Kindle DX, or is it XL?

I had a serious Freudian slip this evening, I know I posted about a Kindle on Steroids the other day, and maybe that didn’t help. When I went to pull info together for this post I was searching for Kindle XL. OK, passing on from my seniors moment, all of the  DX action happened while I was tucked up in bed, and my introduction was a short email conversation amongst a few team members, and quite amusing really.

 

The major things you want to know are encapsulated in the  video, but a short round up of features goes something like:

• 9.7-inch E-Ink screen (1200 x 824 with 16 shades of grey)
• 1/3 of an inch thick (10.4" x 7.2" x 0.38")
• 4GB Storage for 3,500 books (a bump from 1,500)
• Unspecified but "long" battery life
• Native PDF support through built-in reader
• Automatic landscape/portrait text rotation
• Line length adjustments (determine the width of text on the screen)
• Navigation buttons moved to right side of screen only
• EVDO (of course) for 60-second book transfers

The price though is what is the most detrimental part of this super size, it has been super sized as well. The DX will set you back a whopping $489, oops did I hear the sound of jaws hitting the floor? So hit the link for some internal JAMM Banter as this happened, and the full press release…

Kindle On Steroids?

With the current downturn of the traditional newspaper,  as this short Blog post over at E-Commerce News highlights, “Will the Internet Kill Newspapers?” as more and more people turn to online solutions for their daily news needs. The burgeoning need for sales not at print level to maintain the growth of all major news providers, is becoming more dependent on online subscriptions via devices like the Kindle. It appears though that a lot of the major newspapers are happy with the way the Kindle, and many other e-readers in the same category, handle their content.

A few publishers are forging alliances with consumer-electronics firms to support e-readers that meet their needs. Chief among their complaints about the Amazon portable reading gadget is the way Amazon acts as a middleman with subscribers and controls pricing. In addition, the layout isn’t conducive to advertising

So not only is this about the Kindle, other players are stepping into the e-news arena, with digi-books!

Digital Discrimination! Deafened by an E-Reader!

Mobile tech is really a cross cultural, cross ability unifier. We able bodied users don’t often become aware of the hurdles that significantly differently abled tech users have to face, to use the same technology that us so called normal people use. {Caveat: using the term “normal”, to describe any member of the JAMM team, could be misconstrued as misleading, and does not refer to any of the former or current team members}.

Question: What good is an eBook reader to a blind person?

Answer: Really good if it has text to speech function enabled!

The Kindle can read your eBooks to you if you want. but there is a function that can be built into the actual eBook software that can disable the text to voice function. Why though would you even think of that. Hmmm, seems money comes into the equation. Apparently the eBook, and specifically the Kindle 2’s ability to vocalise a book, is a threat to the National Authors Guild.

Oh, Amazon, you don’t want this kind of publicity. Today in New York the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and its partners in the Reading Rights Coalition will protest outside the offices of the Authors Guild. Their goal is to reverse the Guild’s threat to disable text-to-speech from e-books for the Kindle 2.
It seems that when Amazon introduced the Kindle 2, it announced that it would be able to read e-books aloud, a boon for the vision-impaired. But the Authors Guild had a problem with that, and so Amazon announced that it would give authors or publishers the ability to disable text-to-speech.

I really can’t make sense of the story and all of the background, or the politics involved. It is all revolving around a fear of losing profits I suppose.

What doesn’t make sense though, is that authors don’t want more exposure, in any media they can be conveyed in! This is probably an example of hierarchy gone wrong, but I do believe the blind should hear! Crack the link below for more info!

 

Amazon Kindle Has the Blind Seeing Red – Gearlog

Bigger than the Kindle2, Amazon Kindle App 4 iPhone!

News of the moment, I knew there was a use for Twitter, all of a sudden about an hour ago, people started tweeting that there was a new app in the iTunes store. Apparently Amazon have released an application for the iPhone that let’s you sync your Kindle and iPhone, remembering what you where doing on the Kindle and making that accessible on the iPhone.

Let’s face it the Kindle and Kindle 2 are portable, but are not going to be convenient in every situation where you might want a quick read, so with this application and an iPhone/iPod Touch you can seamlessly read on on a much more portable piece of hardware.

What’s more it’s a free application that you can Download from the iTunes store [US Only at the moment]. The implications for the eBook industry are also incredible, considering the uptake of the iPhone over the last couple of years, you might not want a Kindle, but if you have an iPhone? You’ll have the same access to Kindle/amazon eBooks with this application.

I’m thinking this is a pretty business savvy move from Amazon, the giant just rolls on

Thanks @geehall1