Lounge review: Amazon Kindle 2016 – Livemint

Amazon's most affordable Kindle e-book reader has been refreshed for 2016. It is good to know that the company didn't forget about it, even though the focus of late seemed to be on the more expensive Paperwhite, Voyage and Oasis e-readers. And it is the subtle changes that make the biggest difference to the Kindle 2016 edition.

The good stuff

It is 11% thinner (160x115x 9.1mm) and 16% lighter (161g) than the previous generation Kindle, and these tweaks have made a tremendous difference. It is still made from the hard yet smooth plastic, with more rounded edges—built well, the device has its own personality and looks acceptable overall. It is now available in two colour options—black and white.

The new Kindle retains the same 6-inch (resolution of 167 pixels per inch) high-contrast E-Ink Pearl display. It is a touchscreen as well, and there are no physical page-turn buttons on the e-reader. The screen is quite crisp and it makes for an easy and comfortable read.

The biggest advantage of the E-Ink display is that unlike the LCD screens in tablets and smartphones, there is no backlight so there is no exposure to what is known as blue light, which could suppress the body's production of melatonin (a naturally occurring hormone that helps in sleep)—something that could be a problem if you like reading e-books on your phone or iPad, for example.

There is 4 GB internal storage, and Amazon has also increased the RAM to enable smoother page turns.

Kindle e-readers are best known for good battery life, and the all-new Kindle is no different. If you are reading for an hour or so every day, the battery could actually last upwards of three weeks before it needs to be charged again.

While this may be the most affordable Kindle you can buy, it still packs in features such as enhanced search, X-ray timeline for important sections of the book, a Goodreads online community, and translations powered by Microsoft's Bing search.

The not-so-good

While the all-new Kindle's display is spot on for reading novels, it may come up short if you intend to read graphic-heavy books or comics. The lower PPI rating means that this screen will not be sharp enough to render those elements crisply.

The Kindle is available in the Wi-Fi-only variant. This means that you will miss out on 3G-enabled access to the Kindle book store while travelling.

Talk plastic

With a Rs.5,999 price tag, it really is hard to argue with the value the all-new Kindle offers—it's the perfect entry model to the world of e-books, and ideal for casual readers. But the front-lit screen of the Kindle Paperwhite (Rs.10,999), which allows for reading in the dark as well, may be a better bet for voracious book lovers.

Topics: Amazon KindleAmazon Kindle PaperwhiteKindle OasisIpadLounge Review

First Published: Fri, Aug 05 2016. 10 56 AM IST

Amazon’s cheapest Kindle has become lighter, thinner and better – Tek.no

In April dropped Amazon new Kindle model in the most expensive segment, and now the company has launched a new version of the model that is on the other end of the scale. It reports Amazon in a recent press release.

The new e-book reader is thus an upgraded version of the most affordable entry-level version and offers a number of changes which are probably welcome for avid users of the online books.

The most recent version is thinner and lighter than the previous generation, namely 11 percent thinner and 16 percent lighter but has the same screen size and resolution as before.

Ebook reader has been part thinner since last time. Photo: Amazon

Double storage and Bluetooth

It also comes now in both black and white color, and according to Amazon, it is also becoming more “rounded”, which should make it comfortable to hold. Otherwise, it is worth noting that the storage has doubled since last time.

Not least, the new Kindle version with support for audio via Bluetooth. Thus, one can connect to Bluetooth headphones- or earphones and get spoken text via Amazon VoiceView solution, which is designed for the visually impaired.

Memo export

among the new features on the inside are new Kindle including the ability to easily export notes and selected text from the e-book to e-mail, offering the option of receiving them as a printable PDF file or a file you can open in other apps.

This feature will be available in a free software update for all Kindle owners the next few weeks. Despite upgrades costing the upgraded Kindle version otherwise the same as before, and will be ready for global launch very soon.

Read more about the new Kindle the Edition at Amazon.

Would you rather spend a little more money on a Kindle? Kindle Oasis is an e-book reader in the “premium” class “

Universal jailbreak available for the Kindle – ITavisen.no

New software lets you do more with your Kindle.

Now it’s come a jailbreak for the Kindle that go to virtually any model of eReader.

Long been possible
Kindle has for years been easy to unlock, and it has only been talk of uploading a file to the root folder on the device and restart it. The latest version of this expanding support for almost all Kindle models, and is still as easy to use.

Several generations
software supports any 6,7 or 8. generation on any firmware version. So whether you own a Kindle Paper White 2, Paper White 3, Kinde Touch, Kindle Voyage or Kindle Oasis you can now open up the device with this fix.

5th generation and other are also on Mobilereads forums.

All the information you need to jailbreak your Kindle can be found here.

Popular
jailbreak has already been downloaded over a thousand times, it is quite a number for a product that has been dead for quite a while now except for the new Kindle Oasis which was released earlier this year.

Multiple applications
Although Kindle primarily set is going to be an eReader has several found alternative uses for the product after getting locked up with a jailbreak. For example, a user has combined a Raspberry Pi 2 and a Kindle to create a terminal with e-ink display.

What could you going to use it beyond reading books?

Source:
Hackaday

Amazon’s other physical retail test: A mini bookstore for Kindle ebooks – GeekWire

It only takes up a couple square feet, a small fraction of the size of Amazon's first real bookstore in Seattle, but the company has been quietly making another foray into physical retail — offering individual ebook gift cards for sale under a pilot program at Bartell Drugs in Washington state.

The pilot was launched in October, in time for the holiday shopping season, but it flew largely under the radar until now. Amazon has long offered general gift cards in many retail locations, like other digital merchants, but the move to offer cards for specific ebooks is a new move for the company.

Details of the 61-store test were confirmed last week by Nate Hoffelder of The Digital Reader news site, and I found one of the "Kindle eBooks" kiosks tucked between displays of Valentine's Day candy at my local Bartell Drugs store in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood this weekend.

Perhaps tellingly, even though the kiosk was well-positioned toward the front of the store, none of the three employees I spoke with initially knew what I was talking about when I asked if they sold individual Kindle ebook gift cards. (Initially they told me they didn't.)

But I ended up spotting it on my own, and bought a couple cards to test the service.

The top row of the kiosk features cards for three- and six-month Kindle Unlimited memberships, for $ 29.99 and $ 49.99 each. Below those are cards featuring the covers of 20 individual ebooks, best-sellers across both fiction and nonfiction, ranging from "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" to Dan Brown's "Inferno" and "The Martian" by Andy Weir.

On the back of each ebook card is a quote from an Amazon customer review and a summary of the book, along with an area for writing a message to the recipient and instructions for redeeming the book by scratching off the claim code and going to a dedicated Amazon url to enter it.

Purchasing the card at the Bartell Drugs register automatically activates it for use, as with a standard gift card.

Here's the most interesting part: Any of the cards can also be treated as a regular Amazon gift card, if your gift recipient doesn't like the book you chose for them, or already owns the title you picked. In other words, it offers the personalization of a hand-picked gift with the flexibility of a regular gift card — another example of Amazon blending the best of physical and digital retail.

The card promises that you'll always get "the lowest online price, plus the balance." For example, I purchased a card for "The Martian" for $ 14.99 at the store, but the price online was $ 8.99, and when I redeemed the book, the difference was automatically added to my gift card balance.

After deciding that I really didn't want a 3-month Kindle Unlimited membership (I previously tested the subscription service and found that I didn't use it as much as I planned) I was able to add the entire $ 29.99 balance from that card to my gift card balance. Everything worked smoothly.

This is the latest example of Amazon testing out new initiatives in physical retail, but as noted by the Digital Reader's Hoffelder, the company is not the first to try this concept. Most other e-book sellers who've gone down this path haven't seen much success.

Whether it turns out to be worthwhile for Amazon remains to be seen. Even during the checkout process, the concept was clearly a novelty to the Bartell Drugs employees at my local store, perhaps indicating that they haven't been selling a lot since the October launch.

We've contacted Amazon for more details on the pilot, and to see if it will be expanded to additional stores and regions.

Driver fined after being caught reading a novel on his Kindle behind the wheel of car – Mirror.co.uk

A man has been fined after traffic police spotted him driving but not watching the road – because he was reading his Kindle.

And police in the area have revealed that he’s not the first to drive so carelessly.

The unnamed motorist came to police attention when he was driving on Highway 149 in Eagan, Minnesota.

He was pulled over and asked what he was looking at when he wasn’t watching the road, according to Fox 9 .

Read more: Driver accused of watching film on mobile phone while behind the wheel in footage captured by furious cyclist

The dashcam footage from the officer’s car showed the policeman asking the driver what he was looking at.

Behind the wheel: The unnamed driver was pulled over when an officer spotted him not looking at the road

“I was reading,” the driver replied.

“What were you reading?” the officer asked.

“A James Patterson book," he responded, naming the American thriller writer.

Officer Aaron Machtemes, spokesperson for Eagan Police , said: "The nicest guy, obviously not the smartest thing to do while driving. Very dangerous. But he kind of got it, knew he made a mistake and the officer went back and ended up giving him a citation."

Machtemes added that phones are a common reason for similar offences, adding "they look down for two seconds, that’s when the person ahead of them hits the brakes and there’s an accident”.

In terms of other road offences, he added that: "Just recently, as of today, I heard of a lady with big curls in her hair and as she’s driving she’s taking her curls out with her knees up on the wheel.”

Amazon’s New Physical Retail Foray: Kindle Cards – PYMNTS.com

Posted on January 26, 2016

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EReaders don't yet have a single dominant device like iPods were to MP3 players, but Amazon's Kindle line might be the closest thing. Now, Amazon is trying to give its eReader of choice a leg-up in an unfamiliar market: brick-and-mortar stores.

Never one to test the borders of online and offline commerce, Amazon has begun running pop-up kiosks for Kindle eBooks in convenience stores around the Seattle area,

Can I Run iTunes on my Kindle? – Boulder Daily Camera

(Dave Taylor / For the Camera)

Q: I have a Kindle Fire HD, a great, low cost tablet that lets me apparently watch TV and movies in addition to just read books. And I have a bunch of movies and TV shows I’ve purchased on my AppleTV. Can I also watch them on my Kindle?

A: You would think that if you buy a movie in digital form on one platform that it would then be available to you on all your players and devices, right? Unfortunately, this is the beginning of the 21st Century, not the end, so at this point every content owner has its own protection system and is more worried about controlling distribution than giving you the ability to watch your content across various hardware platforms and delivery systems.

The protection systems are known as “DRM” systems, which stands for digital rights management, and they’re generally invisible if you have all devices from a single vendor and have them all logged in to the same account. So with your AppleTV, if you had an iPad and both devices were logged into the same iTunes account, you should be able to watch your movies and TV episodes on either device (albeit there might be some downloading from iCloud for it to work properly).

But wait, there’s more, because while it seems easy enough to reference the “Amazon Kindle” the fact is that there are two different classes of Kindle with two very different operating systems. The Kindle Paperwhite and other ebook readers using the eInk display technology (black and white, not color) run Kindle OS and they can’t really display much of anything that’s moving. They’re splendid ebook readers, but not so much for watching movies while on an airplane or in bed.

The Kindle Fire HD is a newer breed of Kindle, and they’re running a custom version of the popular Android operating system, originally from Google. Unless you have an older Kindle Fire which is running the earlier KindleOS from Amazon that isn’t Android, of course. If all you see is the “carousel” of book covers, you’re not on the Android based Fire OS.

You can access the Amazon Prime Video library through your Kindle Fire HD easily enough, but that’s the problem: Your iTunes purchase on your AppleTV doesn’t give you the license rights to also watch that movie on the Amazon platform, so you’d be out of luck.

And I haven’t even mentioned the problem of The Cloud when you might not be online 24×7. Want to download a movie you’ve purchased prior to boarding the plane to Sydney, Australia? That can be just about impossible to accomplish, a whole ‘nother proverbial kettle of fish…

——

Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since 1980 and runs the popular Ask Dave Taylor electronics review and tech tutorial site. You can find him on Twitter as @DaveTaylor.