Amazon Kindle 2 appears to be on its way

From Boy Genius Report -

Photos of Amazon’s Kindle 2 have been leaked and the new model looks pretty good. As seen the photo above, the now smaller buttons are - On the right, from top to bottom: Home, Next Page, Menu, a joystick (instead of the scroll wheel), and Undo. On the left side, there’s Previous, Page, and Next Page. Next to the sliding sleep button, there’s a headphone jack, and on the right side edge, volume up/down buttons. The backside of the unit is mostly metal with the speakers at the bottom. Charging is now via a mini USB cable. Display size is approximately the same as the original. Overall the unit is thinner, a little wider, a little longer and has a slightly heavier feel, but it feels much sturdier. It still uses EV-DO for downloads.

Downside is the battery appears to be non user accesible. The SD card slot has also disappeared.

You can check out more photos and details here.

Amazon Confirms Student Version Of Kindle

From TechCrunch -

Amazon has confirmed that they are planning to target colleges and universities with a new version of the Kindle, one with a larger screen more suitable for textbooks. Textbooks are a $5.5 billion annual market, and most publishers now offer electronic versions of their textbooks but there is still no compelling device to read them on.

Kindle: eTextbooks

From Yahoo! Buzz -

According to Inside Higher Education, Kindle will start carrying titles from Princeton University Press this fall. But the textbook savings aren't going to be instant. Kindle, is still pricey despite a $40 reduction. (It still costs USD349) With some titles only a few dollars cheaper than their paper version, e-readers save mostly on shipping costs and time.

Still, people have been buying the Kindle. Amazon had originally targeted the male tech-toy buyers, but women are apparently the true audience. Females have been warming to Kindle and currently makes up half of the device's searches, which have been growing after a post-holiday lull.


Source article here.

Amazon Kindle Price Reduced to $359, Now Back In Stock

From Gizmodo -

The Kindle is back in stock and it's now available for a reduced price, dropping from $399 to $359.


Amazon website here.

Kindle boosts tiny e-book market

Per USA Today, Amazon's Kindle, which was intro'd around Thanksgiving last year, has helped, if not revolutionized, the ebook market. Publishing officials are reluctant to discuss sales figures, but say that they have seen double digit increases in e-book sales since the Kindle's release, including renewed interest in downloads on the Sony Reader. Sales for the most popular books are in the hundreds, comparable to the number for the Sony, which came out in 2006.

While the ebook market has been growing - sales have risen steadily over the past six years, from around $6 million in 2002 to around $33 million in 2007 - it is still less than 1% of the $35 billion publishing business and likely to remain so.

You can read the full article here.

Kindle: Amazon's Backdoor Entry to becoming an MVNO?

Together with Amazon's launching of its ebook reader, Kindle, was the launching of its Whispernet service as well. Whispernet, which enables Kindle users, to effectively be always connected to the Internet, uses Sprint's EVDO network. This effectively makes Amazon an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator), much like in the mold of Branson’s Virgin Mobile, which does not own its own network.

While the bundled Whispernet is currently free but with limited access to Internet content, there is essentially nothing that is stopping Amazon from expanding it into a full-fledged IP-based service, complete with voice communications and data transfers. In fact, down the line, it may opt to also use Sprint’s WiMAX network.

Admittedly the current Kindle device falls short as an Internet device but again, that can easily be resolved by the introduction of a newer model, one that may even include WiMAX capabilities, and which will allow full Internet access, including VoIP, video conferencing and other advanced features.

When, and most likely not if, that happens, Amazon will effectively become a full-fledged MVNO, with its own content materials to boot.

Amazon Kindle first hands-on

From Engadget -



A very brief hands-on review -

The device came out of box with too little juice to get on the EV-DO network, but the e-ink display looks great. The selector bar on the right is really interesting; it appears to be a white, opaque thin LCD panel that polarizes and turns clear letting reflective dots peer through -- the end result is a small selection bar that looks unlike anything we've seen on a portable reader device.

The keyboard is clicky and tactile, but with keys shallow enough that they won't get too in the way when you're reading. We're a little worried that the absolutely massive page forward / back buttons might get inadvertently triggered here and there, though.