Amazon has taken the wraps off of a new development kit (KDK – “Kindle Development Kit”) for active content on the Kindle. Translation: apps and games are coming to the world’s most popular ebook reader.

A beta is expected to begin for use of the KDK in February, when select software designers will be allowed to try their hand at creating interactive content for the Kindle. Amazon envisions this as an opportunity for developers to deliver something more than reading material. Handmark is already working on an interactive Zagat Guide, for example, and Sonic Boom is creating word games and crossword …read more

One of the items on my Christmas wish list for last year was an Amazon Kindle. I still don’t have one, and probably for the better because they’ve come out with a larger format version in the Kindle DX. Now there’s another player in the market with Barnes & Noble releasing their eBook reader, the Nook.

The images above are not to scale of each other, but the center image is the Kindle DX which you can tell is much larger, just using the scale of the person’s hands (that is unless that got some tiny person to use as …read more

Every company regardless of industry has their own cash cow product that propel their organization to the next level. Nike have their Jordan sneakers, Microsoft has windows, Google has their search engine, Hasbro has the Monopoly board game and the list goes on.

Amazon is a company built by Jeff Bezos named on the Amazon river which means they would carry everything on the planet. They launched their company on books but later on ventured on every possible item they can sell off the internet. Most companies start with a cash cow item and diversify but with Amazon it is the …read more

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the world’s biggest bricks-and-mortar bookseller, Barnes & Noble, is planning to take on Amazon.com in the ebook market with the pending release of its own B&N branded ereader device. Kindle, look out. You may finally be getting some serious competition.

Does Barnes & Noble have what it takes to take down the Kindle? If anyone can, it’s B&N, because they’ve definitely got the library of titles to supply an ereader device with the ebooks it needs to stay relevant. What will it take to really challenge the Kindle’s dominance? A superior device …read more

Amazon has just announced another price drop for the Kindle 2, bringing the device down from $299 to $259. Amazon is also adding a new device to the Kindle family — which includes the Kindle 2 and the more recent Kindle DX with its larger reading screen. The newcomer is the Kindle with U.S. & International Wireless, which is available for pre-order now at $279, and will ship on October 19th.

The $40 price drop follows a similar cut back in July that brought the then-$359 device down to $299, a number many analysts expected to place it at a more …read more

When the blessed Steve Jobs descends from on high to impart his world-changing Apple touchpad computing device upon us mere mortals, we all know it’s going to be revolutionary. But we didn’t know how revolutionary until now.

Gizmodo is reporting insider information that the iPad will do a lot more than surf the web and run iPhone apps. Apple is looking to take on Amazon’s Kindle, too — and redefine what an ebook is. A big push of the iPad will be into the arena of college textbooks, where Apple believes it can present a more appealing opportunity to textbook publishers …read more

The market for ebook readers grows daily, thanks to the success of Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s eReader, and now inexpensive tech maker Asus is preparing to enter the market with its own device. Here’s the twist: Asus plans to deliver more bang for the buck — at about half the price of Amazon and Sony’s products.

How they’re going to manage that remains a mystery, but Asus “Eee Reader” is said to have not one but two screens, both with full color displays (the Kindle and eReader both use e-ink that’s black & white only), built-in WiFi for surfing the Web, …read more

Amazon Kindle is an awesome device that allowed users to store tens of books at a time on it’s device. I have been contemplating on buying Kindle for the longest time but since the wireless capabilities doesn’t apply in the Philippines, I have been holding off on buying this device.

Although, I have noticed my book shelf has dramatically crowded over the past year, I am feeling good on getting a Kindle for myself. Another great case for buying Kindle other than stop crowding my bookshelf is the environmental impact the gadget brings.
According to the study conducted by Cleantech …read more

Sony is dropping its own proprietary ebook format in favor of the open source ePub format, in a bid to take on Amazon’s dominance of the ebook market. Sounds kind of like the digital music industry trying to keep up with Apple’s iTunes, doesn’t it?

The ePub format was created by a consortium of major publishers, including Random House and HarperCollins. Sony will adopt the ePub format for all of its ebook readers — existing and new. The format is an attempt by publishers to create a single ebook format that will work across any number of reading devices, unlike Amazon’s …read more

It was right out of Orwell’s novel 1984, when Big Brother (aka Amazon.com in this instance) without warning its customers, erased the books Animal Farm and 1984 from its Kindle ebook inventory. And from the Kindle devices of those who’d paid for the books as well.
Oh, didn’t you know? They can do that. (Continues below image.)

The problem stemmed from the fact that one of Amazon’s digital publishers, a company called MobileReference, had placed the two books for sale on Amazon, without actually owning the rights to do so. When they were notified of the copyright violation, Amazon took the extreme …read more