Technologizer

Kindle for PC: A Rough Draft at Best

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

[UPDATE: I tried again, and Kindle for PC is now downloading all my books swiftly and reliably. Not sure why it wasn't before...] I’ve been playing with Amazon.com’s new Kindle for PC application over the past 24 hours, and while the idea of having access to my Kindle books on my PC remains mighty appealing, the [...]

Kindle for PC Now Available

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

5 Comments

[UPDATE: I tried again, and Kindle for PC is now downloading all my books swiftly and reliably. Not sure why it wasn't before...] Last month, one of the few new pieces of news at the Windows 7 rollout was the fact that Amazon was releasing a piece of Windows software for reading Kindle e-books. The software [...]

Kindle Coming to PCs

Thursday, October 22, 2009

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Today’s Windows 7 launch mostly involved stuff we already knew about, but there was a “just one more thing”: Amazon is going to release a Kindle e-book reading application for Windows. It runs on XP, Vista, and Windows 7, and takes advantage of the new touch features in Win 7 to allow gestures for actions [...]

One World, One Kindle

Thursday, October 22, 2009

3 Comments

That was fast! Two weeks ago, Amazon.com introduced a Kindle e-book reader with AT&T 3G wireless and the ability to download books in a hundred countries. It priced it at $279 and knocked the cost for the U.S.-only version down to $259. It seemed odd to keep the old version around at such a modest [...]

Kindle Gets Cheaper, Travels Internationally

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

8 Comments

Haven’t bought a Kindle 2 yet? Good. Amazon.com, which knocked the price of its e-book reader down by $60 only last July, has cut it by another forty bucks. You can now buy one for $259–and while that may not be a magic price point, it’s a lot more tempting than the $400 that the [...]

Magazines: Still Ripe for Digital Reimagining

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

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We don’t even know for sure whether Apple will ever release a tablet–although there’s lots of compelling evidence that it will–and already there’s a lively debate about whether the company is interested in using said tablet to do to printed reading materials what iTunes has done for music. Until recently, the smart money seemed to be [...]

1984 All Over Again

Friday, September 4, 2009

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Back in July, Amazon.com endured a bout of bad publicity and inspired debate about the ethics of copy protection when it remotely deleted copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from customer’s Kindle e-readers after discovering they were pirated. CEO Jeff Bezos eventually apologized and called the action stupid. Now the Wall Street Journal’s [...]

Nicholson Baker vs. the Kindle

Monday, July 27, 2009

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Novelist Nicholson Baker is an unapologetic friend of paper–and his book Double Fold* is an important expose of the mass dumping of bound newspaper volumes by libraries in favor of vastly inferior microform copies. So you gotta think that when The New York arranged for him to write about Amazon.com’s Kindle, it knew that it [...]

Jeff Bezos: Amazon’s 1984 Actions Were “Stupid”

Thursday, July 23, 2009

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Amazon’s decision to remotely delete pirated copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from customers’ Kindle e-readers and refund their money was stupid, thoughtless, and self-inflicted. That’s not an irate blogger talking–it’s Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, who indulged in some serious self-flagellation at the company’s forums, as reported by TechCrunch’s MG Siegler. Bezos’s mea culpa [...]

5Words for Thursday, July 23rd 2009

Thursday, July 23, 2009

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A billion dollars for shoes. Adobe’s Flash Player security warning. Coming in 2019: artificial brains! Apple rescinds threats against Bluewiki. Disney puts movies on MicroSD. Rubik’s cube gets touch interface. From iPhone to alarm clock. XP to Windows 7: no! HTC will focus on Android. Like 5Words? Subscribe via RSS.

Barnes & Noble Ramps Up E-books

Monday, July 20, 2009

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At the moment, “e-book” and “Kindle” are darn near synonymous. Barnes & Noble aims to change that with multiple announcements it made today. It’s releasing free e-reader applications for Windows, Mac OS X, iPhone, and BlackBerry; it’s opened an e-bookstore with 700,000 titles, including bestsellers for $9.99 apiece; and it’s announced a deal that will [...]

Orwell on the Kindle: It’s Orwellian!

Friday, July 17, 2009

20 Comments

[IMPORTANT UPDATE: The Web is rife with examples of people assuming something unlikely-sounding is true because they read it somewhere. I usually go to pains to avoid doing so--which is why my posts tend to be rife with words like "reportedly" and "allegedly"-- but in this post I screwed up. As BetaNews reports--rightly taking me [...]

A Cheap(er) Kindle

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

13 Comments

Engadget has noticed that Amazon’s Kindle 2 is now a better buy: The company has shaved $60 off the price of it’s e-reader, which is now $299: The first Kindle shipped in November of 2007 and cost $400; Amazon has been bringing the price down, but only gradually. (It’s the e-books you download from Amazon–many of [...]

5Words for Monday, June 29th 2009

Monday, June 29, 2009

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Kindle DX is sold out. Windows Mobile Marketplace: 600 apps. Britney, Ellen’s Twitpic accounts hacked. Pirate Bay takes on Hulu. iPhone 3GS jailbreak release delayed. Will Firefox come to Android? Spot shortages of new iPhones. Is the iPhone 3GS overheating? Sony considering a PlayStation phone. Qik comes to Android as alpha.

Michael Jackson Takes Over Amazon and iTunes

Saturday, June 27, 2009

11 Comments

Reasonable people can disagree about just what Michael Jackson’s legacy is, and whether or not he was the biggest pop star of all time. But this much seems pretty much undeniable: He’s the biggest pop star to have died in the Web age. And so the Web is reflecting things about the reaction to his [...]

Kindle DRM Follies

Monday, June 22, 2009

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Gear Diary has an illuminating, alarming post about the DRM for Amazon’s Kindle e-books: “How do I find out how many times I can download any given book?” I asked. He replied, “I don’t think you can. That’s entirely up to the publisher and I don’t think we always know.” I pressed — “You mean when you [...]