Latest Gadgets, Tablets and Smartphones
If you own a Kindle and enjoy playing word games like Scrabble then you’re in luck.
Scrabble now makes its way to Kindle after Shuffled Row and Every Word and with the few user reviews its received so far, its all good and has been rated pretty highly. There are a few game modes to try out such as whether playing solo or ‘pass ‘n’ play’ with a mate.
Hidden amongst the news of the Kindle Android app update earlier today, was some more news that Amazon now has over 700,000 books available for Kindle in the US.
Three weeks ago that number was 670,000 which is a nice increase of 10,000 per week if you spread it out evenly. A look back to April this year shows that 500,000 books were available.
Looking at the competition, it appears that Barnes & Noble is still ahead with a claim of 1 million titles that can be downloaded electronically. Either way, both sets of numbers are impressive. [Read more…]
Amazon has updated its Kindle app today for Android based smartphones. The new update is a relatively minor update that brings just a couple of new features to the reading software.
Features include voice search that allows you to use your voice to search for text inside a book. You can of course still use text entry to search through books.
The other new feature includes the ability to search the definition of words in Wikipedia. Book information can also be searched for in Shelfari. [Read more…]
The Amazon Kindle should be showing up soon over at Best Buy stores in the US.
Crunch Gear is reporting that Amazon’s best selling item will be made available in store allowing users to have a look at the screen before purchasing the ebook reader. [Read more…]
The new Amazon Kindle has arrived and along with it, a new and clearer screen technology that provides a 50% better contrast than any other eReader on the market.
Crunch Gear put together a video showing a hands on with the Amazon Kindle to show how it looks in direct sunlight. According to Crunch Gear, the light was very bright and it didn’t effect reading at all on the device. [Read more…]
Amazon is shipping the newest generation Amazon Kindle two days ahead of the previously announced release date. The information comes from a press release which also indicates that that latest Amazon Kindle is the fastest ever selling Kindle.
Amazon.com today announced that more new generation Kindles were ordered in the first four weeks of availability than in the same timeframe following any other Kindle launch, making the new Kindles the fastest-selling ever. In addition, in the four weeks since the introduction of the new Kindle and Kindle 3G, customers ordered more Kindles on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk combined than any other product, continuing Kindle’s over two-year run as the bestselling product across all the products sold on Amazon.com. The new Kindles started shipping to customers today–two days earlier than previously announced.
With the recent opening of the Amazon Kindle UK store, the Kindle Digital Text Platform has now also arrived in the UK.
“Publishers and authors can now take advantage of the Kindle Digital Text Platform and make their books available to the millions of customers that visit Amazon.co.uk,” said Greg Greeley, Amazon Vice President, European Retail. “Sales of Kindle books in the US continue to rise and we are now selling more Kindle books than hardcovers. We expect to see a similar pattern in the UK with publishers and authors benefitting from greatly increased sales as a result of adding their titles to the new Kindle Store via the Kindle Digital Text Platform.”
Keith over at Bit101 got his hands on a USB microscope. After realising that holding it to a Nexus One, he could see the individual pixels, he decided to test what the Amazon Kindle screen looks like compared to the iPad screen.
This isn’t a scientific experiment to prove that one screen is better than another. Images were just captured out of curiosity to see what the two screens look like when compared to each other as well as a comparison to a printed newspaper. [Read more…]
Amazon looks set to be working on a number of devices other than the Kindle to deliver content. The Kindle was built in Lab 126 and that same lab is responsible for new hardware at Amazon. Recently, 80 job postings were made for that particular division which further indicates new hardware could be incoming.
It is expected that the new staff will be working on a number of projects as well as the next generation Kindle which could feature a touchscreen or/and colour screen.
According to people with direct knowledge of the company’s plans, who declined to be identified because they are not authorized to speak publicly about Amazon’s internal workings and unannounced products, Lab 126 has been looking into building other gadgets that it could sell to consumers.
One of those people said building more hardware products would be a means to an end. This person said Amazon wants to make more devices for consumers that would enable simple purchasing of Amazon content including its digital books, music and movie rentals and purchases.
The Amazon Kindle in the UK is now taking pre-orders. With that in mind, we now see that Amazon has opened up the UK Kindle Store allowing Kindle owners to buy books from the UK based website rather than the US site.
The new UK Amazon Kindle store already has more than 400,000 books to download including most of the sort after books. Including New Releases and Bestsellers, from UK authors including Terry Pratchett, Ian Rankin, Martina Cole, Sophie Kinsella and Ken Follett.
The UK Kindle Store can be accessed now and books can be downloaded to your current Kindle, or to any device you have that runs the Kindle software such as the iPad, iPhone and Android based devices. [Read more…]
The third generation Kindle is launching this month. Amazon has already sold out of the first batch of Amazon Kindle pre-orders with the second batch expected to be landing on September 4 a week or so after the initial launch.
A few new features of the Amazon Kindle include a far better eInk screen with more contrast. Also the device is thinner, lighter and overall had a boost in performance. We now hear that Amazon is including a microphone in the new Kindle although from what we understand the firmware doesn’t make use of it just yet. Slashgear suggest that it might be used in the future for voice control. We are not 100% convinced of voice control just yet, but perhaps it will be a way for readers to save voice memos or perhaps keep notes on books by voice. [Read more…]
The new Amazon Kindle only just went up for pre-order at Amazon late last week, but already the first batch of the eBook reader are sold out.
When looking to pre-order an Amazon Kindle Wi-fi or 3G model in the US, users are presented with the following message…
Temporarily Sold Out. Order now to reserve your place in line
Due to strong customer demand, Kindle is temporarily sold out. Order now to reserve your place in line. Orders are prioritized on a first come, first served basis. Orders placed today are expected to ship on or before September 4th.
