Just weeks after lowering the price of the Kindle e-book reader from $259 to $189, Amazon unveiled a fully revamped Kindle on Wednesday. It’s sleeker, better looking, easier on the eyes — and starts at $139.

This new Kindle, Amazon’s third generation, is smaller by 21 percent, and 15 percent lighter too. It has much improved contrast, 50 percent better than before, answering a significant complaint among dead-tree purists who compared the device’s e-ink screen unfavorably to real paper. It’s available in two colors: graphite and white.

Read the full story on MSNBC

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• Amazon unveils sleek third-generation Kindle (macworld.com)
• Amazon launches a new Kindle, with modest improvements (blogs.consumerreports.org)

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The ads were directed by Angela Kohler, the winner of a contest run by Amazon last year. And the fact that they are running in very expensive time slots suggests that Amazon is trying as best it can to drown the loud, insistent and, who knows, magical footsteps of the iPad.

Source: Cnet

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Amazon.com has announced “Kindle for BlackBerry”, an app for select BlackBerrys. The app will enable users to access over 400,000 Kindle books on their phones. This app can be downloaded for free from Amazon.

Just like its online version, this mobile app automatically synchronizes your last page read and annotations between devices with Whispersync. You can also create bookmarks and view the annotations you created on your Kindle, computer, or other Kindle-compatible mobile device.

The BlackBerry models that support this app include Bold 9000, Bold 9700, Curve 8520, Curve 8900, Storm 9530, Storm 9550 and Tour 9630.

However Kindle for BlackBerry is available to U.S. customers only, at least for now.

Source: TechTree

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• Kindle for BlackBerry becomes available, now with more squinting (mobilecrunch.com)

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In the matchup between the iPad and the Kindle, some say it’s game over for Amazon’s e-Reader. But according to industry watchers, it’s still only the first quarter.

In Amazon’s earnings release, Bezos threw a spotlight on the “millions of people” who own the e-Reader, adding, “When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books.”

But when asked about competition from new devices during Amazon’s earnings call, CFO Tom Szkutak would only say, “We believe that readers deserve to have a dedicated device.”

Meanwhile Amazon is not lying idle with its technology. The company is in the process of buying touch-screen technology startup, Touchco, according to reports from The New York Times. The acquisition could mean touch capability in a future generation of the Kindle.

Job openings at Amazon’s hardware division, Lab126, offer further evidence of plans to upgrade the device. More than half of the 50 positions were posted within the past month, while a listing for a “Hardware display manager” reads, “You will know the LCD business and key players in the market.”

Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney also sees improvements like color and touch functionality in Kindle’s future, as well as a drop in price. “The price of e-Readers has to come down over time and so far they have,” he says. And despite pressures from the publishing community, Mahaney still sees flexibility in e-Book pricing, wherein Amazon could use profits on bestsellers to slash prices on other books.

Read the full story on CNN Money

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In a move to possibly trump a major feature of the new Apple iPad, Amazon recently acquired Touchco, which focuses on developing touch-screen technology. This may lead Kindle into an entirely new display system, user friendly for, among other things, reference materials, entertainment functions, and color displays. (NYT 4 Feb 2010).

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While most of the e-reader buzz of late revolves around Apple’s iPad device entry into the competition (see, e.g., iPad Could Threaten Sales of Other Devices in TechNewsdaily 29 Jan 2010), the publishing part of the equation is also in play.

Several days ago Amazon blinked & accepted terms dictated by Macmillan re raising the price on its books (At Amazon, Giving in to Demands NYT 1 Feb 2010).
Today Kindle announced the offering of “Elements” and “Shorts”, severely abridged 1,000-2,000 word books and 5,000 word original texts for $1.99 and $2.99, aiming these writings at a professional audience averse to reading full length works. Barnes & Noble also offers this new format for the busy business person.

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TUAW has a review comparing the iPad to the Kindle. Here are some of the highlights:
First off, if you were thinking of buying a Kindle DX, I’d say forget it. The iPad is a knockout punch to that device. At just ten dollars cheaper than the low end iPad, there just is no contest. The two devices are the same size (both are 9.7″), but the iPad has a color screen and can do a lot of things that Kindle just can’t do.
…
OK, on to the standard issue Kindle at U.S. $259.00. This decision is a bit trickier. It’s about half the cost of the low end iPad, has a smaller screen, but does have built in no-charge 3G. That’s mainly for buying books, as web browsing is pretty painful. Once again, books seem a bit cheaper on the Kindle at this stage, but I’ve noticed prices creeping up. Battery life with wireless off is about 2 weeks, and the iPad can never touch that.

For the immediate future, Amazon has far more books on offer, but that will likely change over time. If you have the smaller Kindle, I would not have anxiety about the iPad if you are mainly a reader. If you have the DX, I’d feel a bit queasy.
…
In the short term, these gradual changes will be invisible, and I’ll happily keep using my Kindle. In the long term, devices like the iPad will win us over and evolve our relationship with our media, just as the iPod did.

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After months of anticipation Barnes and Noble’s Nook has finally arrived. Though touted as the Kindle slayer it ends up being much more like its competition from Amazon. Both electronic book readers, the Kindle and the Nook are very similar in their looks. However, the Nook has a few features that the Kindle does not.

However, the Nook’s extra features do not make up for a glaring lack of speed. From opening a book, to turning the pages, the Nook is much slower than the Kindle. When starting Amazon’s Kindle 2, their current version, from pushing the power button to the point you can start reading is less than five seconds. In comparison, the Nook after pushing the power button made you wait almost 2 minutes before you could start reading. That huge difference is one that Barnes and Noble will need to address in future software updates for its Nook.

Read the full review on Associated Content

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Checks within Apple’s supply chain have led to a new round of tablet-related rumors from one analyst, who believes the device will launch in March or April of 2010 with a 10.1-inch LCD screen.

Yair Reiner, analyst with Oppenheimer, revealed his latest tablet news in a note to investors issued Wednesday morning. He also said that Apple has been reaching out to book publishers with a “very attractive proposal” for offering content on a forthcoming ebook platform.

Reiner believes the tablet could provide an additional 50 cents to 75 cents in earnings per share for AAPL stock.

The launch of a tablet PC could do measurable damage to Amazon’s Kindle e-reader. That’s because the BMO analyst forecasts that Apple could sell 1 million to 1.5 million units, grabbing about 20 percent of the e-reader market and roughly 3 percent of the netbook market.

Could the Apple Tablet kill the Kindle and Nook?

Source: Apple Insider and Redherring

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E-book sharing offers one of the more intriguing differences between the Amazon Kindle and the Nook from Barnes & Noble — and, it turns out, a chance for Jeff Bezos to critique the upstart. After telling an interviewer for the NYT magazine that he would stick to his company policy of “not talking about other companies,” Bezos walked right into a critique of Nook’s lending feature: “The current thing being talked about is extremely limited. You can lend to one friend. One time. You can’t pick two friends, not even serially, so once you’ve loaned one book to one friend, that’s it.” Then he (not too wisely) agreed that the decision could be compared to the life-and-death Sophie’s Choice. Amazon doesn’t allow lending but material can be shared between up to five devices on the same Kindle store account; also, not all Nook titles are part of the lending program.

Much more interesting for e-reader wonks: Bezos says the company sells 48 copies of the Kindle edition for every 100 copies sold of the physical book, adding “it won’t be too long before we’re selling more electronic books than we are physical books.” That doesn’t provide any real clue about how many sales publishers are missing when they stick to physical only but it suggests to me that the risks are getting higher. Bezos also admits that Amazon uses print sales to gauge which digital titles to add; no further detail given but that may pertain most to efforts to try to add e-books of back titles.

Source: Paid Content

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