02/10, 5:25pm
Amazon Kindle may set foot in Japan for first time
Amazon might bring the Kindle to Japan and overturn the status quo for e-readers in the country, according to claims made Friday [account required]. Japanese business paper Nikkei heard that the mid-tier Kindle Touch would be the flagship and could come as soon as April. Pricing at 20,000 yen ($258) would be steep relative to the $150 US Kindle Touch 3G, although it would include native, free 3G through NTT DoCoMo instead of roaming on AT&T.
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02/10, 3:10pm
Penguin didn't have Amazon permission for lending
Penguin's recent decision to pull its e-books and digital audiobooks from libraries is because it didn't have permission to distribute the borrowed books by forwarding users to Amazon, INFOdocket said. OverDrive only had relationships in place with publishers, who can store and serve library end users' e-books. It doesn't have the authority to send users to Amazon or any other retailer to actually check out the book, the report continues.
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02/08, 9:35pm
Amazon Kindle Fire ad touts price over all
Amazon has started running one of its first TV ads for the Kindle Fire this week in a conspicuous jab at Apple. The spot (below) recalls Amazon's earlier ads criticizing the poor readability of the iPad but, this time, has an answer to the regular Kindle's lack of features. The $79 Kindle, combined with two $199 Kindle Fires, lets a mother at the beach give herself and her children a device each at under the price of an iPad.
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02/07, 7:20pm
Amazon and Viacom expected to tie up
The mystery Viacom video deal was attached to Amazon Tuesday in a leak Tuesday. While the terms of the deal weren't known to Reuters, it would be part of a rumored plan to offer Internet subscription video as an option separate from a Prime deal. As hinted by Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, the deal could be made public as soon as this week, although whether or not that would include the new Amazon service wasn't mentioned.
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02/07, 11:35am
Random House stays pay-once with e-book libraries
Random House helped set a possible precedent for e-books in libraries late last week after it agreed to a deal on lending. While it would raise the price for an e-book by an unspecified amount, the term would guarantee that libarires could have any title they want and provide an unlimited number of loans. The deal was portrayed to Publishers Weekly and others as giving authors fair compensation while still letting libraries treat e-books like they would paper.
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02/06, 1:55pm
Amazon may sell Kindle and paper books in Seattle
Amazon may dip into retail stores if rumors prove true. A boutique shop was said by Good E-Reader to be in the works for Seattle before the holidays. Most of the emphasis would appropriately be on the Kindle and Kindle Fire, but the store would also include exclusive paper books as well as accessories.
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02/03, 5:55pm
Brandon Watson goes from WP7 to Android
Microsoft took a symbolic blow Friday after its Windows Phone Developer Experience lead Brandon Watson confirmed he was leaving for Amazon. The often outspoken advocate of WP7 told ZDNet he would now direct the Kindle Cross Platform team, which develops the e-reading app both for Windows Phone as well as for Android, iOS, and competing platforms. He explained it as a virtue of a tempting offer, but whether it was the work itself, the pay, or both wasn't apparent.
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01/31, 5:45pm
Barnes and Noble will not stock Amazon at retail
Barnes & Noble's chief merchandising officer Jaime Carey issued a statement declaring that the company's retail stores wouldn't carry Amazon's paper books. The move was in retaliation for Amazon trying to push for e-book exclusives such as its DC Comics deal. A publisher that as a store operator would pull its content wasn't a "good publishing partner," the CMO said.
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01/31, 4:55pm
Amazon Q4 defined by Kindle Fire losses
Amazon posted results Tuesday that outlined the costs of pushing the Kindle Fire. The online shop's Kindle device sales almost tripled, at about 177 percent over the past year. Its net profit dropped 58 percent to $177 million, however, underscoring how it had sold the Fire at a loss to get device share.
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01/30, 7:40am
Analyst reckons strong Kindle Fire shipments in Q4
Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan was willing to risk a late prediction of Amazon's results with a research note late Sunday. He estimated that Amazon shipped six million Kindle Fire tablets in the fall. The online reseller was succeeding as it had "staked out" both the low end of the market and a loyal base that would likely spend a large amount on e-books and videos.
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01/29, 11:00pm
Barnes and Noble tries third-gen Nook reader
Barnes & Noble in an elaborate study of its business gave away plans for a third-generation Nook e-reader. Scant details were given to the New York Times, but it would ship sometime in the spring. The bookseller's recently established pattern suggests it's an E Ink reader like the Nook Simple Touch rather than an Android tablet.
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01/21, 1:45am
Hagens Berman amends Apple suit over collusion
Hagens Berman's class-action over iBookstore prices was expanded on Friday with potentially more serious evidence. New claims from the law firm allege that Hachette Livre (incorrectly described as Hatchett) chairman Arnaud Noury met with an unnamed Amazon executive on December 3, 2009 several weeks before the iPad unveiling to convince him to raise the price of e-books on the Kindle Store. According to the anecdote, Noury had said that a $2 to $3 price hike over the existing $10 would solve not just Hachette's problems but those of its competitors, suggesting that it was aware of and working together on raising prices.
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01/19, 4:50pm
First Kindle Fire loss made up with post sales
Despite losing money on every Kindle Fire sold, Amazon more than makes up for it in terms of content users purchase for the device. According to a study from investment banking firm RBC, each Kindle sold results in $136 in additional income for Amazon over its lifetime.
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01/19, 1:00pm
iBooks 2 gets our early look
Apple committed iOS to education in a big way at its event by launching iBooks 2. We've taken a look at Apple's first dip into a full digital textbook platform and come back fairly impressed. Read ahead for more details and what this might mean for Amazon, Kno, and others hoping to get into e-books for schools.
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01/18, 5:35pm
Update blocks BurritoRoot
Amazon has released yet another firmware update for its Kindle Fire tablet, as the company continues to quietly battle with unofficial tools that enable users to gain root access. The latest firmware, version 6.2.2, temporarily closed the loophole that had been exploited by BurritoRoot, however developers quickly released an update to the root utility to restore its functionality.
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01/16, 10:35pm
Scoops outline Apple textbook event
Apple's New York City education event is nothing less than a rethinking of how publishers create e-books as a whole, leaks divulged Monday. One scoop characterized the process to Ars Technica as a "GarageBand for e-books" that would let authors and publishers easily build e-books for iPads and iPhones, including interactive books. iBooks would also start supporting ePub 3, which supports audio and video natively and would make the store much more standards-compatible than Apple's custom take on ePub 2.
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01/16, 5:15pm
Sony PRS-T1 shown to enter partial refresh mode
Sony's Android-powered PRS-T1 e-reader has been found to enable a fast refresh rate, which makes the screen behave more like a touchscreen rather than a slowly refreshing e-paper screen. The eBook Reader's Nathan found a way to enter the device into a semi-permanent partial page refresh state, which makes scrolling through non-Sony apps like the Dropbox app and root explorer much easier. It's said to make Android apps work more fluidly as well.
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01/12, 11:25pm
Lending library grows to 75,000 titles
In November, Amazon launched its Lending Library for Kindle owners. Today the online retailer released statistics illustrating the success of the initiative. For the month of December, the first full month that online lending catalog was available, readers borrowed more than 295,000 e-books.
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01/04, 9:10pm
Barnes and Noble could sell Sterling Publishing
Barnes & Noble is considering selling off its paper publishing wing Sterling Publishing, new leaks might have divulged on Wednesday. In hoping to focus on the Nook line and its core retail business, it was lining up possible customers, the Wall Street Journal said. The bookshop has been publishing some of its own content since the 1970s but only bought Sterling in 2003, years before e-books took off.
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12/29, 10:10am
Amazon says Kindle Fire led record holiday
Amazon celebrated another milestone for its hardware Thursday by claiming the "best holiday ever" for its Kindle line. It marked over four million combined sales of the Kindle Fire and Kindle line in December, including the regular touch and e-paper models. It wouldn't break down the shipments by the individual model and isn't expected to give its quarterly numbers.
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12/27, 11:50pm
M-Edge claims Amazon altered deals after the fact
Kindle case designer M-Edge quietly sued Amazon on Thursday last week for what it claims is anti-competitive attempts to silence a rival. It accused Amazon of both unfair competition as well as false advertising, interfering with customers, and violating a case design patent. Amazon had reportedly breached a three-year contract by first asking M-Edge for a 15 percent cut in November 2009 but, just two months later, hiking the rate to 32 percent and threatening M-Edge with being pulled as a third-party dealer if it didn't agree.
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12/26, 12:20pm
Amazon gives discounted books
Amazon UK took a page from Apple's 12 Days giveaway with a sale, not giveaway, of its own. The deal cuts back a number of books by several times their asking prices, often putting them under £3. Its deal starts off with a focus on award-winning novels first.
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12/25, 8:50pm
Tests suggest no effect from devices in airplanes
An examination of the FAA's rules demanding shutdowns of electronic devices during takeoff and landing has cast more doubt on the ban. The New York Times found through EMT Labs tests that the electromagnetic interference from current devices, such as an Amazon Kindle and a Sony voice recorder, was around 30 microvolts, or well under the 100 volts per meter limit the FAA demands. While iPads weren't measured, they too would be well under the limit.
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12/25, 3:55pm
Holiday 2011 gift thread
Technology is increasingly the gift of choice, and we'd like to know what readers got (or are giving) this year for Christmas, Hanukkah, another holiday, or just out of kindness. Did you get an iPad, a Kindle Fire, or a Galaxy Nexus? Share what you've seen in the comments below, and please be kind in the spirit of the season!
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12/21, 1:05pm
Latest Kindle Fire update speeds it up, more
The recent 6.2.1 software update Amazon issued for the Kindle Fire and much to the disapointment of those who modified it makes the device notably more responsive, New York Times writer David Pogue has found. Having tested the device before and after, Pogue said the device went from slow, sluggish and jerky to smoother, more fluid and faster. The home screen carousel will now stop when users want it to, and it takes just one tap to open something.
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12/21, 11:30am
Email service uploads documents for cloud sharing
Amazon has announced a major update of the Kindle iOS app, 2.9. The most important changes apply exclusively to the iPad, which now has access to the same magazines and newspapers available on the Kindle Fire. This includes over 400 publications, such as Men's Health and Popular Science. People can either subscribe to content or buy issues individually.
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12/20, 8:10pm
Lawyers want to defend based on insider knowledge
Law firms have motioned this week to represent plaintiffs in class action suits accusing Apple of colluding with publishers. Grant & Eisenhofer claimed to have an insider that revealed "detailed knowledge" in March that gave it reason to pursue the case. A matching filing from another firm also pointed to a source, possibly the same one, that attended an "in-person meeting" with a "very knowledgeable and important confidential source" that was aware of dealings.
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12/15, 10:30pm
IDC sees Amazon denting iPad in fall
Amazon's Kindle Fire could cut Apple's share of the tablet market to under 60 percent for the first time, IDC estimated Thursday. Android would climb from 32.4 percent to get a collective 40.3 percent through the Fire which, along with some help from the Nook Tablet, would push the iPad down from 61.5 percent this summer to 59 percent of tablets. The BlackBerry PlayBook would lose some ground as well, down from 1.1 percent to 0.7 percent, while the HP TouchPad's final exit would give up five percent.
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12/15, 1:40pm
Amazon touts e-reader records with few details
Amazon provided some rare numerical data about its Kindle and Kindle Fire sales on Thursday that still left open questions about its real performance. It had been selling over a million of the combined lineup a week for the past three weeks. The pack had been led by the Kindle Fire, which had been picking up in volume over the same three weeks.
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12/12, 1:30pm
Sales great 'in both formats,' company says
Online retailer Amazon has today confirmed that Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography led in combined Kindle and print book sales at its storefront during 2011. "We chose ‘Steve Jobs’ as one of the Top 10 best books of the year, and even though it was published in October, the sales have been phenomenal in both formats," comments Amazon's senior editor for books, Chris Schluep. The title was earlier announced as Amazon's bestselling book of 2011, but that ranking appears to have excluded Kindle editions.
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12/09, 2:25am
Amazon take a late dive into tablet market
After ignoring the tablet market for several years and dismissing color screens as inappropriate for e-book readers, Amazon has finally decided to expand its Kindle lineup to include a proper tablet. The Fire is aimed directly at Barnes & Noble's new Nook Tablet, though both devices are attempting to pull a bit of market share away from Apple's dominant iPad. In our full review, we compare Amazon's tablet to its direct rival and more expensive alternatives.
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12/07, 12:45pm
Kindle Fire due in the UK in January: source
The Kindle Fire will finally arrive in the UK in January, KnowYourMobile heard from an unnamed source. Pricing for the market hasn't been revealed, however, nor a more exact release date. Amazon is expected to keep the pricing very competitive, though the device could cost more in the UK than the $200 it does in the US when considering both the exchange rate and tax.
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12/06, 7:30am
EC worries iBookstore may have made illegal deals
The European Commission detailed plans Tuesday for a formal investigation into major publishers and Apple as to whether their deal might violate EU antitrust law. Officials will determine whether Hachette Livre, HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan have possibly used Apple to shut out e-book competition from rival stores or publishers. EC staff are worried that the agency model, where the store makes a flat rate and the publishers set the prices, is keeping the price of titles on the iBookstore and elsewhere artificially high.
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12/06, 12:10am
DEtailed study shows Kindle Fire too small, slow
A detailed usability test for the Amazon Kindle Fire from UseIt has shown significant practical issues relative to the iPad and, in some cases, earlier Kindles. Some of them are inherent to the seven-inch screen: the tablet is both too small for full desktop websites but almost overkill for mobile optimized pages, the site's Jakob Nielsen found. Even in the general interface, many of the buttons are too small, hiding any feedback from a press.
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12/04, 6:40pm
Kobo tries to spur new readers through free books
Kobo is trying a unique strategy to lure readers away from Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble by promising regular free e-books. Anyone who buys a Kobo Touch and first uses it on or before March 31 gets a free e-book each month. The publishers include Harvard Business Review Press, e-Reads, F+W Media, Gooseberry Patch, and New Word City, as well as four independent authors.
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12/03, 2:00am
Sony Reader Wi-Fi price lower to fight with Kindle
Sony has quietly dropped the price of the Reader Wi-Fi to $130. The $20 drop came less than two months after the e-reader went on sale in mid-October. The Starter and Travel bundles keep their earlier $205 prices.
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12/01, 12:10pm
Amazon launches Kindle, store in Italy and Spain
Amazon is now offering its Kindle e-book reader in Italy and Spain. The device will cost 99 euros (about $134) in either country, and the Kindle store in Spain and Italy will also be available to match. The Spanish store has more than 22,000 Spanish-language Kindle books and the largest selection of Catalan, Basque, and Galician books.
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11/28, 8:45am
Amazon Kindle peaks on Black Friday, no numbers
Amazon on Monday claimed that its Kindle sales on Black Friday were much higher than last year. The combination of the $79 Kindle, Kindle Touch, and Kindle Fire moved four times as many units as the same day last year. The Fire was the top seller, having kept the lead on Amazon's charts for the past eight weeks.
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11/25, 9:05am
Penguin has selective return to e-book lending
Penguin has partly reversed course on its decision to pull e-books from lending. Library partner OverDrive said mid-week that older books were now options once again for virtual library borrowing on at least the Kindle. New titles, however, were still being left out of the collection on any e-reader.
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11/23, 9:55am
Nook Simple Touch gets white, price cut on Friday
Barnes & Noble revealed that its Black Friday sale will also bring a rare version of the Nook Simple Touch. A Limited Edition version of the touchscreen e-reader will arrive only in physical stores, and only on November 25, with a white border as its signature feature. Price will be its real difference: at $79, it will be both $20 less than the regular price and match the price of the basic Kindle while giving features closer to the ad-sponsored $99 Kindle Touch.
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11/21, 10:50pm
Publisher cites security concerns
Book publisher Penguin Group has reportedly decided to pull its e-books from digital lending programs managed by many libraries. The company has cited unspecified concerns over content security as the motivation behind the change in policy, though many publishers are believed to distance themselves from digital lending as a strategy to bolster sales numbers for physical books.
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11/21, 4:20pm
iPad draws even with Nook in publisher interest
A new McPheters & Company study has shown that publishers are just as likely to publish tablet magazines through the Nook store and Zinio reader app as they do through the iPad. Apple's tablet was almost exactly as likely to have a magazine publisher support it as its two rivals, with 46 percent signing on and just a one point difference with Barnes & Noble and Zinio. The iPhone was also equal, showing that the smaller screen wasn't necessarily a deterrent.
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11/18, 12:05am
Amazon dives into tablet market
Amazon's Kindle Fire has finally arrived on the market, officially bringing the retailer into the tablet arena. Electronista has taken a look at the new device, which faces stiff competition from Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet and Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7.0 plus in the seven-inch category, along with the iPad and other Android tablets in the 10-inch group.
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11/17, 11:15pm
Users report slow speeds, problems connecting
As Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet arrives on customers' doorsteps, some users are complaining of problems with Wi-Fi functionality. The retailer's Kindle forums include a long list of replies under the discussion "Kindle Fire cannot connect to Internet." Some users claim they cannot connect to Wi-Fi networks, while others can connect to a router but cannot access the Internet.
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11/17, 7:30pm
IHS iSuppli delivers final Kindle Fire cost study
IHS iSuppli revised its earlier cost breakdown for the Amazon Kindle Fire to a lower figure in a more final estimate that showed Amazon was still taking a loss on each device sold. While it's now expected to cost just $201.70 to make, that still told AllThingsD the $199 Android tablet was losing Amazon money on each sale, even before factoring in shipping and other costs. A look at the final product showed that there were cost savings even beyond what had been expected, including on the inside.
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11/16, 7:00pm
Trying to encourage developers to write apps
Amazon has opened up its Kindle Fire to developers. Two days after it began shipping the Android tablet, the online giant has posted a link to the device's source code. The company hopes to attract developers, though the code is also legally required under the Android license.
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11/16, 12:55pm
Authors' Guild gives Amazon authors advice
The Authors' Guild has made clear its displeasure with Amazon's book lending program for Prime subscribers. The company was turned down by the six largest US trade book publishers and allegedly disregarded the wishes of the next, lower-level tier of publishers. Amazon flouted its contracts to these publishers, they claimed, stating it can sell their books at any price as they are already paid.
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11/12, 1:15pm
Kobo Touch gets ad-based model to undercut Amazon
Kobo has fired back at Amazon's Kindle Touch by launching its own Kobo Touch with Offers. The six-inch touchscreen e-reader brings in the same concept of ads in the screensaver or home screen to help subsidize the price. The option helps drop the price by $40 over the original Kobo Touch and puts it at the same $100 price as its Amazon equivalent.
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11/11, 11:00am
Hulu Plus coming to Kindle Fire after all
Amazon revealed on Friday that the Kindle Fire will have access to both Hulu Plus and ESPN when it launches, putting it over the Nook Tablet. During the initial app announcement, the movie and TV show streaming service wasn't mentioned, though other premium services such as Netflix and games from EA and Zynga were. This now gives the Fire the edge over the Nook, as Amazon has its own video and music store, while Barnes & Noble doesn't.
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11/10, 9:45am
Amazon 4th-gen Kindle sold at loss
Amazon's fourth-generation Kindle costs more to make than its $79 selling price, a cost breakdown has uncovered. IHS iSuppli told Main St that the e-reader costs $84.25 to build, or a combination of the $78.59 in raw parts and $5.66 in assembly. The most expensive part was the E Ink Pearl screen, at $30.50, while the circuit board was next at $30.37.
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