Kindle News: (1) Draw Something is ready for Kindle Fire, (2) SendToKindle for Mac, (3) Amazon's surprising 1st Qtr results

Free version

Paid version

The L.A. Times' Michelle Maltais highlighted the new Kindle Fire app yesterday, Draw Something

' Picture this: Kindle Fire users finally get to join in the addictive fun of Draw Something. '

Note there are free and paid versions.  I haven't seen what more is available with the Paid version, but reviews are sort of ecstatic on both versions.

In images above, cLick on 'Free' to read the description for that and on 'Paid' to get that one (and I'll just add links in on this line).

While Draw Something had been available for regular Android users, the Kindle Fire runs, she points out, on an altered version of the Android operating system and Amazon tests them for compatability and reliability before approving them for their Android Apps Store

The multiplayer game is a bit different in that you try to get your opponent to guess the right answer, and you both get rewarded.  Maltais writes that in less than two months after launching on Android and Apple's iOS, the app has had 50 million downloads across platforms.


NEW KINDLE APP: sendtokindle for Mac (Send Once, Read Everywhere

Amazon released this in the last week.  Their page explains that with this Mac-focused Kindle app, you can:

• Send personal documents to your Kindle from your Mac.
• Drag and drop one or more documents on to the Send to Kindle icon in your Dock or launch the application and drag and drop one or more documents on to it.
• From any Mac application that can print, select the print menu and choose Send to Kindle.
• From Finder, simply control-click on one or more documents and choose Send to Kindle.
• Choose to archive documents in your Kindle library, where you can re-download them conveniently at any time.

Note the System Requirements though:

• A Mac with a 500 MHz Intel processor or faster
• At least 512MB of RAM
• 100MB of available disk space
• Mac OS X v10.6 (Snow Leopard) or Mac OS X v10.7 (Lion)

AMAZON SURPRISES INVESTORS AND ANALYSTS
Amazon's net profits -- after sacrificing short term profitability by putting money back into expanding the market (Kindles and digital media) and the business, opening distribution centers galore, hiring 9,000+ more people recently, providing better customer service (a major strength) -- were down over last year but less so than anticipated by the analysts ('beating expectations'), so there was a lot of cheering Thursday over the numbers.

  While they were expected to have first quarter earnings of only $0.07 per share, the earnings were $0.28 per share, 4 times higher than anticipated by the experts -- despite earnings per share falling 35% compared to last year's $0.44.  It's all about beating (and managing) expectations.  News of their revenues increasing 36% and their obviously on-track long-range plans to grow the business are causing the stock to soar the last 2 days.

Good reading on this, with many details:
Seeking Alpha - "Investors Are Cheering After Another Quarter Of Margin Sacrifices," by Robert Broens

  A note to Kindle-Edition Subscribers: Remember that Kindle Keyboard and Kindle Touch e-readers have MENU/ARTICLE MODE once you reach the articles I link you to (which means you are then using the e-Ink Kindle's web-browser).

  The linked articles' fonts won't be particularly readable, size-wise, until you choose Menu/Article Mode, but then you'll see how easy it is to follow these links and read comfortably on the E-Ink Kindle after Article Mode removes ads and side-columns.

  Kindle Fire users: The new software update v6.3 has a Web READING VIEW, which shows up now as a pair of glasses that show up next to the Bookmarks ribbon at the bottom status bar showing the rectangular lined Menu.
  This feature removes any side elements (ads, links to other features) and just shows you the body of the article in very readable font, isolated, and with clickable links which the e-Ink Article Mode feature doesn't have.
  This new feature is SO good that I now use Amazon's Web ("Silk") by default instead of my previously preferred "Dolphin" Android browser which doesn't have the Reading View.

  Kindle Fire readers have an advantage in that they can double-click the normal web page text and that will enlarge the font of the story and fit it to the width of the screen usually, depending on your web settings.  But the new Reading View feature is a sure thing.


Here are several RELATED ARTICLES that I'll link interested readers to, as they give a better idea of the dynamics involved with Amazon's history of longer-range planning and they help explain what's happening now with Amazon in a digital-media-focused world.
  I'd mentioned that their new main page shows an emphasis on digital products, front and center, and that this emphasis was duplicated on submenus -- and that's where most of the profits came.  But a LOT of it came from their third-party Marketplace area, where company expenses would be lower.

  Amazon Kindle Fire has 54.4% of U.S. Android Tablet market, by TechnoBuffalo's Todd Haselton

  Note that Amazon's having over 54% of the Android Market here is rather huge for obvious reasons and also because Google owns the Android operating system.  I enjoy a Galaxy 10.1" Tab, and the very popular Samsung's percentage in comScore's data-collection is 15.4%, in 2nd place.

  All this is despite comScore's subtitle, '10" Tablets Have 39 Percent Higher Content Consumption Rate than 7" Tablets' (How does that affect advertising? How much reading is done on the Kindle Fire?)

  The Kindle Fire doubled its share of the Android Tablet Market in two months.

  Is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2  7.0 a better Kindle Fire than the Kindle Fire?, by Eric Franklin

  I want to go into this one a bit more later but am pointing readers to the article, as it's related to what is happening with Amazon's overall sales of course.

  The answer in the article is No, and Franklin makes good points about why he thinks the Kindle Fire would be the better choice for Amazon's audience despite more features in the Samsung hardware.

  Even TIME Techland's Keith Wagstaff, in his review of the new Samsung 7", while impressed with the Samsung otherwise for only $50 more, ends with, "So, the $250 question: Should you buy this instead of a Kindle Fire?  If you have Amazon Prime, the answer is no.  That tablet was built as a media mecca for Amazon’s ever-growing library of books and movies, and it serves that purpose extremely well..."

  Amazon: Jeff Bezos Is a Genius, by The Street's Rocco Pendola (thanks to Island Librarian Nancy Picchi's alert, is a very interesting, entertaining article.


SOME GOOD SENSE ABOUT KINDLE FIRE AS 'LOSS' LEADER
Say something enough, even based on soft assumptions, and many will just repeat it until it becomes an Internet truth.

  Forbes's Tim Worstall asks, Does Amazon Really Sell The Kindle At Break Even Or a Loss?.
  Worstall makes points that should have been made by others long ago, with most news articles I've seen just repeating the first guesstimates given, as fact.  Looking at device parts and assuming one knows the prices Amazon could get for massive production orders is odd.  Repeating an even educated guess as 'fact' from that is even odder to me.  But, yes, as Worstall points out, the margins at the same selling price tend to increase with time on electronic devices.

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Current Kindle Models for reference, plus free-ebook search links

US: Kindle Fire  7" tablet - $199 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $79/$109 Kindle Touch, WiFi - $99/$139 Kindle Touch, 3G/WiFi - $149/$189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189, Free, slow web Kindle DX - $379, Free, slow web

UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £89 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £109 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi, UK - £169 Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB

OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $109 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi - $189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB

Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button

Read More >

Kindle News: WSJ on flawed arguments of Big-5 publisher defenders

Wall Street Journal's Thomas Catan writes, "Critics of E-Books Lawsuit Miss the Mark, Experts Say"

The Passive Voice, a lawyer, summarizes the WSJ article and then links us to the FULL Wall Street Journal article, which few do, and that link may expire at any time so if you want to read the full article, get it now.

WSJ's Catan notes that what Eric Hellman calls the "nightmare narrative being spun by the publishing echo chamber" on behalf of "the Collusive 5 publishers" has been front and center the last week in a circling-wagons formation (with what seems shared boilerplate) decrying the DOJ action against the poor Big5 and the ebooks savior, Apple.  Here is some of what attorney Passive Guy excerpted yesterday from the WSJ article:

' But many experts say that under antitrust law, the department didn’t have much choice.  And even if it did, antitrust experts say, it is far from clear that doing nothing would have been wise.

U.S. antitrust law doesn’t seek to protect little companies against big ones, or even struggling ones against successful ones. Companies can grow as large as they want, as long as they do it through lower prices, better service or niftier innovations. Companies can even become monopolies, as long as they don’t get there illegally or try to extend their power by unlawfully stifling competition.

Companies under pressure from a more successful rival can’t band together to protect themselves, whatever their size.
“A lot of cartels are [composed of] small firms,” says Herbert Hovenkamp, law professor at the University of Iowa. “The criminal cases the Justice Department brings are often family firms—much smaller than these publishers.”
....
“Price fixing is kind of the first-degree murder of antitrust violations,” Prof. Hovenkamp says. “They don’t have discretion to just walk away from what appears to be a strong set of facts that, if true, are one of the most central of antitrust violations.”

The government might already have shown some leniency. For one, the Justice Department brought a civil, rather than a criminal, case, so no executives will go to prison...
....
But as disruptive as Amazon’s pricing may be to publishers, it isn’t illegal, experts say.

“What Amazon does may be harmful to the publishers, but so far it’s been very good for consumers,” says Spencer Waller, a law professor at Loyola University Chicago.
....
....the law is concerned with protecting competition, not competitors, experts say.  Cartels, for example, usually allow more players to coexist by enforcing higher prices.

“The goal of antitrust policy is to protect consumer prices, Prof. Hovenkamp says. “It’s not to protect inefficient firms from having to exit the market.”
'

Mild-mannered Len Edgerly in an unusual, separate blog-posting that was not a podcast entry, at his The Kindle Chronicles Podcast site, pointed to the truly ludicrous column by David Carr for The New York Times, which described the Dept of Justice's action as akin to 'breaking up' "Ed’s Gas ’N’ Groceries on Route 19" (this would be the Big5 Publishers (!) and affecting even little B&N, apparently, which has put so many smaller book stores out of business).  He even refers to Apple as "a minor player in the realm of books" (more route-19-store fantasy -- the minor road-store that could, in one day, successfully encourage a jacking-up of e-book prices an average 50%, nation-wide, on new books, and, furthermore deny wee Random House space for its e-books for not cooperating on the Agency model.

 Big Bad Amazon vs the Gas 'N' Groceries on Route 19.  How do Carr and his editors publish a piece like that with straight faces.  They don't.  It's all about alignment and lack of any appropriate embarrassment when targeting readers they think are that gullible.  Edgerly mentioned other NYT articles of the same caliber and asked,as a 'loyal subscriber to the NYT's Kindle version, "Are ALL of the Times's objective [?], hard-hitting journalists in the pockets of New York publishers?"

The Wall Street Journal article is even stronger than described so far.  "Antitrust lawyers scoff at the notion that the Justice Department would refrain from bringing a case if it believes it has solid evidence."

  In fact, if you haven't, you should actually read the 36-page PDF with the FULL TEXT of the DOJ case against Apple and the Big5 publishers.  It's more eye-opening and truly riveting than most novels you'll buy.  It's also unbelievable at several points that the companies went as far as they did, even 'openly' requesting of one another that they hide what they were doing.

  Again, if you want to read the full WSJ article from yesterday, you should get it now while it's still available via the special email-sharing feature probably paid for by Passive Guy.

  It's interesting to see the photos of the CEOs behind each company after reading so much about them.

  Also, it has very sensible closing paragraphs.  What they describe is a business model that requests demands a form of public welfare from e-book consumers to protect the Big5 from the lower-profit margins they fear will be part of this digital age instead of focusing on how to restructure their businesses to DEAL effectively with the realities of the digital age.


I've gathered a lot of news lately, but will end this with just this one topic, as there is a lot of interesting reading involved in the DOJ case papers and, really, this affects, in a big way, those of us who are book readers via digital media.

  We're faced with a corporate mentality that would now deprive our public libraries of their new books in digital form for reading, with Penguin and others having voiced a need for "friction" in making it harder for anyone to borrow such a book (even if library reading has been shown to spur the general reading of authors and buying of books) so that, for instance, even if the library is an hour away, they should go there in person to borrow a book.  Four of the five publishers involved are not making their current new e-books available at public libraries at all now -- that's the depth of their fear of e-books and people who read them.

  Also, see Wired's Tim Carmody on DOJ Announces Terms of Settlement With Three Publishers in E-Book Suit.  He lists them and includes the proposed settlement doc.

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Current Kindle Models for reference, plus free-ebook search links

US: Kindle Fire  7" tablet - $199 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $79/$109 Kindle Touch, WiFi - $99/$139 Kindle Touch, 3G/WiFi - $149/$189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189, Free, slow web Kindle DX - $379, Free, slow web

UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £89 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £109 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi, UK - £169 Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB

OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $109 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi - $189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB

Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button

Read More >

Unsung Kindle Touch Software Update v5.1.0 improvements

As reported yesterday, the Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi e-Ink model is now shipping internationally, to over 175 countries.

This blog article will highlight some software enhancements not listed in the official announcement earlier.  At the bottom, I'll repeat the official list of enhancements.

Current Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi Models:
  US:  For U.S. residents;   UK:  For UK customers
  OTHER:  For Other International Shipping

THE OTHER ENHANCEMENTS
Most of the unmentioned enhancements or Finds were made by avid explorer and commenter Tom Semple, whose full individual comments on all this can be found at the original software announcement article of April 11-14.  I'll try to put the additional items in listed order but it's best to read his explanations of what he's found.  There are also features found by members of the Mobileread Forum.  And I've added a couple of items I noticed as well, although as of TODAY, 4/21, Amazon still had not updated me, so I downloaded the update today, as I now have some time to experiment, and tried a few things out.

• We can now highlight ACROSS pages (something the older Kindles did and which had been much requested for the Touch)
• As mentioned by a few others, the screen background SEEMS lighter, and in the dark room in which I'm sitting right now, it looks more whitish than grayish though mine has always been pretty light relative to the older models.
    As a result the Regular font is strikingly clear and I don't have to choose Sans Serif (although I like it) to get consistently stand-out clarity in the fonts.
• Now we can 'filter' the display of the home screen or Archived Items folder to show only one category (Books, Periodicals, Docs, Audible, or Active Content [apps]) or ALL categories.  We had this with older Kindles so it's good to see that again.  Tom, and most of us, would like a filter for Samples, but I put those into a Collection named 'Samples' as a work around.
• The highlighting feature brings back to users of former Kindles the ability to search the highlighted word at Wikipedia (and via free 3G if you have the 3G version of the Kindle Touch and you're in a no-WiFi area) and furthermore something else we hoped for -- the ability to "Report Content Error."
    It also allows you to share passages at Facebook and Twitter, as the Keyboard models do.
• Search seems to work more reliably and faster now, and the reason 'Go' has to be clicked is that SUBstrings can be searched successfully now (not true in the past).  I wouldn't want it to start searching until I felt I was through typing the search-string I want.  In the past we had to navigate to the right, several steps, to choose searching of a book, or All Items on the device, at Wikipedia, etc.
• I agree with Tom that browser scrolling is smoother and scrolls a larger portion.
• Menu option responses seem quite a bit faster for me now.
• Re "Archived Items" folder: In reply to one statement, I can still get to it via Title-sorting.  The Menu access is an alternate method and has been there before.  The Search feature at top does help, in addition to "1 of __" at the top right letting you tap that to choose go to a Page number or "Titles starting with" -- which has been a nice, almost hidden feature on its own.
• Tom also discovered they added "NCX navigation" features (though I thought I used "Next Chapter" swiping before the update.  The KTouch recognizes By-Chapter movement, via swiping up for the 'next' chapter (if the publisher activated this feature) and down for the 'previous' chapter, but Tom also explains that NCX-activated Kindle books now show "a (hierarchical) list of the navpoint labels corresponding to beginning of chapters/sections, showing current location in the book (label in bold) and associated page numbers (with books that have real page nmbers)."   As a result, "...showing the current position helps establish context.   When page numbers are present, it also gives you information about how long each section is."  This has helped extinguish Tom's "ePub envy" :-), he said.
• Harry, in the UK, wrote at Mobileread Forums,
  "The 'biggie' for me personally is that my US-bought KT can now access the Amazon UK Kindle Store [he's in the UK], which it previously couldn't.  Definitely a worthwhile upgrade."
• veezh at Mobile Read also mentioned that he was happy to see that when he switched the device language to UK English, the 24-hour clock was activated.
• cscat at Mobile REad likes the fact that
  1. you can get to next page even when zoomed into a PDF, by panning to the right
  2. and when you press the Shift key twice, the capital letters stay (this is normally true but maybe not for Ktouch earlier).
• Tom Semple mentions at that forum that the tap zones for single-character footnote links seem larger now and are therefore very easy to activate, even at the smallest text sizes.
• Tom also points out that "appropriately formatted footnotes" (the publisher does the formatting) include a "RETURN" link that will take you back to the original reference, which is more convenient than using the invisible "Back" button that you have to activate with a tap to even see.  Only one tap is needed then.
• tanteoma loves the landscape mode and being able to jump to different chapters with the simple "go to" function.
• thomass points out that we can now long-press and archive personal documents such as instapaper deliveries, as this wasn't possible before the update.  Semi-commercial mass-deliveries of personal doc news-collections are a tender subject though.
• mewmartigan found that the new homescreen display shows the ENTIRE title rather than ellipses for an omitted segment.  That's a relief for a series, especially.

ALSO re the Landscape feature we've wanted added to this panel-zoned touch device, rvdparis at Mobileread Forums said,
 "And the landscape function worked magic on a badly scanned OCR book I have in PDF format, I kept tapping to turn the page, and it automatically jumped down the page (in 3 parts, for me) and turned to the next page. The print is now MUCH easier to read. Love it."

Even better maybe, thomass at Mobileread posted a gorgeous sampling of screenshots he got with KF8 samples from a link given there.  This is encouraging for the reading of technical books on the small Kindle.

UNWANTED "feature" though and a caveat -- When I updated, I again lost an attached dictionary, and the Kindle couldn't find the two copies of New Oxford American Dictionary that are on it and kept telling me that it would look at Archived Items for one.
   No go, so I moved a current dictionary (unnoticed-by-the-Kindle) into Archived Items folder and then it suddenly saw a lot of dictionary candidates and I was able to attach the New Oxford American again, although it selected WordNet for rme at first and that was just one I happened to download at one time.

Tom did also point out that the Glowlight Nook "still has no landscape, no web browser, no wireless library borrowing, no personal document service."
   Not including some new features noted above, a Features Comparison, written before the v5.1.0 Kindle Touch update, detailed the Nook Touch advantages and also quite a lack of some very useful features.  It all depends on what's important to the buyer.


FOR REFERENCE - the Officially announced changes (vs the unmentioned ones above) From the Amazon update page New features in this update include:

• Language Support: Customize your Kindle Touch with the language you prefer: English (US and UK), German, French, Spanish, Italian, or Brazilian Portuguese.
• Landscape Mode: Switch between portrait and landscape orientation in books and PDFs to read maps, graphs, and tables more easily.
• Instant Translations: Tap any word or highlight a section to instantly translate into other languages, including Spanish, Japanese, and more. Translations by Bing Translator.
• Kindle Format 8: Formatting and layout improvements make Kindle books look even better.
• Wi-Fi Enhancements: Connect your Kindle Touch to Wi-Fi with WPS and select WPA2 Enterprise networks.
• Read-to-Me With Text-to-Speech: Have your Kindle Touch read English-language content out loud to you, now including summaries of newspaper and magazine articles when available from the publisher.
• More Sharing Options: Tell others what you're reading on Facebook or Twitter from anywhere within a book — just tap to share a link along with your comments.
• Onscreen Keyboard Suggestions: Search and shop faster with automatic word suggestions as you type.

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US: Kindle Fire  7" tablet - $199 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $79/$109 Kindle Touch, WiFi - $99/$139 Kindle Touch, 3G/WiFi - $149/$189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189, Free, slow web Kindle DX - $379, Free, slow web

UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £89 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £109 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi, UK - £169 Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB

OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $109 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi - $189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189   Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB

Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books  
Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones   
  Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.  

*Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button

Read More >

Kindle Touch 3G now shipping to 175+ countries, 7 days early

Kindle Touch 3G is shipping, 7 days earlier than anticipated, to over 175 countries today.

The above was my tweet alert, and clicking on that image now leads to the specific International page.
  Updated: The link is: http://amzn.to/ktouch-global.

This is a quick blog entry to alert those who have been waiting for shipment of the Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi to countries outside the U.S.  Most international customers can get the international model by by clicking on International link for Kindle Touch 3G (NOT for the UK though -- See below)

Here's a link also for Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi for the UK

Amazon customers in other countries will find appropriate redirected links at the US page also, but these are direct to the Int'l Kindle Touch 3G page.

More later...

Read More >

Kindle tips: Kindle Fire book download glitch; disappearing books; newly-free popular Read It Later app

When a newly-purchased book won't download

  Earlier I wrote about the solution two forumners found for a situation in which Kindle books seemed to disappear in both the Kindle Fire listings and in the "Cloud" (server) listings as well.

  Today's Kindle Fire tip is how to correct a glitch that causes a currently-purchased Kindle book to NOT download to the Kindle Fire, whether the attempted download is done via the Kindle Fire itself or from the Amazon ManageYourKindle page.

  The solution comes from forum member Josh -- and that is to:
  .  Lightly touch the gear or wheel icon at the top right
  .  Then select "+" or "More" to get Settings menu
  .  Select "My Account" (2nd on the settings list)
  .  Select "Deregister"

Once that's done, you can "Reregister" right away and all your info is there for you -- no need to retype it.

A mere deregister-register action saves a lot of time over the last-ditch "Reset to Factory Defaults" which I (and some senior Kindle support staff) feel should be a LAST choice, as a Factory-Default reset requires you to re-enter your basic Amazon and Kindle information and to select books and other media all over again (to re-populate the device) and to re-set up things the way you've wanted them, which can take an hour for most situations.

  Ashley seconds Josh's recommendation after his own experience based on the advice of a lone Kindle Fire specialist (among a few others who did not know a solution to this) who suggested he de-register and re-register the KFire.  Ashley wrote:

"This worked and it only took 10 sec. In addition I lost none of my settings/apps/content."

Popular Read It Later Android app renamed to "Pocket" and now free

paidContent's Laura Hazard Owen reports that Read It Later will no longer have a $2.99 Pro version and will be known as Pocket, as it makes it "simple "to take any content users discover, with them no matter where they go."

  The founder, Nate Weiner, told Owen that the app was profitable right away and has been the "number-one paid news app on Android and Kindle Fire."  He says he's after a different business model now, which he'll explain this summer.

  The app already has 4.5 million users and its most popular source of content to take to enjoy "later" is Youtube and its videos.

' Forty percent of items saved aren’t articles but content like videos, images, things to buy, travel tips and recipes. '

  Owen adds that the new version of the app "makes it easier to filter content by type and to tag and organize it."

  If you already own Read It Later Pro, you'll just need to update the app.
"Users of the free version have to download Pocket separately."

  The Amazon product page emphasizes the new user-interface and the Content-Type filter -- "Pocket automatically filters your content so that you can quickly switch between articles, videos, and images."


Reminder: Today's Kindle Daily Deal



Kindle Touch 3G, US-only   Kindle Touch WiFi (US)   Kindle Touch WiFi-Only, outside US    Kindle Basic   (UK: KBasic)   Kindle Fire
Kindle Keybd 3G   (UK: Kindle Keybd 3G)   K3 Special Offers   K3-3G Special Offers   DX

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Check often: Temporarily-free recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

  *Click* to Return to the HOME PAGE.  Or click on the web browser's BACK button

Read More >

Kindle News: Special 1-day Deal on 8 World Literature Titles, The Nook's glow. Lightning on the bridge

"Eight great works of world literature" make up the Kindle Daily Deal today.

The intro for Kindle deals that change nightly is at the usual Kindle Daily Deal

Here's the direct link, though, to the world-literature special, which is good for Sunday only.

  The one that caught my eye was "The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations, by Zhu Xiao-Mei.  They're not the usual fare.


What the last few days have been like in my area

Lightning struck the Bay Bridge towers 9 times, which happened to be when I was ON the bridge from 8:30pm to 10pm with many cars caught in deep puddles in the tunnel that you couldn't steer in, so the speed was less than 5mph, while the Sound and Light! show kept our attention. It was pretty hairy. There were 750 lightning strikes in the bay area.
  There are additional shots in the slideshow there.


There's a news videoclip of some of it.  Not a tornado, but it was something.   I have to be away from the blog for one more day and back on that bridge, in better weather though.


Glowing Nooks
So now we see why we saw the "leak" of the glowing Kindle that isn't ready.  B&N announced it is coming out with theirs, due sometime in May.  In the meantime, a few have had a look at it, though very briefly.  It'll be 8 Led lights under another layer above the display layer but the ereader will be lighter and the battery will still last a month or so at 1/2 hr of reading a day with the light on. (Do people really read a book for less than 1/2 hour a day?)  The photo is from The Digital Reader.

This should be very attractive for people who have asked for years why there is no light for the screen. One article in Gizmodo by a writer (Kyle Wagner) who is keen for the current non-glow Nook as well, mentions there is a fall off in contrast due to the added layer but that it didn't bother him and he feels the slightly uneven light was no problem either.

TIME's Techland (Harry McCracken) writes that the illumination "isn't perfectly even -- I could make out discrete beams emanating from the LEDs along the top edge -- but it's bright enough..."  He'd prefer it to the "grayishness of standard E Ink, "although it does make it more obvious that you're looking at an electronic display."  He is partial to the iPad for reading, however so is not an E Ink devotee.

The long name given this new unit is "The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight" which signals what others have been writing -- that there is no other change in functionality from the current non-glow Nook Touch.

  If you read the features-comparison between Nook and Kindle Touch devices and if you don't miss all that the Nook is lacking in features relative to the Kindles (even before the latest, large Kindle Touch software update), this will be a no-brainer to try.

I don't like external add-on lights myself, but I've used the Beam N Read light that you wear around your neck (good for 120 hours on a recharge) and I use it for everything else around the house, so I never have to attach a light to the Kindle.



Kindle Touch 3G, US-only   Kindle Touch WiFi (US)   Kindle Touch WiFi-Only, outside US    Kindle Basic   (UK: KBasic)   Kindle Fire
Kindle Keybd 3G   (UK: Kindle Keybd 3G)   K3 Special Offers   K3-3G Special Offers   DX

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Check often: Temporarily-free recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.  Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

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Quick note until tonight

Couldn't get back to the computer until now, for a few minutes, and then not again until tonight, despite a lot of news. Apologies. Will be back later and catch up and erase this note.

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