Staples: Tablets And Kindles

Part of yesterday’s Tech Fondle Tour was a trip to Staples.

Ah, the Surface Pro! I thought it was too thick and too heavy. And also felt warm — as in battery heat from being on AC constantly. I didn’t do anything more than swipe at the home screen and peer at it to see if I could notice pixels. I couldn’t.

I looked for pixels because earlier at J&R I encountered some touchscreen PCs running Windows 8. And my god! The screen pixels were so prominent it made everything look fuzzy! Maybe that’s another reason PC sales are down. After being spoiled by tablet — and Retina — displays. new PC screens look terrible.

No eInk Kindle In China (Yet?)

It’s Friday. The rumored date for the introduction of the eInk Kindle in China.

China is 12 hours ahead from me, so it’s already well past business hours there at post time.

If there had been a Kindle introduction, it would have been splashed on their site’s front page. It’s not.

Click = big

Amazon already offers the Kindle software for iOS and Android as well as the desktop. So why would anyone in China even want an eInk device? It’d be just one more thing to carry.

I thought a Friday would be a weird day to introduce it. But China tends to do things differently.

Previously here:

Amazon To Introduce Kindle Paperwhite In China This Week

Amazon To Introduce Kindle Paperwhite In China This Week

According to Bolopad, Amazon China will introduce the Kindle Paperwhite for sale in China this week, starting on the 26th.

Google English: Listing price of 989 yuan the Kindle Paperwhite States is about 26

The rumored price is 989 yuan. To put that price into perspective, that’s generally the within range of a new iPad Mini clone from Ramos or Onda. And new seven-inch tablets in China hover around 499-699 yuan. That might make it a very hard sell especially if Amazon also intends to introduce the Android Kindle app too.

After the break, a screensnap of Kindle doing Chinese.

Memo To Scott Turow: Just STFU Already!

Turow on Amazon/Goodreads: This is how modern monopolies can be built

Amazon is buying Goodreads, its only sizable competitor for reader reviews and a site known for the depth and breadth of its users’ book recommendations.

I know you think a computer is sorta like a telegraph, Turow, because you also think Google Search is like a word processor’s Find command.

But are you so stupid that you can’t even parse the sentence you wrote?

The Amazon Phone Rumor Again

Amazon to use 4.7-inch screen for upcoming smartphone, say sources

An Amazon Phone makes sense only if Amazon intends to offer cellular service too, as an MVNO. Which is something both Apple and Google looked at but decided not to do.

Amazon could probably pull it off, given how they have actual customers — which Apple didn’t have pre-iPhone and which Google still doesn’t have.

Why a phone? Why not? It’s another way for Amazon to sell stuff to people. That’s why.

Amazon + Liquavista

Samsung Said to Be in Talks to Sell Liquavista to Amazon

Liquavista, founded in 2006, specializes in a type of display technology known as electrowetting, mostly used in electronic readers, a shrinking market that’s dominated by Amazon’s Kindle devices. Samsung has followed a shift in consumer preference to smartphones and tablets, which mainly use liquid-crystal displays, or LCDs.

This has been a rumor that’s now an upgraded rumor.

Liquavista would give Amazon a screen no one else has.

How about a color Kindle running rootable Android for $169? Game over for Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Sony.

Amazon would sell jillions of them as sunlight-friendly Android tablets. They wouldn’t much care if people bought them to root as tablets and never bought a Kindle book — because the people buying them are Amazon customers anyway and will always buy something. Such a device would also wipe out the low end tablet makers (Coby, Aluratek, etc.).

And let’s not forget the rumors of an Amazon phone.

Welcome To My 2006, Kindle Users!

Amazon launches “Send to Kindle” button for web publishers and WordPress blogs

Waaaaay back in 2006, having encountered the newly-released Sony Reader, I wrote:

4) “Sitecasting” and “Blogcasting.” I made this one up. But think of it. Imagine, each week or two, blogs issuing a compilation of what they’ve published during that time in Reader format. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’d love to see that done for sites that publish a lot each day, such as JK on the Run, Teleread, and Palm Addicts. For sites that offer reviews (such as The Gadgeteer), a compilation of just that material could be offered. I think “blogcasts” could offer people a better way to sample more blogs than sitting at a PC and flailing away with search engines and links. I always feel pressured sitting at a PC. Sitting back with the Reader will allow me to read sites and blogs more. Along with all of the RSS, XML, digg, and other such icons now on sites, I’d like to see a new one added. One that in effect says, “Put this site on my Sony Reader.”

Well, we’re still not there (although the dotEPUB plug-in and similar ones are great) but this Send To Kindle feature is a good start.

I even jumped the gun on it by offering a few long posts here as ePub files.

Right now, the Send To Kindle feature is for self-hosted WordPress blogs. I’ve emailed WordPress Support to find out if there’s any chatter about offering it here at free WordPress. If it’s made available (and I think it will be), I’ll add it to this blog.

Amazon Best-Sellerdom Ain’t All That

My Amazon bestseller made me nothing

This past summer, my novel, “Broken Piano for President,” shot to the top of the best-seller lists for a week. After Jack Daniel’s sent me a ridiculously polite cease and desist letter, the story went viral and was featured in places like Forbes, Time magazine and NPR’s Weekend Edition. The New Yorker wrote one whole, entire, punctuated-and-everything sentence about me! My book was the No. 6 bestselling title in America for a while, right behind all the different “50 Shades of Grey” and “Gone Girl.” It was selling more copies than “Hunger Games” and “Bossypants.” So, I can sort of see why people thought I was going to start wearing monogrammed silk pajamas and smoking a pipe.

Yeah, I remember that. It was a huge story.

So what did he make?

Kindle Book Freemageddon

I had been wondering if it would affect them. Now I know:

Dear Readers!! Starting today there will be a mix of Free Kindle Books and $0.99 books will be listed due to Amazon's change in policy.—
Free Daily eBooks (@freedailybooks) March 01, 2013

Additional:

Amazon May Have Just Killed Free Kindle eBook Promotions

Why Amazon Coins?

Introducing Amazon Coins

Coming in May, Amazon Coins is a new virtual currency for purchasing apps, games, and in-app items on Kindle Fire

Amazon Coins is an easy way for Kindle Fire customers to spend money on developers’ apps in the Amazon Appstore, offering app and game developers another substantial opportunity to drive traffic, downloads and increase monetization even further

Amazon will give customers tens of millions of dollars’ worth of Amazon Coins to use on developers’ apps in the Amazon Appstore—apps and games must be submitted and approved by April 25 to be ready when Amazon Coins arrive in customers’ accounts

I’m scratching my head over this one.

The only thing I see mentioned over and over is the Kindle Fire. So this is a “currency” exclusive to that device? Even if it is, it still makes no sense.

Amazon will give customers tens of millions of dollars’ worth of free Amazon Coins to spend on developers’ apps on Kindle Fire in the Amazon Appstore

I still don’t get it. Does Amazon expect this to goose Kindle Fire sales? Have sales collapsed that much since the iPad Mini?

Update: Looking at the FAQ reveals this screwy sentence:

Apps and games that are available for sale on both Android and Kindle Fire, will also be purchasable with Amazon Coins.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Huh? What? Does this mean any Android device with the Amazon Apptore app? If so, this makes even less sense now. Maybe those Kindle Fire sales have completely tanked and Amazon is desperate to get all Android users to shop at its store?