Hasta La Gadget!

It’s been one heck of a week for e-readers, with a new $139 touchscreen Nook in town and a $129 finger-friendly Kobo as well. What’s Amazon going to do about the newfound competition? Simply lower the price of its best-selling Kindle 3G to $164. Well, perhaps “lower” isn’t quite the right word, because you’ll simply be paying by different means: the new Kindle 3G with Special Offers will be the company’s second e-reader to feature built-in advertising. If you’re shy on cash, though, we suppose viewing a few ads is a small price to pay for cheaper Whispernet. PR after the break.

Continue reading Kindle 3G gets ad-supported $164 version, basically sells your eyeballs for a $25 discount

Kindle 3G gets ad-supported $164 version, basically sells your eyeballs for a $25 discount originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 May 2011 20:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Kindle has been a huge success, no doubt about that, but we are continually amazed at just how big a success it has become. Amazon too, apparently. The company just issued a press release to announce that digital book sales have now exceeded sales of all print titles, both hardcover and paperback combined. As of April 1st, for every 100 print books that Amazon has sold (of any kind) the company moved 105 Kindle books, and no that doesn’t include downloads of free titles. Also of note: the ad-supported reader that’s shipping for $114 is now selling more quickly than the normal, $139 version. Proof, then, that people will put up with more ads in more places for 25 bucks.

Continue reading Kindle books officially take over print sales at Amazon, pulp starts making retirement plans

Kindle books officially take over print sales at Amazon, pulp starts making retirement plans originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 May 2011 10:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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E Ink Holdings is brazenly making us wait until 2012 before producing a successor to its popular Pearl electronic paper display. One of the company’s VPs dropped into CNET‘s offices to spill the bad news: developing and testing a next-generation display “takes some time”, apparently, and it is sticking to a two year product cycle. Perhaps E Ink has shifted its focus to the LCD screen in Amazon’s rumoured tablet. Or maybe it’s still working on the Triton color e-ink display that left us so underwhelmed at CES. Either way, the monochrome Pearl has been knocking around in the Kindle and other e-readers for a while now and although it has better contrast than earlier iterations, it is still ripe for a revamp — especially a faster refresh rate. But the E Ink VP did hint at some brighter news: the next-gen display, when it does finally arrive, could sport full-motion video. So far e-ink video has failed to go beyond a slightly jittery 10-15fps, so full-motion 24fps or 30fps could definitely be worth the wait.

E Ink dashes hopes of a next gen display in 2011, but pencils in full-motion video for 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 May 2011 09:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Great news for people who love to read but wish the experience involved more advertising: an Amazon executive has announced the ad-supported Kindle, originally slated for a May 3 release, is going out to customers nearly a week early. Kindle with Special Offers, as it’s affectionately known, will ship out April 27, loaded with timely adverts from your favorite brands, including General Motors, Proctor & Gamble and Visa – those are your favorite brands, aren’t they? In exchange for sponsored screensavers and ads at the bottom of your home screen, you’ll get a latest generation WiFi-only Kindle for a only $114 – sorry, offer available in the US only. Act now, as Amazon promises it will never just give these away.

Ad-supported Kindle ships early, fans of grayscale advertising rejoice originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Apr 2011 06:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon’s Kindle has paper books beat in most respects, especially when it comes to not being made of paper. Having a Kindle also means you don’t need to go to the bookstore anymore, and soon enough you won’t need to go to the library either.

At some point in the not-too-distant future Amazon will be introducing a new library lending feature, which works just as it sounds. You can electronically borrow books from the library, using either your Kindle or any of the free Kindle apps for smartphones or tablets.

The service will only be available in the US, at least initially, and will feature support for over 11,000 different libraries. Your device even keeps track of your annotations and bookmarks, so if you decide to purchase the book or borrow it again, the information will still be there.

There’s no specific date for when the new feature will be implemented, but expect to see it later this year.