Samuel Borgese was recently featured on The New York Times, as part of a story that points out how gadget makers in the US seem less inclined to help out owners of stolen who don’t want thieves to profit. Borgese’s brilliant idea? When someone registers a second-hand gadget, the maker should send an email to the original owner, asking them to confirm that they indeed sold the gadget.
This idea probably won’t work for gadgets not tied to a specific service. But for items like Amazon’s Kindle, where users need to be properly registered so that they can buy books for …read more

Yes, it’s amazing that Amazon can remotely delete customers’ books, and hide behind a prompt refund.
What’s even more amazing is a student is willing to go through the trouble of suing Amazon over this (the company deleted his copy of 1984, which he needed to finish homework) to “set a precedent”. Not for money in other words, but to make the courts declare remote control of paid merchandise illegal.
I’m suddenly glad the Kindle never tempted me too much. Then again, I’ve also started worrying about my Steam games collection, which of course is subject to Valve’s control.

So people are saying that the iPhone Kindle app, which more or less provides the same ebook reading functionality on Apple’s smartphone, will kill the Kindle. Makes sense actually. After all, why spend $360 on a gadget that can only do one thing, when you can spend roughly the same for a smartphone that multi-tasks? This argument appeals especially to die-hard fans of the Apple “experience”.
At the same time however, I can tell you that reading text on a backlit display strains the eyes. The e-ink of Amazon’s Kindle, on the other hand, is easy on the optics. That’s still …read more

So yes, Amazon launched yesterday a 9.7″ version of the Kindle, named the Kindle DX. I think:
Geeks would want to hear about the specs – The Kindle DX features a 9.7″ display, with a resolution of 1200 x 824 pixels, and an estimated 4.5GB (3,500 books) of internal storage. The DX is the first Kindle with an accelerometer; pages will rotate between landscape and portrait automatically depending on the device is held.
Newspapers must be praying that the Kindle DX is a success – The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and The Washington Post must be thinking: Oh wow! A …read more

One benefit of e-ink is the fact that shining a light on it is enough to make low-light reading possible. That’s a reality exploited by the Periscope Lighted Folio for Kindle 2, which is basically a folio (well, duh!) with space for a notepad, pens, a swiveling twin LED light, and of course, a Kindle 2. That’s all for $50.
The Periscope Lighted Folio also has space for 3 “AA” batteries, which—as claimed by maker Periscope—can power the LED light for 40 hours or more. Periscope also made sure to highlight its Folio’s magnetic lock feature, which allows the user to …read more

Looks like the Kindle 2’s ability to read out spoken text is causing concern for the copyright holders of—what else?—books:
Some publishers and agents expressed concern over a new, experimental feature that reads text aloud with a computer-generated voice.
“They don’t have the right to read a book out loud,” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. “That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.”
The reply of Amazon available to those who continue.

Now that the rumored price is out of the way—as well as the rumor that the February 24, 2009 release will kickoff with a launch sale, continue reading to see an entire gallery of apparently intentionally-leaked marketing pics.