Hasta La Gadget!

Jeff Bezos revealed to the BBC that Amazon makes no profit off the Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Fire HD. Both devices are sold at cost, which means, both devices’ price is how much it costs Amazon to make them. More »

Last week’s release of the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite offered an opportunity to look back on the rapid growth of e-reading, and look forward to what the digitization of publishing will mean to four major market forces: publishers, bookstores, authors and readers. As during any technological disruption, winners and losers trade fates until the upheaval settles and a new cycle of status quo begins.

Amazon is not the only bookstore represented in the scramble for new-era survival, but its major role has multiple dimensions: seller, publisher, enabler, inventor and primary instigator of disruption. Amazon is banking on being a winner, and was recently handed an advantage by the U.S. government in its uneasy relationship with publishers.

While industrial forces work their way through the dislocation of new paradigms, individuals — both book consumers and book authors — stand to be the biggest winners, and that is a good thing.

Continue reading Editorial: Bring on the digital overthrow of publishing

Filed under: Handhelds, Tablets, Wireless, Amazon

Editorial: Bring on the digital overthrow of publishing originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Oct 2012 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve arrived at another Friday evening, which means that the weekend lies ahead. Today, as many of you probably already know, was the one-year anniversary of the passing of Steve Jobs. Apple paid tribute to Jobs in a new video released today, and it was announced that three modified MacBook Pros will be auctioned off in memory of Jobs. On the lighter side of things, Lenovo is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the ThinkPad with a look back through time, and Samsung’s profits for Q3 2013 managed to break company records (not an easy thing to do, considering how popular Samsung is).

The LG Nexus G has been tipped for a reveal later this month, and it looks like problems with component yields might mean that we’re headed for iPad Mini shortages (assuming the rumored tablet actually exists, of course). The Kindle Paperwhite has officially been jailbroken, and Rovio was spotted teasing a new Star Wars–Angry Birds tie-in earlier today, leaving us to wonder what’s in the pipeline. Sprint might be looking to rain on T-Mobile’s MetroPCS parade, and Anonymous is at it again, this time bringing down government sites in Sweden in the name of The Pirate Bay and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Wii U pre-orders are hard to find these days, but provided you’ve got the cash to burn, you can pick one up on eBay. iPhone cases were popping up left and right today, like this Loop Mummy case for the iPhone 4/4S and these Moshi cases for the iPhone 5. Xi3 has gone to Kickstarter to fund its new X3A and X7A modular computers, and one analyst is saying that HP’s stock should be worth negative $2. Ubisoft gave us a brand new ZombiU development diary, and we heard that increased iPhone 5 quality demands led to a strike at a Foxconn factory in China today.

New algorithms may eventually lead to cell phones that charge twice as fast, while NASA explained why Curiosity is collecting dirt from the surface of Mars. Motorola has managed to fight off Microsoft in a patent dispute over in Germany, while astronomers say they’ve discovered a new star circling a black hole at the center of our galaxy. Pokemon Black and White 2 launch in the US this Sunday (are you ready to be the best?) and we found out today that New Zealand authorities may have been spying on Kim Dotcom much earlier than they’ve admitted.

Finally tonight, we have quite a few original articles to share with you. Don Reisinger asks if Bill Gates will be remembered in the same way as Steve Jobs when he’s gone, Chris Burns explains why the iPad Mini will be free when it launches and what the iPad Mini needs to fix when it comes to Apple tablets, and Chris Davies has a review of the Synology DS213air NAS. That does it for tonight’s evening wrap-up – we hope you have a fun weekend!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: October 5, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you happened to get your hands on a Kindle Paperwhite before they eventually sold out, you’re definitely one of the lucky ones. You also might be happy to know that a jailbreak was discovered for the device, so if you’re feeling adventurous and enjoy taking risks, this might be something that you’re interested in.

The Kindle Paperwhite has only been available for a few days now, and there’s already a jailbreak for it. Then again, it seems that hackers were able to break into it pretty easily from the looks of things. It turns out the exploit is similar to the hack that was initiated on the Kindle Touch, so half the battle was already complete.

Installation is quite easy as well. It only requires you to upload a certain file to the root directory of the Kindle Paperwhite and then restart the device. When it boots up again, your Paperwhite should be completely jailbroken. From here, you can do a lot of cool things that you normally wouldn’t be able to do, including displaying different information like the weather, or hooking it up to a Raspberry Pi for some extended fun.

Despite how easy this certain jailbreak works, we obviously want to warn you that jailbreaking anything is only for the faint of heart, so if you’re not sure you have the capabilities or even the guts to do such a thing, it’s probably best to just let it be. If you’re giving yourself the green light, just be aware that there’s always a chance of bricking your device no matter how experienced you are — things just happen in mysterious ways. Good luck!

[via Hack A Day]

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite can now be jailbroken is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Amazon apparently underestimated the success of its newest e-reader. The company just updated its shipping estimate, pushing back the delivery date to four to six weeks after ordering. Both models, with or without 3G, are experiencing the same delay. And it’s no surprise — the device is more than an incremental improvement.

With a new lighting system, a screen with a higher resolution and a more responsive touch interface, the Kindle Paperwhite has enough new features to convince new buyers as well as existing Kindle owners. After using the device for a few days, our own John Biggs qualified it as a reader’s dream.

Yet, one of the major improvement over past Kindle models is that the screen is now a traditional, more responsive capacitive touch screen instead of an infrared-based screen. Navigating the interface or even just turning a page is therefore much quicker.

Amazon now refines its e-reader flagship device every year in order to integrate the latest E Ink technologies while perfecting the overall user experience. While the Kindle Touch was the first touch-based Kindle, it was very slow for many users who opted for the simpler and cheaper Kindle model with traditional buttons.

With the new screen and the notable improvements in responsiveness, customers seem to have responded unambiguously. Even though Amazon’s supply chain isn’t as efficient as other successful companies, such as Apple, the shipping estimate news should be considered a good sign for the Kindle ecosystem. If Amazon’s success continues with its e-readers, the company should stay committed to the e-book space.

[via Me and My Kindle]