KINDLE FIRE STOPS BLOCKING ANDROID MARKET

Some of you may have noticed, when perusing the interwebs on your Kindle Fire, that a certain Google-branded Market refused to load in the slate's Silk browser. In fact, it automatically redirected you to the Amazon App store in an unsettling bit of URL hijacking. Well, with the latest update to the tablet, that slightly befuddling restriction has been lifted and the questionable behavior rectified. Presumably this was originally intended to save customers confusion and support staff headaches when trying to install an app from the Android Market failed. But, actually intercepting and redirecting a user isn't becoming of a company that expects us to trust it with our data -- especially our browsing and financial info. Thankfully now, you can visit the Market in all its glory on your Fire, just don't expect to install apps from it any time soon

KINDLE FIRE GETS ROOTED IN ONE DAY

Android Forum contributor "death2all110" has posted instructions on how to root the just launched Kindle Fire by Amazon. The procedure seems relatively straightforward, requiring only a copy of SuperOneClick 2.2, an Android SDK, and a bit of hacktastic know-how. For the full instructions click here.

AMAZON BRINGING 400 MAGAZINES AND NEWSAPERS TO FIRE ALONG WITH "THOUSANDS" OF APPS

Last week Amazon announced they would be bringing Facebook, Hulu and "several thousand" other apps to their upcoming Kindle Fire tablet. Now, they are announcing that more than 400 "full-color" titles will be available on the Kindle Fire Newsstand, including Us Weekly, The New Yorker and Reader's Digest, among others. Users who subscriber before March 1st, meanwhile, will be able to access a full 17 Condé Nast titles for free, as part of a three-month offer.

AMAZON CHANGES KINDLE FIRE ROADMAP

Amazon’s follow up to the Kindle Fire tablet may feature an 8.9-inch touchscreen display rather than the 10-inch panel we have been expecting. According to a new report from DigiTimes, Amazon has introduced a third tablet into its roadmap and it is now scheduled to launch ahead of the 10-inch model, or even in place of the large-form slate. The site’s sources claim Chunghwa Picture Tubes and LG Display, Amazon’s display suppliers, have already begun to prepare for production of the 8.9-inch panels.

AMAZON PRIME MEMBERS GET NEW LENDING LIBRARY

Amazon's home page has a new message for Prime members from CEO Jeff Bezos, indicating that their membership plan has a new bonus: free books. The Kindle Owners Lending Library service offers up to one book per month from a selection of thousands of titles, including "over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers" with no due dates. That's in addition to the free two-day shipping and access to TV shows and movies offered through Prime Instant Video as a part of the $79/year package.

AMAZON ORDERS MILLIONS MORE KINDLE FIRES TO MEET UNEXPECTED DEMAND

Two weeks ago, more than a quarter million had been added to Amazon shopping carts — and during the company’s Q3 2011 earnings report, CEO Jeff Bezos made it clear that the early sales had exceeded expectations. Bezos announced that Amazon would be ramping up production to produce “millions more” of the Kindle Fire to meet the obviously strong public demand. If reports about Amazon’s initial order — which pegged the first run of the Kindle Fire at 5 million units — were accurate, the company is clearly anticipating moving the tablets at an iPad-like pace.

AMAZON UNVEILS NEW TABLET AND TOUCHSCREEN E-READERS

Amazon this morning launched new touchscreen e-readers as well as the much talked about Kindle Fire tablet. The readers will use infrared touch, which puts an infrared touch screen over e-ink. The screens appear to be roughly the same size as the current crop of Kindle e-readers. The e-readers will come in three flavors, two having touchscreens. The 3G will be $149, the WiFi only will be $99 and the non-touch version will be $79. According to an Amazon rep these prices are for the ad supported versions and the Wifi only and non-touch version without ads will be $149 and $109 respectively.

In addition to the new e-readers, a software update was also announced. Some of the new features include X-ray, which allows users to quickly look up words, get character synopsis and location information directly from the ebook. WhisperSync was also beefed to make it quicker.

Finally, Jeff Bezos unveiled the Kindle Fire. The Fire is Amazon's new 7" IPS touchscreen tablet that runs a customized version of the Android OS. It has a dual core processor, weighs 14.6 ounces and comes with free Amazon cloud storage. The browser for the Fire will be the Amazon Silk which is a new hybrid browser with part residing on the tablet and the other part on the cloud server. The Fire will retail for $199.

No mention was made on the rumored 10" tablet Amazon is expected to unveil sometime in the first quarter of 2012.

AMAZON CALLS PRESS CONFERENCE FOR SEPTEMBER 28TH; ANNOUNCEMENT OF TABLET EXPECTED

Amazon's been cooking something in a supposed Android-based oven for quite some rumored time. Now, an invite has gone out from the Bezos-backed company for an event on the 28th of this month at 10AM. Will the e-retailer officially announce a pair of 7- and 10-inch Kindle refreshes we've heard about, or is this the heavily-skinned Android tab that TechCrunch got its hands-on earlier this month?

AMAZON KINDLE LIBRARY LENDING LAUNCHES

Amazon’s Kindle Library Lending service, first announced in April, is now live in the United States. The service allows Kindle users to borrow eBooks from more than 11,000 participating libraries across the country. Here’s how it works: simply visit the website of a U.S. library with support for OverDrive and then, provided you have a library card, check out a Kindle book by clicking “Get for Kindle.” The eBook will then be delivered to your Kindle via Wi-Fi or USB. Library Lending is supported on any device that has Amazon’s Kindle application installed, which means it is available for multiple platforms including the PC, Android, iOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone. There are no limitations to titles borrowed from a library, and users can still view real page numbers and synchronize notes, highlights and more across multiple devices.

RUMOR: AMAZON LAUNCHING NETFLIX STYLE SERVICE FOR EBOOKS

Details are still sketchy here, but the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Amazon's looking to launch a Netflix-like subscription service for digital books, much to the chagrin of some publishers. According to unnamed sources familiar with the matter, Amazon is currently "in talks" with several publishers about the program, which would provide access to an online library in exchange for an unspecified annual fee. The insiders also claim that the service would be available for Amazon Prime subscribers (who currently pay $79 per year for free shipping and access to shows and movies) and that the proposed library would feature primarily older works, with monthly restrictions on the number of books a subscriber could read for free. Publishers would reportedly pocket a "substantial fee" for signing on to the program, though some are reluctant to participate, for fear that doing so would "downgrade the value of the book business," according to one publishing exec.

BARNES & NOBLE ANNOUNCES NEW NOOK eREADER

Barnes & Noble on Tuesday unveiled its all new NOOK eBook reader, and to say it’s an improvement over the previous-generation model is an understatement. This new version replaces the older greyscale model, not the still-young NOOK color, and it features a major improvement we probably all saw coming… a touchscreen.

The eReader sports an on-screen keyboard and it also allows readers to look up words or take notes with simple taps on the beautiful E Ink display. The new NOOK features just one button compared to the Kindle’s 38, which obviously simplifies the user experience significantly. More importantly, the new NOOK can last up to two months on a single charge, double the battery life of Amazon’s Kindle.

Other nifty features include a new proprietary dissolve transition that takes readers from one page to the next, and social media integration that allows users to share recommendations via Twitter, Facebook and more. Of course the new eReader also features Wi-Fi connectivity and owners can enjoy free hotspot access at all Barnes & Noble stores as well as every AT&T hotspot across the country. The new NOOK will retail for $139.99 when it becomes available on June 10th from Barnes & Noble, Best Buy and more.

RUMOR: AMAZON TABLET SHIPPING LATER THIS YEAR

We've got a pretty good inkling that it's coming, the big question is when will Amazon finally ship an LCD tablet. According to DigiTimes, and its occasionally trusty sources at upstream component makers, whenis defined by the second half of 2011.

What's more, the media tablet will feature a Fringe Field Switching LCD display and touch panel from Amazon fave E Ink Holdings, a company better known for the technology behind the Kindle's EPD e-paper displays. According to DigiTimes, Quanta has received the manufacturing honors with production expected to peak at about 700,000 - 800,000 units per month. So yeah, the Amazon Kindle tablet won't be sporting a Mirasol display according to this gossip.

AMAZON LAUNCHING KINDLE LIBRARY LENDING

On Wednesday, Amazon announced that its Kindle customers will soon be able to borrow eBooks from more than 11,000 U.S. libraries. Amazon’s Kindle Library Lending project will allow users to check out eBooks from local libraries and then read them on the Kindle or any device that has Amazon’s free eReader software installed.

Unlike traditional libraries, which don’t allow borrowers to write in books, they can take notes and highlight as much as they like. “We’re doing a little something extra here,” said Jay Marine, director of Amazon Kindle. “Normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no. But we’re extending our Whispersync technology so that you can highlight and add margin notes to Kindle books you check out from your local library. Your notes will not show up when the next patron checks out the book. But if you check out the book again, or subsequently buy it, your notes will be there just as you left them, perfectly Whispersynced.”

Amazon is working with OverDrive on its Kindle Library Lending program, which it says will launch later this year.

RUMOR: AMAZON TABLET COMING THIS SUMMER

Amazon is said to be prepping a new tablet device that may launch as early as this summer. According to a report from gadget site gdgt, Amazon has chosen Samsung to help design and build the tablet, which may run Honeycomb or even a custom operating system based on Google’s Android platform. Rumors of an Amazon tablet have been around for quite some time, and Android was always expected to be Amazon’s OS of choice.

News that the company may be building its own OS on top of Android suggests it may forgo some of Google’s core Android services, possibly including the Android Marketplace, and instead use the device to foster adoption of the Amazon Appstore, Cloud Drive and other Amazon services. Of course eBooks — specifically, Amazon’s Kindle platform — are expected to be a major focus of the tablet as well, and Amazon will also likely use the new device to push its music and movie services.

Given the added weight and drastically reduced battery life of tablets compared to dedicated eBook readers like the Kindle, it is likely that Amazon’s forthcoming tablet will compliment the Kindle eReader rather than replace it.

JESSE JACKSON JR. BLAMES iPAD FOR HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT

You know how ebooks are gradually taking over paper books as the most popular format for the consumption of the written word? Well, that's bad, mmkay? Publishers, librarians, and booksellers are losing their jobs and It's all entirely the iPad's fault. Forget the Kindle's millions of sales, the iPad did it. In a technophobic rant to rival all technophobic rants that have come before it, Illinois Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. accuses the iPad's popularity for the current level of unemployment in his nation, before proceeding to sculpt a rickety argument about how the First Amendment to the US Constitution is being exploited for the benefit of China. Check out the spectacle for yourself:

AUDIBLE AUDIOBOOKS NOW AVAILABLE VIA WIFI

Audible has just announced that over 50,000 of its audiobooks are now available to download directly onto Kindles everywhere through WiFi. Granted, that's still one step away (3G) from being as good as it could possibly get, but it's still a tremendous improvement over the tried-and-true USB sideloading method. For those looking to get started for the first time, the outfit's offering a 30-day free trial of AudibleListener Gold.

RUMOR: AMAZON MAKING AN ANDROID POWERED COLOR KINDLE

There is an interesting idea presented in a post over at the New York Times blog system, talking about the fact that Amazon has posted five new job openings, looking for Android devs. The most notable thing is that the job listings are inside "Lab 126", which is the division of Amazon that is responsible for making the Kindle itself.

This begs the question of course, is Amazon gearing up to compete with the Nook Color, and present the market place with another quality low cost tablet? Or are they simply beefing up their staff to bring some changes to it's Kindle app on the Android platform? But, five devs seems like an awful lot.

BORDER'S TO FILE FOR BANKRUPTCY

Borders Group, Inc. is finishing up preparations for a bankruptcy filing, according to "people familiar with the matter." The company's financial troubles have been no secret as of late, and those same people familiar with such matters say that the filing could come as early as next Monday, which will be followed by the closure of roughly 200 of its brick and mortar stores, and plenty of job losses. Borders has struggled with its digital presence, including its lack of e-reader (the Kobo partnership came pretty late in the game and isn't really on the same level as Barnes and Noble's Nook or Amazon's Kindle), and its failure to snag a significant market share of online sales. The people familiar with the matter caution that the filing could be delayed by a few days, however, so we'll have to sit on the edges of our seats until sometime next week, probably. Hit the source for more financial details.

KINDLE SOFTWARE UPDATE GETS PAGE NUMBERS AND PUBLIC NOTES

It'll still be at least a few more days before it's automatically pushed out to Kindles around the world, but those looking to get a jump on things can now download an "early preview" of software update version 3.1 for the latest generation Kindle. That update adds a new public notes feature that lets you share your notes with others and view the notes of those you follow, as well as real page numbers that match the page numbers in the print version of a book -- those have already been added to "tens of thousands of Kindle books," and will also be hitting the various Kindle apps in the "coming months." You'll also get a new layout for magazines and newspapers that gives you a quick snapshot of the latest edition, and a new "before you go" feature that lets you rate a book as soon as you've finished it and share a brief note about it on your social networks. [Engadget]

KINDLE EBOOK LENDING CLUB LAUNCHED

A new startup called the Kindle Lending Club has launched in beta this week, aiming to make it easier for Kindle users to take advantage of the new options to loan and borrow their e-books.

The Kindle Lending Club is the brainchild of Catherine MacDonald, who said that when she heard Amazon announce on December 30 that it was finally adding a lending option for Kindle, she decided to set up a Facebook group - a way to help people find others who were willing to share their e-books. But as interesting in the group exploded, MacDonald realized that Facebook just didn't offer the scalability needed for such an undertaking. "I had no idea how viral the idea was," she says.

So in less than two weeks' time, she has pulled together the resources - about $12,500 in angel investment and a Web development team - to launch the Kindle Lending Club.

MacDonald's background is in project management, something evident in the speed and decisiveness with which she's moved forward to launch this startup. But as she notes, there is a huge interest among Kindle users in this sort of undertaking, and the 4800-some-odd members of the Facebook group have given her a great place to work on the customer development and to build a product with avid Kindle readers in mind.

Both sharing and borrowing is free through the Kindle Lending Club. You can browse for the titles that other users have made available, and you can make available the books you're willing to lend. The site simply matches borrowers and lenders. The rest of the Kindle lending rules stay in place: the loan is for 14 days. You can't read a title while it's on loan to someone else. And you can only loan a title once.

It's up to publishers to decide whether or not their titles can be available for lending (and none of the books in my Kindle library are eligible, if that's any indication of how publishers have decided). Nonetheless, even though the selection of books to lend may be limited, this doesn't seem to have dampened the interest and excitement in lending and borrowing.

Since the public beta opened on Friday, 786 users have joined the Kindle Lending Club and they've listed almost 2000 books that they're willing to offer to loan. 669 borrow requests have been made and 286 e-books have been loaned.

That it took almost three years for the Kindle to add a lending option is an indication of the reluctance of Amazon - or more accurately, perhaps, publishers - to allow lending. Some have argued that loosening restrictions around the transfer of digital copies will mean a loss of book sales; but it isn't really clear that that's always the case. As people run out of time to finish a book they've borrowed or as they grow tired of waiting in line for the next available copy of a popular book, they might just opt to purchase it. That's what MacDonald hopes, in fact, as she's an Amazon Affiliate member and that program - a cut of the Amazon sales generated via links on the Kindle Lending Club site - is where the startup will get its revenue.

MacDonald says she hasn't heard anything from Amazon in response to the startup.
But the excitement it's generated from Kindle users - their willingness to share their books - points to a "renaissance of reading," argues MacDonald. And it would be a shame for Amazon to put an end to that. [ReadWriteWeb]