association of American Publishers. That's not counting the millions downloaded for free at public libraries, where e-books are fast becoming one of the most popular features. And Amazon has said that its e-book reader, the Kindle, has become the best-selling product on its Web site.

But despite the staggering growth, e-books remain just a sliver of the overall publishing industry, at 1.5 percent of the $6.8 billion in sales this year -- about on par with audiobooks. And some experts believe that the $200-plus price tag for e-book readers will keep the market from exploding the way MP3s did.
Holiday hopes

This holiday season will be a crucial test of whether e-books can cross over from geeky novelty to mass-market must-have. Major retailers are pushing the format -- and, of course, the gadgets they've developed to display it. Barnes & Noble unveiled its first electronic book reader last month, with access to all of the retailer's titles and then some. Amazon and Sony, which make the two best-selling e-readers in the country, have introduced new versions just in time to stuff your stocking. And this holiday, for the first time, Best Buy is devoting store space to educating shoppers about e-readers.

All told, about 1.2 million e-readers are expected to be sold in the last three months of the year -- roughly 40 percent of the entire year's stock. By the end of 2010, industry experts predict, 10 million people will be carrying e-readers. As for the number of e-books that people have read, they've lost track.
Steve Haber, president of Sony's digital reading division, can hear his grandkids' grandkids now: You printed 1,000 pages and you made a million copies of those? Why did you do that?

"To me, it's just inevitable," says Haber, who knew printed books were goners when people told him they liked to touch and feel them. "I heard the same thing from LPs and CDs. The mass market, they want convenience and experience."

Already, we buy roughly as many printed books online as we do at chain bookstores. Each claims more than 20 percent of the market and alternates at the top spot, while independent sellers claim just 5 percent of the market, according to PubTrack, a survey conducted by publishing industry research firm Bowker. If it only takes one click to buy a book, why should we have to wait to read it?

The Amazon effect

Amazon executives have made near-instantaneous content a company goal. The latest Kindle, which began shipping last month, holds 1,500 titles and can wirelessly download books in 60 seconds. The company envisions a day when any book ever printed in any language can be downloaded in one minute.

Ginny Wolfe, 51, of Alexandria brought her Kindle to Afghanistan, where she is working for a few weeks as a private contractor; the device is loaded with 350 books, including "White Ghost Girls" by Alice Greenway and "The Invisible Mountain" by Carolina De Robertis. In the old days -- like, pre-2007, before the Kindle was released -- Wolfe would pack an extra suitcase on her work trips, just for books.

"I used to panic, thinking I might run out of things to read. That doesn't happen anymore," she writes in an e-mail, although she adds that she misplaced her Kindle for two days in Kabul, resulting in escalating drama until it turned up in a restaurant.

It is difficult to overstate the impact that Amazon has had on the publishing industry, both when Amazon began selling print books nearly 15 years ago and when it launched the Kindle two years ago. In both cases, the company struck fear in the hearts of publishers by lowering prices.

According to Bowker, the average price of an e-book this year is $8.30. The cost of a hardcover book -- the most profitable format for publishers -- is $14.55. The difference is particularly painful for publishers because e-book buyers tend to be readers who used to be hardcover buyers, says Kelly Gallagher, vice president of publishing services for Bowker.

Worse, the industry can't raise prices on e-books to match those of hardcovers because Amazon established $9.99 pricing for e-books, and consumers expect virtual products to be cheaper than actual ones, he says. To fight back, publisher HarperCollins is delaying the e-book version of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's potentially best-selling memoir until after Christmas to help bolster hardcover sales.
"We've always kind of painted ourselves into a corner," Gallagher says.

Although the Association of American Publishers estimates that sales of e-books account for only 1.5 percent of all books, the medium's triple-digit growth has publishers on guard. Sales are outpacing most forecasts at a time when the book industry has seen sales declines. Adult paperbacks have dropped 9 percent to $908 million for the year through August, while hardcover sales plunged 12 percent to $738.6 million. Since it was launched last year, more than 2 million people have downloaded the free app Stanza to their iPhones to read e-books.
"The trend that the Kindle has started has grown far beyond Amazon," says Sarah Rotman Epps, senior analyst for consulting firm Forrester Research. "There are some companies that are on this for years and are finally seeing consumer demand building."

The e-reader market

Forrester's profile of the current e-reader enthusiast is a 47-year-old married man with a college degree and an average household income of $116,000. About 30 percent of e-reader owners use them on business trips, while about 17 percent rely on e-readers during commutes. They read about 3.5 books each month, more than the average Internet user. About 83 percent consider themselves "technology optimists."

The second wave that is emerging is composed of slightly younger men who may already be reading a few e-books on their iPhones or laptops and are graduating to e-readers. But to go truly mass-market, e-books will have to appeal to women, who tend to be warier of new technology and more price-conscious, Epps says. Harlequin, purveyor of those lusty supermarket bodice-rippers, has dipped into the market with an e-book subscription service for some series, like Silhouette Desire, "delivering the provocative passion you crave." And no one can see you put it in your shopping cart!

Can passion overcome the high price of e-readers? Epps performed an analysis of how much shoppers are willing to pay for an e-reader, and the point of mass appeal was $50 -- less than it costs to make the device.
Epps doesn't think that today's e-readers will do for e-books what the iPod did for MP3s. Even if 10 million people are toting an e-book reader at the end of next year, that's less than 1 percent of the 110 million people who have MP3 players. And at current prices, she believes the market for e-readers will top out at 25 million. Gallagher of Bowker says laptops still remain the primary mode for reading e-books.

Epps thinks the trend will look more like what happened to digital cameras, which took about a decade to catch on before exploding in popularity but are now taking a back seat to camera phones.

Book clubs and gadget geeks alike are buzzing about rumors that Apple is secretly developing a tablet-style device that combines an e-reader with other computing wizardry. An Apple spokeswoman did not respond to requests for information. But if the ubiquitous iPods and iPhones are yardsticks, an Apple e-reader could be the tipping point for digital books.

Sex appeal

Unless, of course, you are 40-something Hilton Henderson of Fairfax, who cannot fathom any reason why he would ever choose to read a book on a screen. Call him old-fashioned. Call him a Luddite. Or, Henderson helpfully suggests, call him a romantic.

A friend of his recently compared books to attractive women -- glorious to behold! -- and the comparison resonated with him. Reading an e-book, he says, is about as appealing to him as cybersex.
Yes, he went there.

"I prefer actually the experience, when reading a book, of using all my senses, like when I experience the world," Henderson says. "The touch of it, the feel of it, the scent of it."

All good points. But Sony's Haber argues that if it's women you're after, technology is man's best friend. Pull out a book in a bar and you look lonely. But whip out a Sony Reader and watch the magic happen.
"If you want to meet a girl," he says, "don't get a dog, get a reader." Read the complete article here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/04/AR2009110404834_pf.html

Ng: Amazing Kindle

2009-11-04T19:48:00.000-08:00

Ng: Amazing Kindle

FOR the past few days, I have been toying with a new gadget, the Amazon Kindle. In the remote chance you haven't heard about it, the Kindle is Amazon.com's e-book reader. It is very thin---it is slightly larger than a standard DVD case but half its thickness. It weighs only a few grams and can store over a thousand books.

It was a hit when it was introduced over a year ago but during that time, it wasn't available outside the United States. It was only a few weeks ago that Amazon decided to sell the Kindle in selected countries worldwide, including the Philippines.

In my opinion, every bibliophile should get one.

I am no stranger to e-books, having worked with a series of Palm and Windows mobile gadgets as well as notebooks to read the latest news and books. But the Kindle is different. It was designed from the ground up just for reading books and magazines and it shows.

There are various very noteworthy things about the device:

When you buy a Kindle, it has a special SIM. That SIM I think is what Amazon calls WhisperNet and I believe is a subscription to the Sprint network. It means that the Kindle can surf the Net using cell phone signals, but Amazon pays for it all.

The user has the Kindle linked to his account and while he can surf, he is limited to basically a few sites like Wikipedia and Amazon store. So anywhere in the US, and anywhere now in the world where the company has roaming arrangements, you can go to the Amazon e-book store and check out the books for free.

And if you like the book and purchase it, the only thing you worry about is the purchase price, because in minutes, the book is sent to you without you having to pay web surfing cost.

If you, for instance, commit to pay for getting a blog or a magazine or newspaper, then on a regular or daily basis, the news/ magazine is sent to you at no additional cost.

Apparently Amazon is betting on the system the way Apple did with its Apple Store - the Apple Store thrived even if people pay just about a dollar per song because they make it so easy and convenient. In Amazon, it's the same way.

You can get classic books whose copyrights have lapsed for a dollar or two (and many of them are available in the internet for free) but the convenience and accessibility may be worth paying for.

There is something there - the price of the book stays the same no matter where you are in the world - which is liberating.

Kindle uses a kind of electronic ink. This ink takes about a second to update but there is something noteworthy about the technology - once the ink dries up it does not require backlight or power to have it stick to the screen. So that means that without backlight or power to support the screen, the small battery can last days of reading.This makes it very convenient.

After all, a device is never truly portable unless you can do some meaningful reading or work without having to look for a power source all the
time.

The Kindle has a great design and my kids are reading more already because of the gadget. If you love reading, this is something that you should try. Check it out at www.amazon.com. Read the original article here http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/ng-amazing-kindle

Amazon Kindle DX E-Book Reader

2009-11-03T14:43:00.001-08:00

Though the Kindle DX is an impressive e-book reader, its high price will likely turn off some prospective buyers.

In spite of its larger size, the Amazon Kindle DX ($489 as of October 29, 2009) comes off as a surprisingly lean and elegant contender in the current e-book reader steeplechase. This enlarged version of the Kindle has a number of appealing features--including strong PDF support--along with a few missteps.

The shift to a larger-screen Kindle makes sense. Dominating the front is its 9.7-inch,16-grayscale E Ink display. The device measures 10.4 by 7.2 by 0.38 inches and weighs 18.9 ounces. Like the Kindle 2, the Kindle DX has a keyboard, but it's awkward to type on. In my hands-on examination of the device, I came to appreciate many aspects of its design. Still, some roadblocks ahead could impede its widespread adoption. The most problematic of these are the reader's price ($489, more than some full-featured laptops cost), and the fact that early newspapers available for the Kindle DX lack the visual design and appeal of physical newspapers.

The Kindle DX's design was strongly influenced by that of the Kindle 2: It has a white finish, a keyboard at the bottom, and navigation keys and a five-way joystick at the right (unlike the other navigation buttons on the Kindle DX, the five-way joystick and its associated Menu and Back buttons are similar in size to those on the Kindle 2). Gone are the left-hand navigation keys--a conscious design choice, according to Amazon. When you flip the unit upside-down, the screen automatically inverts itself and the navigation buttons respond appropriately, reflecting the new orientation. (Of course, the printed wording on the buttons remains inverted. Perhaps a future Kindle will solve that issue with invisible capacitive touch buttons that appear as needed, depending on the orientation.)
Like the Kindle 2, the Kindle DX has a minimalist design. The only port on the bottom is the unit's Micro-USB 2.0 connection. The reader charges via Micro-USB, but the charging cable detaches from the outlet plug, so you can plug it into your PC's USB port for data transfers as well. Direct-to-Kindle data transfers are more important with the Kindle DX, due to the PDF reader in the new device: PDFs of large, image-heavy documents can eat up 10MB, 20MB, or more. Since Amazon now charges 15 cents per megabyte for data you e-mail to yourself over the Kindle's Whispernet service, fees could add up quickly if you're an avid viewer of PDFs.

The top of the Kindle DX houses a power slider switch and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Like the Kindle 2, the Kindle DX has text-to-speech reading capabilities for handling content whose producers permit it. But whereas the Kindle 2 has a monaural speaker, the Kindle DX has built-in stereo speakers.

One major Kindle DX enhancement is the ability to reorient content. The accelerometer inside can adjust to display all content horizontally or vertically, or even at a full 180-degree rotation. This ability renders left-side navigation buttons unnecessary, and it's great if you're left-handed--or even if you just want the freedom to vary how you hold the e-book reader. And unlike the iPhone, the Kindle DX lets you turn off the autorotation (and anyone who has tried to read an iPhone at an angle while in bed knows how aggravating autorotation can be).

The other big enhancement--mentioned earlier--is the Kindle DX's native PDF reader, enabling Amazon to target the professional market, where financial documents, reports, marketing flyers, and even PowerPoint presentations are commonly published as PDFs.

Of course, the Kindle DX also opens wide opportunities for textbooks and such highly formatted books as cookbooks and profusely illustrated books). In addition, newspaper and magazine publishers will have the opportunity to deliver targeted, customized content that takes advantage of this platform.

At $489, the Kindle DX will make consumers think hard before buying one (especially since highly functional netbooks can be had for substantially less). But it is also a very capable device that can benefit from a broadened scope. The more multipurpose Kindles can become without detracting from or minimizing their primary mission as electronic readers, the better-positioned they will be going forward. Read the original article here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/30/AR2009103004163.html

Read my blog on Kindle in the Philippines here http://kindlephilippines.blogspot.com/

Tags: Kindle Philippines, Kindle DX, Kindle DX Amazon

The Kindle works in the Philippines

2009-11-02T23:58:00.000-08:00

When I received a promotional e-mail from Amazon a week ago last Monday announcing that the Kindle is now available for the Philippines, I was hugely excited. I immediately went to the website, and within minutes had become the proud owner of a new Kindle.

When you purchase products on Amazon these days, you make a deposit for customs duties and taxes, which makes the shipment by DHL seamless to your doorstep. The Kindle arrived within four days, pre-programmed with my account information and with free 3G wireless connectivity. I don’t know which telecom firm supplies the connectivity, but it works like a dream. Minutes after I had opened the package, I had purchased my first eBook, a book on social media marketing, wirelessly.

I love the Kindle, and the way it works. The wireless connection, branded Whisper, is reliable. Books open in a snap, the ink-based technology used to “print” each page is supremely satisfying, and the functionality – bookmarks, search, jotting notes – does what it is supposed to do. But most of all I love the Kindle because it works as well here as anywhere else in the world – which is the way all things should be – despite a retail monopoly, high connectivity rates in the Philippines, and a hopelessly corrupt customs bureaucracy.
Despite all this, the Kindle works. This is a part of his blog, read the entire article here http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/227655/the-kindle-works

Tags: kindle, kindle philippines, amazon kindle, new kindle, kindle distributor in the philippines, kindle makati, kindle wireless, kindle philippines sale, PAPERBACKS, us wireless, amazon kindle, copyright-free digital books, ebook reader device, ebook store, free downloads, public domain work titles

Amazon Says Kindle Reader Coming for Mac, Too

2009-10-30T22:42:00.001-07:00

Amazon announced Thursday that Kindle reader software was on the way for PCs. Fortunately for those of us who live a bit better than our Windows-suffering brethren, Amazon has now hastily added that a Mac version of Kindle software is also on the way.

Amazon's Kindle, of course, is the slim white e-book reader with access to over 350,000 books and counting. (Though, personally, I'd hate to be the guy whose job was to do the actual counting.)

But soon after launching the Kindle device, Amazon quickly bastardized its own noun, releasing Kindle for iPhone and iPod touch. That software offers access to that massive library of digital books, without needing to buy the $260 hardware Kindle. With desktop software, one imagines you'll be able to read books right on your bright computer screen while you're supposed to be
working.

Desktop Kindle software--whether for Macs or PCs--will mark the first time
consumers can buy and read books from Amazon's library without owning some
other pricey hardware. Except for, uh, the computer itself. Read the original article here
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/174275/amazon_says_kindle_reader_coming_for_mac_too.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a41:g26:r23:c0.000766:b28590375:z0

Amazon Kindle Now with International Wireless 360,000 books etc,

2009-10-29T15:22:00.000-07:00

Amazon Kindle: Now With U.S. & International Wireless, Only $259

Video Kindle 2 Guide basics and tips and where to find free books

2009-10-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

My Video Kindle 2 Guide
Have put together a very comprehensive video guide on the Kindle 2 that includes -

Kindle Basics.
20+ Kindle 2 Tips and Shortcuts that will work on the International Kindle (except the Browser tips).
Where to find free books.

And a lot of other good things. This blogger might be a good watch for those that want to learn how to use the kindle

http://ireaderreview.com/2009/10/09/international-kindle-guide-international-kindle-owners/

Two-faced gadget is e-reader plus netbook

2009-10-25T04:48:00.000-07:00

(WIRED) -- Like Harvey "Two-Face" Dent, a new dual-screen device has two faces to match its double identity: It promises to be an electronic book reader and a netbook at the same time.

The eDGe device will fold like a book and will be used as an e-reader and a netbook.

The Wi-Fi enabled device, called eDGe, will fold like a book and can be used as an e-reader. It will also serve as a digital notepad you can use to write notes or highlight text, send e-mails and instant messages, browse the Internet and run apps, say the device's creators. Under the hood, eDGe will be powered by Google's Android operating system.

The left half of the eDGe will have a 9.7-inch E Ink e-paper display. Users will be able to read e-books in PDF and EPUB format and take notes or draw diagrams using a stylus. The right side of the device is a 10.1-inch LCD touchscreen that can be used to check e-mail and surf the Web.

The $490 eDGe won't be available until February, 2010, says its creator, Entourage Systems, a startup based in McLean, Virginia. But the company is taking pre-orders for the device.

Currently, e-book readers and netbooks are among the fastest-growing categories in consumer electronics. Not surprisingly, companies are trying to find ways to meld the two. Netbooks pioneer Asus, for instance, is also working on a dual-screen e-reader. Asus showed a prototype of the device at the CeBIT trade show in March and plans to unveil it at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Asus' e-reader will likely have two color touchscreens, a speaker, a webcam and a microphone, along with the capability to make inexpensive Skype calls.
The eDGe will have an ARM processor, 4 GB storage, an SD card slot and 2 USB ports. Weighing about 2.5 pounds, eDGe's dual screens will work together, the company says. That means a user will be able to highlight a word from the e-paper screen and drag it to a browser on the LCD screen in order to do a Google search on it. (See a list of eDGe's specs.)

As with many hybrid devices, eDGe runs the risk of not being good enough as either an e-book reader or as a netbook. Also, eDGe doesn't have the kind of integrated access to an e-bookstore that companies such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble can offer with their e-readers. However, because eDGe uses the EPUB format, its customers can access the 1 million free, public-domain books digitized by Google. Getting the latest Dan Brown bestseller may be more difficult.

Still, the eDGe packs in some appealing extras. The device will come with a text-to-speech function and a 1.3-megapixel webcam. It will offer about 16 hours of battery life in e-reader mode and up to 6 hours when running the LCD screen, says Entourage Systems. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/24/netbook.reader/index.html

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Amazon Releases Kindle Source: Prepare for Kindle Clones (Update: Not Quite)

2009-10-25T01:24:00.001-07:00

Keeping true to what Jeff Bezos had said about the Kindle Reader and Kindle books being two separate businesses, Amazon has released the source code for the 1st generation Kindle, the new Kindle, and the Kindle DX.

The Kindle OS is Linux () with a special set of drivers; we’re sure that someone, somewhere will thoroughly comb through it and reveal more details, particularly about its DRMed parts.
In practice, this means (if the code is released under GNU GPL, as Engadget suggests) that manufacturers can now build a Kindle () clone. While Kindle is a solid device, it’s definitely not perfect, and we’re definitely interested to see what the competition will do with the code. http://mashable.com/2009/06/17/kindle-source/

We have already seen several companies now issue competition devices according to news reports

Kindle For Mac is Coming

2009-10-25T01:22:00.000-07:00

Amazon’s Kindle software isn’t going to be limited to the e-reading device: following Amazon’s announcement at the Windows 7 launch that it has released a version of the Kindle Reader software for PCs (”Kindle for PC“), the company has also revealed that it’s building a Mac version of the software. Neither version requires that you own a Kindle in order to download books.

An Amazon spokesperson in contact with Fast Company told the magazine: “Yes, we are working on a Kindle () app for Mac.” http://mashable.com/2009/10/24/kindle-mac/

Amazon's Bezos says Kindle is number one

2009-10-23T16:08:00.001-07:00

Amazon crowned a new king on Thursday -- the Kindle, its electronic book reader.

"Kindle has become the number one bestselling item by both unit sales and dollars -- not just in our electronics store but across all product categories on Amazon.com," Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said.

In keeping with previous practice, Bezos declined to reveal sales figures for the Kindle, but Forrester Research estimates the device has a nearly 60 percent share of the US market followed by the Sony Reader with 35 percent.

Forrester estimates that three million e-readers will be sold in the United States this year, up from a previous forecast of two million units, and for e-reader sales to double to six million units next year.

Bezos also announced that the price of a new international version of the Kindle designed to synch with telecom networks in 100 countries was being cut to 259 dollars from 279 dollars.

The Bezos statements came as his Seattle-based company reported a 68-percent rise in net profit in the third quarter to 199 million dollars, or 45 cents per share, better than the 33 cents per share forecast by Wall Street analysts.

Revenue increased 28 percent to 5.45 billion dollars during the quarter which ended on September 30.

Amazon shares soared 14.77 percent in after-hours electronic trading to a record 107.25 dollars.

Unlike eBay, which unveiled a cautious outlook for the holiday season the previous day, Amazon delivered an optimistic sales forecast for the Christmas period.

It said it expected fourth-quarter sales of between 8.1 billion dollars and 9.1 billion dollars, an increase of between 21 percent and 36 percent over last year.

Amazon said North America sales rose 23 percent in the quarter to 2.84 billion dollars while international sales from its British, German, Japanese, French and Chinese sites rose 33 percent to 2.61 billion dollars.

It said worldwide media sales, which include music, books and other items, grew 17 percent to 2.93 billion dollars.

Sales of electronics and other general merchandise sales climbed 44 percent to 2.36 billion dollars.

Amazon also said that the Kindle book store has increased its number of titles to more than 360,000 books including 101 of the 112 New York Times bestsellers.

Bezos told Amazon's annual shareholders meeting in May that the company may never reveal Kindle sales figures. "Our point of view on that is that there can often be a competitive advantage in keeping the numbers close," he said. Read the original complete article here http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/tech-times/4544-amazons-bezos-says-kindle-is-number-one

Barnes & Noble unveils its e-reader

2009-10-21T17:07:00.000-07:00

Barnes & Noble added a chapter on Tuesday to the e-book competition story. Beginning in November, the No. 1 book store chain will sell an e-reader, called the Nook, that gives users the flexibility to lend their digital books to others - something that isn't possible with Amazon's Kindle, the best-selling e-reader.

Like the Kindle, the Nook costs $260. It will use AT&T's 3G network to wirelessly download books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs. Both use the same black-and-white screen display technology. B&N also emulates Amazon's practice of charging far less for e-books than it does for paper editions.

But unlike the Kindle, which has a keyboard, Nook users type on a
multi-color touch screen. The device is powered by Google's Android operating system, and B&N's e-books can be read on devices besides the Nook.

Plastic Logic revealed some details on Monday about one of those devices: its long-awaited reader will be called Que, and will be formally introduced in January.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/technologylive/2009/10/barnes-noble-unveils-its-ereader.html

The Kindle has a brand new rival — Barne’s and Noble introduced the Nook e-Reader to compete with Amazon. At $259, it’s priced competitively too.

The Nook comes pre-installed with Google Android OS and will comes with a 3G SIM from AT&T.

Aside from that, there’s also a built-in WiFi. Internal storage is just 2GB but that can be bumped to 16GB via microSD card. Display is also 6″ just like the Kindle.

Amazon quickly responded and gave back $20 in rebates to all those who ordered the International version of the Kindle. It’s now just $259 too. Let’s not forget Sony has its own line of eReaders too. From

http://www.yugatech.com/blog/toys-gadgets/nook-ereader-the-barnes-noble-kindle-killer/

A New Electronic Reader, the Nook, Enters the Market

As widely expected, Barnes & Noble unveiled its Nook electronic reading device at a splashy news conference on Tuesday to generally positive views from the publishing community, and offered some details about its whispered-about lending capabilities.

As much as anything, publishers seemed relieved that Barnes & Noble, which operates the nation's largest chain of bookstores, had produced a credible alternative to Amazon's Kindle. The Nook, priced at $259, went on sale Tuesday afternoon at nook.com, at a price that matched the latest edition of the Kindle. The Nook will ship starting in late November.

Amazon currently dominates the market for electronic readers. Estimates vary, but according to the Codex Group, a consultant to the publishing industry, Amazon has sold about 945,000 units, compared with 525,000 units of the Sony Reader.

Barnes & Noble opened an e-bookstore in July, and its editions, which are available in ePub and Adobe PDF versions, can be read on a variety of devices, including Apple's iPhone, the BlackBerry, Macs and PCs. Barnes & Noble will continue to support those devices, as well as forthcoming e-readers from iRex and Plastic Logic.

But it is clear the company is trying to consolidate sales of e-books onto the Nook, which features a six-inch gray and white reading screen and a color touch screen control panel. In any of the chain's 1,300 stores, consumers can download books on the Wi-Fi network. Outside the stores, consumers will access AT&T's 3G network to download books.

One of the differentiating factors of the Nook is that customers can "lend" books to friends. But customers may lend out any given title only one time for a total of 14 days and they cannot read it on their own Nook while it is lent.

In an interview, William Lynch, president of Barnes&Noble.com, said the company would aggressively market the Nook within its bricks and mortar stores. The Nook also has software that will detect when a consumer walks into a store so that it can push out coupons and other promotions like excerpts from forthcoming books or suggestions for new reading. While in stores, Nook owners will be able to read any e-book through streaming software.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/technology/21nook.html?ref=technology&pagewanted=print

E-Book Fans Keep Format in Spotlight

2009-10-21T17:02:00.001-07:00

The publishing industry has been under a dark cloud recently.
Sales are down this year, despite prominent books by Dan Brown and Edward M. Kennedy. Wal-Mart and Amazon are locked in a war for e-commerce dominance, creating new worries among publishers and authors about dwindling profits.

But amid the gloom, some sellers and owners of electronic reading devices are making the case that people are reading more because of e-books.

Amazon for example, says that people with Kindles now buy 3.1 times as many books as they did before owning the device. That factor is up from 2.7 in December 2008. So a reader who had previously bought eight books from Amazon would now purchase, on average, 24.8 books, a rise from 21.6 books.

“You are going to see very significant industry growth rates as a result of the convenience of this kind of reading,” said Jeffrey P. Bezos, chief executive of Amazon.

Sony, maker of the Reader family of devices, says that its e-book customers, on average, download about eight books a month from its online library. That is far more than the approximately 6.7 books than the average American book buyer purchased for the entire year in 2008, according to Bowker, a publishing industry tracking firm.

The e-reader market also has a new competitor, the Nook, introduced by Barnes & Noble on Tuesday. It will sell for $259.

The book-buying numbers at Amazon and Sony may not by themselves indicate a new interest in reading. Owners of Kindles may be shifting all their book purchases to Amazon. Owners of e-book devices tend to be among the most passionate book buyers, so their behavior may not be reflective of the overall market.

Even so, fans of the reading devices suggest that the convenience of using these products, which offer a sense of control and customization that consumers have come to expect from all their media gadgets, has created a greater interest in books.

Patti Howard is among the converted. “It’s been a long time since I felt this way about books,” said Ms. Howard, a medical transcriptionist from Birmingham, Ala., who for years confined her book reading to 10 minutes before bed until she got an Amazon Kindle in August.

Ms. Howard now buys books any time she wants. She recently downloaded a fantasy novel at 2:30 a.m., immediately after finishing the previous book in a series. She reads during her snippets of daily downtime, like during the wait to pick up her 9-year-old son from school. Her new reading pace is one novel a week.
Other fans praise the benefits of e-book devices. The Kindle and Sony Reader, with their gray-and-white screens and adjustable type sizes, offer a satisfying experience with few of the distractions of other technologies.
Multiple books can also be carried in a slender device, so a reader can easily switch from Kate Morton’s “The Forgotten Garden” to Blake Bailey’s “Cheever: A Life.”

E-books can also be bought quickly and from any location, with one or two clicks on devices like the Kindle and the Nook, which use wireless networks to download books.

Brandon Watson, a researcher at Microsoft and the father of three, says he has gone from reading about a book a month to recently polishing off a book the size of Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” every weekend.
He is taken by the ease of one-handed reading on the Kindle. Last month he bought the digital version of “The Bourne Identity,” even though he had the actual 500-page book in his home, because “for whatever reason, it feels cumbersome to read,” he said.

That point resonates with Candy Yates, a loan officer assistant in Newland, N.C. Ms. Yates owns a computer, a BlackBerry, and an iPod Touch and calls herself a “gadget person.” She says that paper books just feel strange to her, even though she was an avid reader as a child.
The nearest bookstore is also 30 miles away in Boone, and the collection at the local library does not interest her, she said. The Kindle cannot pick up a wireless signal in her home town, but she can plug it into her PC and buy books online.

Such testimonials do not persuade everyone. Many book publishing executives say that e-book sellers like Amazon have a strong interest in heralding a new age of reading, because they must persuade skeptical publishers that a higher sales volume of e-books will offset the eventual loss of profit if the most popular digital editions continue to be sold for $9.99. For now, sellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble subsidize that price.
Some publishers are also not quite willing to accept the notion that books can make a mainstream resurgence.
“Given the fact that people now have the Internet, almost 24-hour football entertainment in the fall, tennis matches from around the world, TV shows out the wazoo, and movies, do you really believe that people are going to be reading more because they can get it on a screen?” said John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, owner of imprints like Farrar, Straus and Giroux and St. Martin’s Press. “I don’t see the scenario.”

The music industry, which stumbled badly during its transition to digital formats, also offers lessons. E-book piracy does not yet constitute a major problem in the United States, but there are warning signs.
Shayna Englin, a political consultant in Washington who purchased a Kindle this year, also says she reads more than ever: a book a week, about three times her old pace.

But she has actually never paid for an e-book. Exploiting a loophole in Amazon’s system, Ms. Englin has linked her Kindle to the Amazon account of some nearby friends, allowing all of them to read books like “The Lost Symbol” at the same time — while paying for them only once.

“I read much more, I tend to read faster for some reason, and I read a greater variety of things,” said Ms. Englin, adding that this is nearly the same as lending a physical book to friends. “We haven’t really looked closely at Amazon’s terms of service. But I do suspect we are breaking the rules.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/technology/21books.html?ref=technology&pagewanted=print

Sulit describes buying procedure for Kindle

2009-10-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

You can order the Kindle direct from Amazon as noted in one of the following posting but here is a sulit ad that describes the buying procedure

I see a sulit ad that identifies how to order from USA but be aware customs must be paid and I would assume some SMART Philippine retailer will soon have their own stocks http://www.sulit.com.ph/index.php/view+classifieds/id/1696582/The+New+Kindle+US+Wireless+Now+Can+be+Shipped+to+the+Philippines!?referralKeywords=kindle

“ Reasons A New Model Kindle Is Better Than A Cheap Netbook”.

2009-10-21T16:57:00.001-07:00

Smaller and Lighter – whether you get the Kindle 2 or Kindle DX either one will be smaller and lighter than a netbook. Even the 10 inch models.

Better Battery Life – because the Amazon Kindle uses e-ink technology less power is used, and on average a Kindle will last you about four days on a single charge. Pretty sweet!
Easier On The Eyes Screen – it’s been said that the e-ink screen is much easier on the eyes, than the constant “flickering” of a pc screen.

Price – with the recent price slash of the Wireless Kindle, they just got cheaper than a cheap netbook. Most 10 inch netbooks still hover around $299.

Read this original blog posting at http://www.ebookreaderguide.com/2009/10/11/6-reasons-a-new-model-kindle-is-better-than-a-cheap-netbook/

Over 17,000 Free Kindle Ebooks Now Available

2009-10-21T16:56:00.001-07:00

To smartly compete against the plethora of FREE public titles available from Google on the Sony Reader, Amazon now has close to 18,000 free public domain downloads in the Kindle ebook store. This is an increase of close to 10,000 from just last Wednesday. Wow!

The ebook reader wars are at full throttle with no let up in sight, especially with the holiday season around the bend. This is very good news for all consumers interested in finally purchasing an ebook reader.

If you own a Kindle go to the Amazon Kindle ebook store and see what free titles grab your fancy. Maybe War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy is your cup of tea, if so – it’s available. http://www.ebookreaderguide.com/2009/10/12/18000-free-kindle-ebook-downloads-are-now-available-in-amazon/

lGoogle Editions Embraces Universal E-book Format

2009-10-21T16:55:00.000-07:00

Google will launch an e-book store called Google Editions with a “don’t be evil” twist. Unlike Google’s biggest competitors, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, which rely heavily on restrictive DRM, Google’s store will not be device-specific–allowing for e-books purchased through Google Editions to be read on the far greater number of e-book readers that will flood the market in 2010.

Google’s e-books will be accessible through any Web-enabled computer, e-reader, or mobile phone instead of a dedicated device. This will allow content to be unchained from expensive devices such as Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader. However, as democratizing as this sounds, it’s still unclear how many people are ready to curl up with a Google Editions title on their laptop or smartphone, instead of the traditional paper format.

Read the complete original article here

http://www.pcworld.com/article/173789/google_editions_embraces_universal_ebook_format.html?tk=nl_dnx_h_crawl

Google Online Bookstore Fuels eReader War

2009-10-21T16:53:00.000-07:00

Google revealed its intention to launch an online bookstore dubbed Google Editions sometime in early 2010. Google plans to open for business with about 500,000 available titles from a variety of publishers. The new service will provide ebooks in a browser-centric, eReader-agnostic manner that will muddy the eReader water even more than it is today.
Google Editions is entirely separate from Google Book Search, Google’s project to scan all of the books of the world and make them available online. A proposed settlement in the ongoing legal wrangling over Google Book Search was scuttled amid mounting opposition and both sides have gone back to the drawing board to come up with a workable solution.

This is a whole new offering from Google that will create an online bookstore to go head-to-head with Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble’s online presence. Preliminary details on Google Editions suggest that Google plans to share the revenue from online book sales with the publishers. Books sold directly through Google Editions would pay out 63 percent to the publisher, with Google keeping the other 37 percent.

Read the complete article here http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/173749/google_online_bookstore_fuels_ereader_war.html?tk=nl_dnx_h_crawl

100+ Places for Free Books Online

2009-10-21T16:51:00.001-07:00

If you are looking for free books Stephen Keroff’s wonderfully comprehensive list should be your first stop. Originally it only covered 100 sites but has grown substantially as Stephen has unearthed many great new locations. This is a listing of 193 sites that legally offer free books (eBooks) for download or for online viewing.

Some time ago I went looking for some free eBooks and was surprised to find that there are many resources for this. I decided to put together this list of sites that offer free eBooks as a reference. Since there are so many, I was not able to check each one out thoroughly. So comments from you on any of these sites would be appreciated and added to the comments in the article.

I have tried to make certain that all of the eBooks at these sites are legally available for viewing/downloading. This is only a summary read the complete blog here http://philippinestuff.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/100-places-for-free-books-online/

Buying Kindle books at Amazon, steps to do

2009-10-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

You buy your books, magazines and newspapers online at the amazon.com website, paying with a credit card. Once the purchase is made you’ll have a chance to have it sent wirelessly or downloaded to your computer. Of course in the Philippines the Kindle wireless option does not work, so you choose to download your purchases. After you press the download button the download starts and when complete the file appears on your desktop. Then you connect your Kindle to your computer with the supplied cable. Turn on your Kindle and its icon appears as a drive on your desktop. Then you drag and drop the downloaded files to the Kindle. Next time you use your Kindle the new documents will be in the Kindle library, ready to use.

Amazon has announced a new international version of the Kindle which, according to Amazon, works wirelessly in the Philippines and around the world.

Kindle offers a work-around, and not only for books. Using the Kindle I can have the current issue of the Financial Times with my morning coffee — or of course any one of a dozen other foreign papers. Sure, I can read these on my computer, but the user interface and especially the portability of the Kindle is superior to my laptop.

The Kindle is another technology (along with DSL and Skype) that helps make the life of the expat even better. Now you can live in the most remote provincial location* and read the New York Timeswith your breakfast. That’s progress!

If you buy a Kindle and use it overseas, be sure to get an extra battery. There are lots of complaints about short battery life on the Amazon web site.

No, the Kindle wireless feature via the Sprint cellular network in the U.S. definitely does not work in the Philippines or, as I understand it, anywhere else but in the U.S. I just meant that I was able to activate the Kindle unit and purchase content via downloads from the Amazon website. Not as convenient as the Whispernet but very workable.

By the way, may I ask how you did this? I mean activating the Kindle unit and purchasing content straight from the Amazon Kindle website through the Globe network?

We just logged into our pre-existing amazon.com account at the Amazon web site, went to the “Kindle Store section, then the “Manage Your Kindle” tab, and then register your Kindle unit. No problems. By the way, we longer have Globe DSL. We moved to a more rural area and now use SmartBro wireless Internet. That works fine with Kindle too

you have to have a U.S.A. issued credit card. Others have reported success with gift cards but maybe Amazon has blocked that work around. Let’s hope that Amazon will expand Kindle services world wide.
Does Kindle recognize other ebook files that are not purchased in kindle?

As I were browing sulit.com, I saw sellers who offer ebooks files in cheap prices and and I’m wondering if these files are readable by Kindle. Is it possible to read them using kindle?

Is is like itunes wherein you can buy songs online at the same time you can rip your own music?
Yes, Kindle can read these formats:
* Documents: Kindle (.AZW, .AZW1). Text (.TXT), Unprotected Mobipocket (.MOBI, .PRC)
* Audible: Audible (.AA, .AAX)
* Music: MP3 (.MP3)

Remember that the mobipocket book must not have DRM protection.
You can also send personal documents (.doc, .txt, .pdf) to be converted to AZW format. I had my resume, scripts, librettos and music pieces converted and it looks really nice in my new Kindle 2. But looks ugly in my Kindle 1 These comments from the blog http://goiloilo.com/kindle-philippines/

naaah … the multi-format (no lock-in) Sonys are far better

2009-10-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

That’s interesting, it’s like they reversed the countries you’d think will have the kindle vs those who won’t… I’m hoping the local barbershop will buy some so that they can update their reading material circa 2000…

I go to a branch of Bruno’s Barbers that mooches wi-fi from the neighboring dental clinic (this is the branch in Shangri-La Mall). Everytime I go there for a haircut, I bring my iPhone and read my news feeds on Google reader. No magazines needed…

naaah … the multi-format (no lock-in) Sonys are far better – Read the original blog here http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=22180

thinking early about stocking-stuffers?

2009-10-21T16:43:00.000-07:00

October 9, 2009 Heh,a personal pet topic of mine.

Been snooping around the forums at MobileRead for feedback on the international Kindle since the announcement.
Downsides to the international version: books are generally $2 more expensive than the US store ($11.99 versus $9.99) and, due to publisher restrictions, there are over 100,000 books that won’t be available outside the US store (including, supposedly, Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol”)
However, tons of people have been using US Kindles outside America for quite some time now – it’s all in the judicious use of Amazon electronic GCs and a VPN to “magically relocate” you for a few minutes, plus a USB connection to do all your transfers.
And hey, bang for the back tip – if you aren’t going to need the international Whispernet anyway, refurbished 1st gen Kindle readers are only $150 on Amazon right now.
In fact for me, the best part about the Amazon Kindle store is the content, not necessarily the device.
If you’re an iPhone user that can snag a copy of the Kindle app off the US iTunes store, you don’t even need an actual Kindle – and now you can seamlessly use Whispernet not only over 3G, but WiFi as well. Not to mention the ability to read non-DRM ebooks (using Stanza), get many more blogs, news and feature articles synced to your device (using Instapaper) and view full resolution, full color PDFs (using GoodReader).

October 9, 2009 Having tried a DX, the 6″ International version is not so bad at all. I’ll probably get one before the year ends. Its more portable than the DX. I’ve been using the iPhone app for months and fairly satisfied with it, but the E Ink screen is definitely more friendly to the eyes.

Yup International books costs $2 more but its still cheaper compared to a print book you get locally (I recently bought one for $8 when it sells for $15 for print locally), although there are some from the best-sellers list not included (yet).
The e-book reader allows you to store up to 200 books and has a little more room for periodicals, magazines and even 300 blogs. All this you can get or download anywhere using a free high-speed cellular wireless network from Sprint (EVDO, Amazon Whispernet). Looking to be a better competitor to the Sony Reader Digital Book (PRS-505).

The catch? While access to the network is free, you’ll have to pay monthly subscriptions rates even for the freely available periodicals (New York Times, Washington Post, etc) and blogs (TechCrunch, Boingboing, etc). The screen is also in black & white though that actually helps for a longer battery life.
The unit ain’t that cheap too — $400 a pop. Feature-wise it’s packed but will people buy yet another dedicated device to tag along with them? Maybe for the book freaks gobbling 3 books a week. Read the original complete posting here http://www.yugatech.com/blog/toys-gadgets/kindle-amazons-new-ebook-reader/
These days, you can buy a laptop for $400, and it will do everything that the Kindle will do, plus much more.

Important Product Information for Your Country

2009-10-21T16:41:00.001-07:00

Your international shipment is subject to customs duties, import taxes and other fees levied by the destination country. We will show you these fees upon checkout.

Kindle ships with a U.S. power adapter and a micro-USB cable for charging your Kindle via a computer USB port. The U.S. power adapter supports voltages between 100V – 240V.

You can transfer personal documents to your Kindle via USB for free at anytime. Service fees for transferring personal documents via Whispernet are currently $.99 per megabyte.

Wireless download times can vary based on 3G or EDGE/GPRS coverage, signal strength and file size.

Kindle books, newspapers, and magazine are currently priced and sold in United States dollars

Blogs and the experimental web browser are currently not available for your country

Kindle includes a 1-year limited warranty.

Use of the Kindle is subject to the Kindle License Agreement and Terms of Use
http://www.migsmobile.net/2009/10/09/amazon-kindle-soon-in-the-philippines/

Comments from other blogs on Kindle vs Google

eBooks may be mobile, space-saving, and convenient, but I never did get the hang of reading long text on my PC or eBook reader. Real books still offer a rich, sensual experience an eBook reader can’t provide. And it’s not like eBooks are any cheaper than real books. It’s clear that not everyone else shares my preferences for books over gadgets, because Google is going to be launching an eBook store early next year. There’s no opening date yet, but Google intends to provide half a million eBook titles when the online book store gets launched. All your book purchases will be stored with your Gmail account, and users can read the eBooks using any electronic device that can access the Internet. Yup, you don’t have to buy an expensive eBook reader just to read your eBooks. You can use your iPhone, your desktop, your netbook, as long as they have Internet connection. So far, it sounds like a far better deal than what theAmazon Kindle is offering.
http://techiegadgets.com/google-to-open-an-ebook-store-in-2010/

Most Visited on my Philippine Bargains yesterday

2009-10-21T16:39:00.001-07:00

Most Visited on my Philippine Bargains yesterday

Amazon Kindle will be coming to the Phil

SMART Bro Share It Internet now Unlimite

GENERIC DRUGSTORES IN THE PHILIPPINES

Globe and Tattoo Super Unli Promo Unlimi

LCD TV Best buys in the Philippines

Cheap vacations packages in Boracay, Boh

Globe upgrades Duo to Super Duo unlimit

Is your cell phone signal weak? SUN, SMA

PLDT launches TV over DSL service, Watch

CIGNAL SATELLITE PROMO NOW ONLY 1,500 PE

Watch “Manny Pacquiao vs Miguel Cotto Fi

Cignal Digital Satellite TV is official

All About Unlimited Texting Services in

Philippine Airlines has promo cheap fare

Cebu Pacific offers all-international se

Cherry Mobile C50 Curve flip open phone

PLDT/SMART CIGNAL Satellite TV special o

Smart TODAY offers unlimited Internet br

To read a complete index of all the Philippine Bargain articles I have posted just click this link http://philippinegooddeals.blogspot.com/

There goes that Kindle I wanted for Christmas.

2009-10-21T16:38:00.001-07:00

This morning I got to read the New Yorker article by Nicholson Baker which tears the Kindle to pieces. It didn’t seem all that devastating until I got to the end:

If you want to read electronic books there’s another way to go. Here’s what you do. Buy an iPod Touch (it costs seventy dollars less than the Kindle 2, even after the Kindle’s price was recently cut), or buy an iPhone, and load the free “Kindle for iPod” application onto it. Then, when you wake up at 3 A.M. and you need big, sad, well-placed words to tumble slowly into the basin of your mind, and you don’t want to wake up the person who’s in bed with you, you can reach under the pillow and find Apple’s smooth machine and click it on. It’s completely silent. Hold it a few inches from your face, with the words enlarged and the screen’s brightness slider bar slid to its lowest setting, and read for ten or fifteen minutes. Each time you need to turn the page, just move your thumb over it, as if you were getting ready to deal a card; when you do, the page will slide out of the way, and a new one will appear….

Forty million iPod Touches and iPhones are in circulation, and most people aren’t reading books on them. But some are. The nice thing about this machine is (a) it’s beautiful, and (b) it’s not imitating anything. It’s not trying to be ink on paper.

My wife has an iPod Touch, so we did precisely this. [It turns out the application is actually called "Kindle for iPhone." It works the same on both devices.] Then we downloaded a free sample chapter of a bestseller I might actually want to read some day. And guess what? It worked exactly the way Baker described. You can even change the print size like on an Kindle and it looked perfectly fine to me.

The root of Amazon’s problem is then not necessarily that the Kindle works badly. I’ve played around with other people’s to have previously coveted one. The problem is why should anyone go out and buy a Kindle when there are other devices out there that work just as well AND do other things besides display books? The only way I can see around this is to come out with a Kindle phone, but people will look pretty stupid hold a page-shaped device up to the ears. Read the original posting here http://moreorlessbunk.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/there-goes-that-kindle-i-wanted-for-christmas/

Me and my Kindle

2009-10-21T16:36:00.000-07:00

I was wrong about the Kindle. When I unboxed it two nights ago, I excitedly bought my own book to feel all cyber and tweeted about it. But the book wouldn’t show up. “Opening,” it said forever. Two hours went by and I called Amazon (which – new for them – made the phone number easy to find and answered it in a minute). The lady said the modem had to be fully charged. That made no sense; it would mean essentially that it would never work unless plugged in. But, fine, I waited for the green light. Still no book. Two hours more. I called Amazon again. The man said it must be a defective unit and he nicely said he’s ship a replacement (this is why I am happy I have Amazon stock). I chronicled my frustration on Twitter, and word passed around there.

The next day, I tried the Kindle in Manhattan and it worked fine. Two more tests verified that the problem was not the Kindle but Sprint, which was never great at home when I had a Sprint Treo but would at least work. Now, it took more than four hours to download a book and even going to a new store menu page takes minutes. I confessed my mistake on Twitter and shifted blame to the phone company. Sprint monitors Twitter – that’s the good news – but they might as well not, as the Sprint guy merely tried to sidestep responsibility, saying that there wasn’t a network outage (I didn’t say there was) and shifting blame back to Amazon: “Spoke 2 @Sprint Care, Retail. Kindle issues should go 2 Amazon customer care.” Amazon should learn to pick its partners more wisely in the future. And I need to learn to cram caveats into tweets when I have problems.

So now I have a Kindle that works in some places, not others – and not working at home may be a killer. This is why I wish it came with wi-fi, or at least the option (especially for when I travel overseas). I prefer my control of communications on my iPhone. But then the problem with the iPhone is also that it has to be connected; I’d like to download content – such as the New York Times – to it so I could read the paper on the train.

The iPhone and Kindle are a study in contrasts. The biggest is, of course, the business model: One may buy books on either, but current content on the iPhone will, in most cases, be ad-supported; on the Kindle, it is paid for by the reader. The iPhone UI, right down to its flowing scrolling on its touchscreen, is elegant and happy; the Kindle is klunky and irritating. The Kindle lets me download and read anywhere; I like that; the iPhone won’t let me download The New York Times to read on the subway and that’s too bad. The iPhone lets me control my communications better. The Kindle screen is larger, yes, but the iPhone isn’t that much smaller:

So I’m undecided about the Kindle. Its organization is still inelegant to say the least. For example, when reading the Times, it wants me to go story-by-story – that’s bookthink. I want to see the menu of articles in a section. But when I then go to an article and page through it, to get back to that section listing, I have to go back to the top and then back to the section. When reading a book on either device, I miss easy ways to thumb through.

If I traveled a great deal and took books with me everywhere – which I don’t – the Kindle would clearly be a godsend. And maybe it will make me start traveling with books – and reading them – more often, as the web has been bad for my book reading habits. But I’m still not sure.

I also wish that the business model of book publishing were different: that I could buy the contents of a book and get it in any and all media: I could read it on paper when I’m home and on Kindle when I’m on the road and listen to it on my iPhone when I’m driving. I disagree strongly with Roy Blount Jr.’s assertion on behalf of authors (other than me) that the Kindle shouldn’t be reading books aloud to readers because it would cannibalize audio-book sales. This assumes that people who buy the print book also buy the audiobook in great numbers and that having a book read by the computerized and irritating voice of a Kindle will hurt sales. No, I think a book should be sold as a package: buy access to the ideas and get them however you like. I think that would spur greater sales. The next step is to move past selling books as a product, frozen in time, and start selling them as a process. But that’s a post for another day.

I’m holding onto my Kindle for now. I was wrong about it at first blush and so I need to give it more of a chance. Read the interesting blog original here with many viewer comments http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/02/27/me-and-my-kindle/

The first bad thing I’ve read about the new Kindle.

2009-10-21T16:32:00.001-07:00

Slate (and the writer actually loves the device nonetheless):

The Kindle won’t let you resell or share your books. Anything you buy through the reader is fixed to your Amazon account, readable only on the Kindle or other devices that Amazon may one day deem appropriate. (The company has hinted that it’ll build an iPhone app that can read Kindle books.) Even worse, you can buy books for your Kindle only from Amazon’s store. Indeed, the device makes it difficult to read anything that’s not somehow routed through Amazon first—you can surf the Web on the Kindle, and you can convert some of your personal Microsoft Word or text files to the device’s format, but doing so is slow and not very reliable. In order to read blogs, magazines, newspapers, and books, you’ve really got to go through Amazon’s store first.

You can see where this is going: Kindle owners buy a lot of stuff, and the more stuff they buy, the more likely they are to stick with the Kindle in the future, even when/if someone else invents a better, more open e-book service. This restriction makes Amazon the prime market for book publishers. How can they resist giving over their entire catalog to a store that attracts so many eager, captive shoppers? Publishers’ acquiescence in turn increases the Kindle’s appeal to new buyers. If you’re in the market for an e-book reader, you’ll probably choose the one that offers the most books, and that means Kindle. (At the moment, there are about 240,000 titles available for the Kindle; the Sony Reader, its closest rival, has fewer than 100,000.) Taken together, these trends all point in one direction—Amazon will come to rule the market for e-books. And as the master of the e-book universe, Amazon will eventually call the shots on pricing, marketing, and everything else associated with the new medium.

I’m sympathetic to the argument. In fact, it reminds me about a point I’ve made about Walmart for years. Lower prices now do not necessarily mean lower prices later. Once the purveyor has a virtual monopoly, the sky can safely be the limit. [I know that's illegal, but I always made that argument during the Bush years so that didn't really matter.]

If an e-book’s cost runs into that of a real book, buyers can just buy the actual paper book. Indeed, if the cost even approaches that of a real book, people will probably go for the paper book anyways because they can resell it. Read the original posting here http://moreorlessbunk.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/the-first-bad-thing-ive-read-about-the-new-kindle/

The first bad thing I’ve read about the new Kindle.

2009-10-21T16:31:00.000-07:00

Slate (and the writer actually loves the device nonetheless):

There’s one thing missing here, however. E-books will always, and I mean always, have to compete against real books. Paper might lose popularity over coming years, but it’s not going anywhere because casual readers will be unlikely to pony up $359 for a reading device. If an e-book’s cost runs into that of a real book, buyers can just buy the actual paper book. Indeed, if the cost even approaches that of a real book, people will probably go for the paper book anyways because they can resell it. Read the original posting here http://moreorlessbunk.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/the-first-bad-thing-ive-read-about-the-new-kindle/

Amazon Lowers Price On Kindle To $259

2009-10-21T16:27:00.000-07:00

Amazon Lowers Price on #1 Bestseller Kindle to $259 and Introduces New Addition to the Kindle Family of Wireless Reading Devices–Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless

#1 bestseller Kindle now $259, Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless now available for pre-order at $279 and ships Oct. 19

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Oct. 7, 2009– Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that it is lowering the price of its #1 bestseller Kindle to $259, down from $299. Also today, Amazon.com introduced a new addition to its family of portable reading devices—Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless. Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless now enables readers to wirelessly download content in over 100 countries and territories. Readers can pre-order Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless starting today for $279 at www.amazon.com/kindle and it ships October 19.

“Kindle is the most wished for, the most gifted, and the #1 bestselling product across the millions of items we sell on Amazon, and we’re excited to be able to lower the price,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “We’re also excited to announce a new addition to the Kindle family—Kindle with global wireless. At home or abroad in over 100 countries, you can think of a book and download it wirelessly in less than 60 seconds.”

Kindle wirelessly downloads books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution 6-inch electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle utilizes the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so you never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot or sync with a PC. Readers can wirelessly shop the Kindle Store, download books in less than 60 seconds, automatically receive newspaper and magazine subscriptions, receive personal documents, and read from their library—now in over 100 countries and territories.

“Kindle has revolutionized the way we purchase and read books, by making it mobile, easy and intuitive,” said Randall Stephenson, chairman and chief executive officer of AT&T. “We are excited to work with Amazon to help readers access books even faster and from significantly more places than ever before, including more than 100 countries and territories around the world through AT&T’s global wireless coverage.”

The U.S. Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore) now has more than 350,000 books, including New Releases and 104 of 112 New York Times Bestsellers, which are typically $9.99 or less. More than 75,000 books have been added to the U.S. Kindle Store in just the last five months. Starting today, Lonely Planet guides are now available in the Kindle Store, joining existing travel guide selection from publishers Rick Steves, Frommers and Michelin.

“Lonely Planet is excited to make a vast selection of travel guides from Australia to Zanzibar available to Kindle customers around the world,” said Lonely Planet CEO Matt Goldberg. “Travelers can now pack as many Lonely Planet guides as they want into Kindle’s 10.2 ounces and download new guides wirelessly while travelling around the world.”

Over 50 top U.S. and international newspapers such asThe New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, Financial Times, The Times (UK), Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and the Shanghai Daily are available in the Kindle Store for single purchase or subscription, and can now be delivered wirelessly in over 100 countries and territories. Over 35 top magazines, such as The Economist, Newsweek, Time, The New Yorker, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, Forbes, Fortune, PC Magazine, andThe New England Journal of Medicine are also available for single purchase or subscription, and can also be delivered wirelessly in the U.S. and abroad. U.S. Kindle customers can also continue to take advantage of the Kindle Store’s selection of over 7,000 blogs and receive new posts while traveling overseas.

Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless offers customers the same features that have helped make Kindle with U.S. Wireless the #1 bestselling product on Amazon.com, including:

Slim and Trim: At just over a third of an inch thin (0.36 inches) and weighing just over 10 ounces, Kindle is pencil thin and lighter than a typical paperback.
Reads Like Real Paper: Kindle’s 6-inch electronic ink display reads like printed words on paper because the screen works using real ink and doesn’t use a backlight, eliminating the eyestrain and glare associated with other electronic displays.
Stores Up To 1,500 Books: Kindle’s 2 GB of memory holds up to 1,500 books and Kindle books are automatically backed up by Amazon so customers can re-download titles from their library.
Read For Weeks On A Single Charge: Kindle’s electronic ink display sips battery power so users can read for over two weeks with wireless turned off and up to four days on a single charge with wireless on.
Read-To-Me: With the experimental Text-To-Speech feature, Kindle can read most newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud.
Automatically Syncs With Kindle and Kindle Compatible Devices: Amazon’s “Whispersync” technology automatically syncs customers’ last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless, Kindle with U.S. Wireless, Kindle DX, and Kindle compatible devices like Kindle for iPhone.
Wirelessly Receive and Read Personal Documents: Wirelessly send, receive, and read personal documents in a variety of formats such as Microsoft Word and PDF.
Instant Dictionary Lookup: Kindle comes with theNew Oxford American Dictionary and over 250,000 definitions that appear instantly at the bottom of the page.
Choose Text Size: Kindle lets readers customize their reading preference by providing six different text sizes.
Bookmarks, Notes, and Highlights: By using the QWERTY keyboard Kindle users can add annotations to text, as well as highlight and clip key passages and bookmark pages for future use. Read the complete original blog here http://stochasticthought.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/amazon-lowers-price-on-kindle-to-259/

International Kindle Now Shipping: The Good, the Bad and the Downright Ugly

2009-10-21T16:24:00.000-07:00

The Kindle starts shipping internationally today. That’s exciting for some folks, as we were waiting until the Kindle debuted to buy our first e-book reader. But the launch hides many disappointments, as well as some significant advantages. Here’s a rundown of what you need to know about Kindle International.
GSM

This is the big change inside that will let the Kindle work outside the United States. It is powered by AT&T (the other Kindles use Sprint’s CDMA network which is pretty much U.S.-only). U.S. owners going abroad will be able to download new books or magazine subscriptions while away (very handy for travel guides), and international Kindle owners will of course be able to use the Whispernet service to buy books.

But as we’ve mentioned before, despite having an always-on internet connection, most countries outside the United States will get the neither the “experimental” web browser nor access to blogs (this means Amazon’s for-pay blog delivery). Some countries, including Mexico and Japan, will get the web, but still no blogs. And sure, the Kindle’s browser is pretty poor, but hey, what about Wikipedia? The Kindle was supposed to be the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, right?

And roaming U.S. owners don’t get away with this, either. You’ll have to pay an extra $2 for international delivery.

U.S.-Centric Design
The hardware is embarrassingly U.S.-centric. In fact, this is putting it lightly. The “International” Kindle will sport a U.S. power adapter (reports say even that is a lucky break, and Australians have to make do with a USB charger only) and also, according to several of our readers, a U.S.-layout keyboard. As Gadget Lab commenter SimonBP asks, “Is this really an international product or just a legit gray export?”

And don’t even get us started on the pricing, which is in U.S. dollars but still varies from place to place.

Taxes
In the United States, Amazon is fighting for the right not to charge sales tax on its physical orders, the excuse being that it delivers (usually) from out-of-state and that the buyer is responsible for declaring taxable purchases (yeah, right).
Internationally, on delivery of bits and bytes, tax is being levied. The amount of import tax varies from country to country, and Amazon, presumably because it has to, charges you upfront. By contrast, many physical goods which a friend of mine imports from the United States by post never get taxed.

No iPhone App (Yet)
Hopefully subject to change soon, the Kindle for iPhone application is not yet available outside the U.S. store. It’s highly probable that it has been held up by Apple’s approval process, but then perhaps Amazon should have submitted it earlier.

This is one of the Kindle’s most compelling features. You can read the book on the e-ink screen but when you are, say, waiting on line in a store or want to read in bed with the lights out, you can fire up the iPhone app and carry on from where you left off. Hurry up, Amazon.

English
Right now, the Kindle Store sells only English-language books. This is bad enough in the United States where Spanish is the first language of many, but internationally this is a huge problem. We guess that as the Kindle uptake grows, more publishers will add books in other languages, but right now the international market is limited to English-speakers.
On the other hand, for people like me living abroad, this is a great feature. I can now buy a wider range of English books than I can from local Spanish bookshops, cheaper and instantly. Previously the best option was Amazon, but the delivery charges killed the value, and I had to wait for days or weeks to get the order.

DRM
This is common to all Kindles, and to almost all e-books you can buy, but it’s worth a mention. If you think a Kindle can replace your paper books, you are dead wrong. DRM means you can’t trade in the books at a second-hand book store, or sell them at all. Nor can you lend them, which is what I do with most of my dead-tree books.

And worst of all, Amazon can pull the books of your device at any time, thanks to the always-connected nature of the Kindle (as demonstrated with almost unbelievable irony in the case of Orwell’s 1984 getting recalled).
Still, I have one on order, and it should arrive Wednesday. I also have the desktop version of the excellent iPhone e-reader Stanza, which will convert any text or PDF and add it to the Kindle, free, using USB, thus avoiding the $1-per-megabyte transfer fee.

Did I mention that fee already? Amazon charges $100 per gigabyte to transfer your own documents via its wireless network. Clearly the e-book market will need to go through the same pain as the movie and music industries before we customers finally get what we want. REad the original posting here http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/10/international-kindle-now-shipping-the-good-the-bad-and-the-downright-ugly

Google announces new e-book store, competes with Kindle

2009-10-21T16:21:00.000-07:00

Amazon's Kindle might have some competition on its hands. Google has just announced a new e-book store called Google Editions, that will deliver books to any device with a web browser. Although Google isn't launching an e-reader device like the Kindle, it will support e-books that customers buy from stores like Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble. Google Editions is slated to launch in the first half of 2010.

This obviously won't hurt Amazon's e-book sales too much, but it might cut into sales of the Kindle. Why buy a really expensive device when you can read the same books on the devices you already have? From what we've seen in the past, though, Amazon is much more concerned with book sales than device sale.

They did create the Kindle app for iPhone, after all. Also worth noting: Google's history with electronic versions of books isn't entirely a successful one. They're still resolving legal issues over Google Books, a project which has already scanned over 10 million books and made them searchable. Read the original blog here http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/10/15/google-announces-new-e-book-store-competes-with-amazon