As I travel with my Kindle DX, I’m getting a lot of comments from folks planning to buy a Kindle for Christmas for their spouse or parent. Given that there are actually three competing products from major players in the market and two sizes of Kindle (along with a number of niche products that I’d stay away from as gifts because they are too specialized), I thought it would be good to use some of my experience to suggest a path so that you don’t get a product that sits on the shelf. I say this because the Kindle is my fifth e-book reader and the first four ended up on a shelf unused, with the Sony being my biggest disappointment. You may also want to consider some accessories that can enhance the Kindle experience, if you decide to go that route.
Tag Archive: ebooks
Amazon Cracks Open Kindle App for Windows PCs
Amazon has always said it intended to bring its Kindle ebooks to other platforms—the company’s first step down that road was its popular Kindle app for the iPhone, and now the company is bringing Kindle to the Windows world with the announcement of of Kindle for PC, a free desktop application that enables Windows users to purchase, download, read their Kindle titles on their PCs.
“Kindle for PC is the perfect companion application for folks who own a Kindle or Kindle DX,” said Amazon VP Ian Freed, in a statement. “Kindle for PC is also a great way for people around the world to read the most popular books of today even if they don’t yet have a Kindle.”
HP Teams with Amazon to Sell Printed Public Domain Books
Think the market for electronic books is already getting weird enough? Things are getting a little stranger, thanks to a new partnership between Hewlett-Packard, Amazon.com, and the University of Michigan: HP’s new BookPrep service is offering almost half a million public domain titles available online—and in paperback printed form. The idea is to lower cost of republishing rare and hard-to-find books by leveraging HP Labs’ image processing and printing technologies combined with its cloud-computing infrastructure to make the books available on-demand—either online or in printed form, with scanned pages automatically cleaned up and brightened for improved readability.
Plastic Logic Announces Que E-Reader Coming in January
Plastic Logic’s upcoming e-readers have been a dark horse in the e-reader world for months now: sure, Sony, Amazon, and others are already on the market, but a lot of the buzz seems to be about future readers from Plastic Logic…which haven’t shipped or even been specced yet. Today Plastic Logic got its readers one step closer to reality, teasing its forthcoming Que proReader and promising to debut the device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on January 7, 2010. And unlike other e-reader devices, Plastic Logic says the Que proReader is designed for business professionals.
Google Editions to Bring Ebooks to Anything with a Web Browser
At this week’s Frankfurt Book Fair, Internet giant Google announced that it plans to go up against the likes of Amazon, Sony, and Barnes & Noble in the ebook market, launching its own ebook store called Google Editions in the first half of 2010. But rather than target a specific ereader device—like Amazon does with its popular Kindle—Google will instead target any device with a Web browser, whether it be a PC, a mobile phone, a portable media player, or even an electronic reader.
How To Read e-Books On Your iPhone
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Want to finish that novel you’re reading but you don’t want to cart around a hard copy or a Kindle? Maybe you need a copy of the complete Grey’s Anatomy reference manual with you at all times. On this podcast guide, we’ll show you how to turn iPhone into an eReader that can hold countless eBooks. Any and every book you can think of can be read on the iPhone with just these few easy steps.
Barnes & Noble Takes On Amazon With Device-Independent eBook Store
Barnes & Noble is striking back at Amazon.com and its popular Kindle electronic reader with the Barnes & Noble eBookstore. The company is touting the bookstore as the world’s largest, offering more than 700,000 titles (including bestsellers and new releases), and—unlike Amazon or Sony—Barnes & Noble is going for a multi-platform approach, announcing support for the iPhone/iPod touch, BlackBerry devices, and regular Macs and PCs right out of the gate. And, when Plastic Logic’s forthcoming 8.5 by 11-inch eReader ships (currently expected in 2010), Barns & Noble will be the device’s exclusive eBookstore provider.
Barnes & Noble Eyes eBook Market with Fictionwise Buy
Although the Sony Reader for electronic books never seemed to capture consumers imagination, there’s no denying the Amazon Kindle—and the Kindle application now available for the iPhone—has lit a fire under the electronic book business. So, its not surprise bookseller Barnes & Noble is looking to get in on the act: today the company announced it has sealed a deal to acquire ebook publisher Fictionwise for $15.7 million in cash. Barnes & Noble plans to use Fictionwise to jumpstart its own digital bookselling strategy, which includes the launch of its own online electronic bookstore by the end of 2009. Fictionwise may earn some additional money for the acquisition over the next two years if the operation meets performance targets.
