If you’ve bought quite a library of Kindle books for yourself, you might have a chore scrolling through the lot to find the one you want. Thankfully for Android users, you can now organize your reading material into Collections with a new Kindle app update. What goes into a certain Collection is entirely up to you — you may group them by genre, type or whatever category strikes your fancy. As you’re choosing which book goes where, you can filter them by author or title, and unlike your physical library, a single book can be assigned to multiple Collections. Just like your reading progress, those Collections can be synced across multiple devices as long as you’re logged in. The Kindle update brings a number of other goodies to the table as well, like accessibility support for Android’s Talkback and Explore By Touch features so you can flip a page simply by reading aloud and the ability to toggle publisher fonts on or off. You’ll also now be prompted to offer a star rating for a book once you’re done reading it. So if you’re a die-hard Kindle fanatic with an Android device, snag the update and lord it over your Collection-less iOS brethren while you still can.
this post Originally appeared in Business Insider.
These days, you can buy a new Kindle e-reader from Amazon for $ 49. Meanwhile, Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX with the 8.9 inch screen costs $ 379-Much cheaper than the comparable $ 499 iPad from Apple. How and why does Amazon charge for its jump little gimmick? Both questions are answered with one stat GaGa.
During the year
GaGa, Kindle Owners spend, on average, $ 443 more buying stuff from
Amazon than the average Amazon shopper who does NOT own the Kindle.
Consumer Intelligence Research Partners that stat derived from the survey survey of 300 Subjects who made the purchase at Amazon.com in the three-month period ending November 15, 2013. CIRP estimates that Amazon Kindle Device Owners spend Approximately $ 1.233 per year buy stuff from Amazon, compared to $ 790 per year for other customers.
“Another Way to Look at Kindle Fire and Kindle e-Reader is as a portal to Amazon.com,” said Mike Levin of CIRP, in the press release put out to announce the study results. “Kindle Fire Provider access to everything Amazon sells, while Kindle e-Reader has Become the way that Amazon customers buy books, Amazon’s original product line.”
Amazon sells Kindles cheap-perhaps at the loss-because it knows getting a Device into the customers hands means that customer ‘ll spend the extra $ 4,500 at Amazon over the next 10 years.
Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.
Against all odds, Amazon's Kindle has done well in China — the tablets have proven profitable just six months after launching in the oversaturated Chinese market.
Many industry experts were less than optimistic about Kindle's chance in China's crowded electronics marketplace, which is already filled with competing devices from Apple Inc. (Nasdaq:AAPL), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (KRX:005930) and Lenovo Group Limited (HKG:0992), when Amazon.com, Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN) launched the Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Fire tablets on June 7 in mainland China.
In addition, Amazon's model of making money from selling e-books seemed impracticable in China, where online content piracy is the norm.
But sales of the device have "exceeded expectations, and proven very encouraging," said Bai Juyi, vice president of Amazon's Kindle operations in China, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.
Bai did not disclose actual sales figures, but said that while sales in China were not as impressive as Amazon's success in other regions, particularly the United States, Kindle's business model in China has nonetheless been "profitable."
Amazon's international success was the result of slow but consistent growth, Bai said, and the company followed a similar strategy to break into the competitive Chinese market to eventually "build an ecosystem around reading and cultivate a habitual use of Kindle products." Localization, a good relationship with Chinese publishers and Kindle Fire's ability to download Android apps all contributed to the device's current success in China, Bai added.
The Chinese Kindle store carries more than 60,000 titles currently, but the company plans to have that number exceed 100,000 titles in 2014, the South China Morning Post reported.
Despite Amazon's success, easy access to downloadable books on illegal sharing websites remains a challenge for Amazon and other e-book retailers in China. A 2012 survey conducted by the China Press and Publication Post found that 49 percent of female readers, who make up a large portion of China's e-reader market, were unwilling to pay for e-books if they could be found for free online.
The Chinese mobile reading market was worth about 5.6 billion yuan ($ 922 million) in 2012.
Q. I know how to make notes and highlights in the text of a Kindle e-book, but how do you get all the annotations out of the book file for use elsewhere?
A. Amazon's website stores copies of all the notes and highlights you make in the e-books on your Kindle. To see a list of marked passages and virtual margin notes for each book, log in at kindle.amazon.com with your Amazon username and password, then click on "Your Highlights" at the top of the page.
On the Your Highlights page, you can see a list of all your Kindle books — with all the highlighted passages and personal notes in each one displayed. From here, you can cut and paste the material into a word-processing document, Evernote file or other program you use to stash text.
As explained on the Kindle's Frequently Asked Questions page, Amazon also offers the option to share your online notes publicly with other Kindle users. The company also anonymously lists the passages frequently highlighted by other readers — and the most highlighted passages of all time.
If you are using a black-and-white Kindle, you may be able to copy the "My Clippings.txt" file (which stores your e-book annotations) to your computer, where you can copy it into another program. To do so, connect the Kindle to the computer with its USB cable, browse to the Documents folder and drag a copy of the "My Clippings.txt" file to your hard drive.
Safely Cleaning the TV Screen
Q. What's the best way to clean a flat-panel HDTV LCD screen?
A. Check the manual or online support site for your television to get specific instructions, but definitely do not use Windex or other household cleaning solutions. Many cleaning products contain ammonia, alcohol or other chemicals that could damage the coating on the flat-panel screen.
Even paper towels may cause scratches, so many manufacturers recommend using a soft, lint-free microfiber cleaning cloth to gently wipe down the screen. Some new televisions even include a cleaning cloth in the box, but if you have misplaced it, you can find microfiber wipes at electronics and camera stores.
Depending on the manufacturer, some advise slightly dampening the cleaning cloth with water — or a highly diluted solution of water and mild dish soap for really dirty screens. Commercial kits that include the microfiber cloth and a cleaning solution meant for LCD screens are another option. In many cases, however, these can cost $ 10 to $ 20 to do the same job as a $ 2 microfiber cloth and a dash of water.
TIP OF THE WEEK Thanks to the notifications feature built into iOS, iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches can keep you up to date with alerts from your favorite apps and news sites. If you would like a little peace and quiet from audible notifications during the overnight hours or even during meetings (or naps), you can temporarily silence them all with the Do Not Disturb feature built into iOS 6 and later.
To set up Do Not Disturb in iOS 7, tap the Settings icon on the Home screen and then tap Do Not Disturb. In iOS 6, tap the Settings icon, then Notifications and then Do Not Disturb. Here, you can schedule regular hours without alerts (like 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. for a good night's sleep) while allowing FaceTime calls and messages from specific contacts. In iOS 7, Do Not Disturb can also be turned on and off manually by swiping up from the bottom of the screen to call up the Control Center and tapping the moon icon. Apple has more on using Do Not Disturb at support.apple.com/kb/HT5463.
If you’re looking to buy a Kindle Fire HDX, but don’t want to plunk down the full $ 229 or $ 379 all at once, Amazon now offers a payment plan that lets you pay the tablet off in four interest-free payments over the course of nine months. Introduced on Amazon’s homepage over the weekend and spotted by AllThingsD, the offer appears to be for the holidays only, available through December 24.
The payment plans are good for either the $ 229 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX or the $ 379 Kindle Fire HDX 8.9. All you have to do is accept the offer on Amazon, add the Kindle to your cart, and at checkout you’ll be charged 25 percent of the tablet’s price, along with any applicable tax and shipping charges in full. After that, you’ll automatically be billed for the balance in three equal payments every 90 days. You can also choose to pay the full remaining balance at any time.
Between this offer as well as last month’s 30-day free trials, it’s clear that Amazon is making a big push for the Kindle Fire HDX. It’s unclear how many tablets the retail giant has sold so far, though it claims that this year’s Black Friday sale was its best ever.
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After giving 30-day free trials a shot, Amazon has a new master plan to get its Kindle Fire HDX tablets under as many trees as possible this holiday season: a nine-month financing option. According to a new offer spotted by All Things D, you'll be able to pay just 25 percent of the tablet's purchase price up front, with another quarter due every 90 days. And if you fail to pay off the device completely? Amazon says that it has the right to deregister it, blocking access to Amazon content you've paid for, such as your Kindle books.
With the smaller 7-inch Kindle HDX starting at $ 229, most people would probably prefer to just pay for it up front rather than drag it out over nine months, but interestingly, Amazon won't charge any interest on your outstanding balance.
ViaAll Things D
SourceAmazon
Related Itemsfinancing kindle fire payment plan Kindle Fire HDX (7-inch) Kindle Fire HDX (8.9-inch) Amazon Tablets
2K Games' experiments in mobile publishing continue with Sensei Wars, a strategic combat affair for Android, iDevice and even Kindle. Gosh.
Sensei Wars is the product of one Cat Daddy Games, and is available now for free on a variety of mobile devices. It has players building and defending a rural village, training an army to conquer other players' camps and steal their resources.
You start off with an immortal Sensei unit, which boasts three skill trees in different fighting styles, but can later call on Monks, Samurai, Ninja and Dragons.
If you find it a bit daunting, you can get together with your buddies to co-op your way up the leaderboards. A trailer follows.
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