KINDLE NEWS THIS WEEK
New York Review of Books
This excellent resource is finally available in a Kindle edition. The New York Review of Books reviews "...the most engrossing new books and the ideas that illuminate them." There's a 14-day free trial and you can unsubscribe during that time.
Kindle for Android
The Kindle for Android app has been updated to tailor it for tablet-computers, with enhancements that take advantage of the larger screen. New features include
. the Ability to pause, resume download at any time
. enhanced word look-up capability (for Android-based phones and tablets)
with built-in dictionary with over 250,000 entries and definitions.
Amazon.de Launches German Kindle Store
Amazon's press release says that the Amazon.de Kindle Shop will have the Largest Selection of Any E-Bookstore in Germany.
It launches with "650,000 titles, 71 of 100 Spiegel bestsellers, and over 25,000 German-language titles with thousands of German classics downloadable for free only on Kindle. Top German and international newspapers and magazines are also available for single purchase or subscription including Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Handelsblatt and Die Zeit."
Also, Amazon announced yesterday that authors and publishers worldwide are now able to make their books available in the Amazon.de Kindle Books store in Germany, using the (kdp.amazon.de) Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) service.
"German-language authors and publishers can utilize the new German KDP website to make their books available in Germany, Austria, the U.K., U.S. and over 100 countries worldwide. The popular KDP 70% royalty option, which allows authors and publishers worldwide to make more money on books sold to Kindle customers in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, is now also available for books sold in Germany and Austria. Additionally, publishers can now receive their payment in either Euros, British pounds or U.S. dollars. For more information and program terms, please visit kdp.amazon.de."
MORE on that Rumored Kindle Tablet via Samsung
Peter Rojas, who wrote the article this week about the probability of a Samsung-built Amazon tablet, was the co-founder and former Editor of Engadget and is now co-founder of gdgt.com. He has very good connections in the industry and, while there's always the small chance he can receive bad information, his sources are probably more solid than the usual.
Also, on November 5, 2010, I wrote a blog article about the rumor of an Amazon Android tablet being quite strong because Computerworld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, aka cybercinic, had quietly included in a column the following:
' Sources at Amazon tell me that the company will indeed produce a mass-market Android tablet. I can't tell you its size, pricing, when it's expected to ship, or anything else of substance. The one thing I do know is that, like the Kindle, it will run Linux with a Java-based interface. In short, this new tablet Kindle, let's call it "KinTablet," will run Android. 'Some have said that Amazon would not want to upset its OEM partners by releasing a 'competing tablet' but Kendrick feels it would not be so much a tablet built to compete but "would be intended to extend the company’s retail operation into the next logical space."
To speculation or hopes that this would be a particularly mighty tablet, ZDNet's James Kendrick writes, "Amazon’s intent would not be to produce a state-of-the-art mobile device" but would instead "be designed to have the Amazon retail system completely ingrained into a decent, economical tablet. Amazon's own Android Apps store would probably be 'curated' (as Apple's is and B&N plans to be, for Non-rooted NookColors), but in effect, competing with Google's Android market, which is 'open' but also leaves non-computer-intense customers to their own security measures and is disorganized and confusing to many.
In another article, about the Kindle with special offers and straight-out, large ads on its screensleepers and on the bottom area of the Home screen of book titles, Kendrick writes:
' If only 1 percent of ... Android activations resulted in a Kindle customer, that is over a million new customers every year for Amazon content. That’s a conservative number, but the size of the Android market is huge. Most Kindle app users probably buy multiple ebooks from Amazon...it’s no surprise that Amazon is selling so many ebooks..."
"So this ad-supported Kindle reader will probably get more devices in the hands of new customers, but that’s not the real story. I wonder if this is Amazon’s first baby steps into developing its own ad network for its future mobile devices that it is probably working on. I firmly believe Amazon is about to disrupt the mobile space by entering into the mobile space with a tablet device, and take Apple on directly. An ad network would be another piece of the ecosystem to go head-to-head with Cupertino. '
I wondered the other day if Apple's sudden lawsuit against Samsung (a supplier for Apple), for look & feel concerns, might be explained by this rumored tablet partnership with Amazon. I wasn't the only one wondering out loud.
Kindle 3's (UK: Kindle 3's), K3 Special, $114 DX Graphite
Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources. Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.
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