Recent releases from Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) have indicated that the Kindle, proving it deserves its place as Amazon’s #1 Best Selling item, has tripled in sales this year compared to last, in part due to last month’s price slashing.  While many deride that move as the end of the Kindle as a profitable endeavor, there can be no doubt that the greater the availability of the eReader and the platform in general, the healthier the product-line it supports will become.

Being spread, as it is, between the Kindle device, iOS applications, Android applications, various smart phones, and PC applications, there are surprisingly few people left who cannot, should the choose to do so, access the eBook of their choice in a convenient and comfortable setting.  As some reports indicate that the eBook market has grown by more than 160% in the past year, this increasingly pervasive presence gives Amazon an impressive advantage and even further encouragement to keep the momentum up.  We already know that Kindle Editions are outselling hardcovers by a significant percentage these days, even if you exclude free eBooks from consideration and don’t exclude hardcover sales for books not available on the Kindle.  It’s starting to feel like this is only the beginning of a much larger trend, however, that could truly change the way we enjoy books.

Any thoughts?

For the past week or so, blogs like ours here have been buzzing with thoughts about a study done of relative reading speeds between the Kindle, iPad, PC Monitor and Paperback Book.  The general consensus seems to have been anything from “See, eReaders are bad!” to “Look, it proves the iPad is better than the Kindle!”  This leads me to believe that a large number of people have only a very vague understanding of what this study actually means.  Let me explain.

In the actual text of the reading speed study, we are given the details of their methods.  The sample size is actually quite small, with only 32 people involved total of whom a mere 24 were included in the final data set.  Putting aside that flaw, the data gathered provided no useful information at all besides that reading on anything but a computer monitor is preferred.  For those who are talking up the slight difference in reading speed between the iPad and the Kindle, there is a note in the results that “the difference between the two devices was not statistically significant”.  For those who do not have any statistics/science background, this means that no difference can be said to exist, with any reasonable accuracy, that stem from anything but random chance.

Basically, if you were hoping for scientific evidence of which device is better, even if you judge “better” in terms of how fast you can read, there’s nothing in this recent study to help you out.  Maybe next time.

This isn’t the first such contest we’ve brought to your attention, so you probably know the general idea by now, but here we go again!  From now through June 30th, SmartPlanet is taking entries for a free Kindle giveaway.  The registration process takes just a moment.  You go to this page, enter your information, and you’re done for the day! One entry per day is allowed.

Now, as a warning, you might want to take a look at the site first and decide if you like the content as this will automatically sign you up for a copy of their email newsletter.  That’s a fairly negligible issue, however, since in the same announcement telling entrants about that, they make clear that you can unsubscribe right away should such be your preference.

I had never heard about this site previously(Excellent draw for your site, guys!), so it’s hard to make an informed recommendation, but the front page story listing led me to a few fairly interesting things I also had not run into before. Early developments in wireless energy transfer just plain interest me.  Coverage on the developing privately funded space flight industry is similarly cool.  Where they caught me, however, was the vat-grown human liver.  I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a news guy.  I follow what interests me in as narrow a way as possible on most occasions because I don’t want to be bombarded with information on what famous person leaked a sex tape with what other famous person and so on.  Finding a site that covers the interesting stuff on a broader scope without that sort of inanity is at least potential, in my book.  Worth a shot, especially when I might get a new Kindle in the process.

While they are still in the market for a vendor and making efforts to arrange matters of budgeting and potential purchase bundling discounts, Clearwater High(Clearwater, FL) has made known its intent to move the student body over to the use of the Kindle as a replacement for the traditional textbook collection that students have always known and “loved”.

The intention is to supply all 2100 students with a Kindle that comes preloaded with every book they will require for the academic year.  Students will not be given the ability to purchase further books on the school property, but it seems likely, given the fact that students will have internet access, that there will be the ability to transfer privately acquired eBooks as desired.  In order to reduce parental concerns and school liability somewhat, all students will be required to sign a form agreeing to avoid accessing inappropriate material on their eReaders via the internet browser.

There is no guarantee that this move will save the school money.  It is intended more as a way of connection with a student body far more at home in front of one electronic device or another than behind a book. With luck, giving these students just what they’re used to in non-academic settings as a component of their learning will increase interest and focus on what they need to do.  The recent addition of Facebook integration probably won’t hurt much either, sadly.

Everybody has their little pet peeves when it comes to their favorite eReader.  Nobody ever has every feature quite the way we want it and nothing will ever be quite perfect.  One of the complaints I’ve heard surprisingly often with the Kindle has been its lack of normal page numbering.  While this seems like a simple sort of thing to deal with, since we are given a progress counter of sorts anyway, I can certainly understand it getting on the nerves of some.

In response, we have The Natural Page(TM) from Forbidden Stitch Press.  Their first book, Spirit in The Sky, is now available for download from the Kindle store for $9.99.  The basic premise is that by setting a page length at right around 400 words, it is possible to put a page number, formatted as (Page 12), at the bottom of each screen as the reader moves through their book.  It’s a novel concept, if you’ll pardon the pun.  While there’s little chance that this will work out as a long term solution, being rather un-dynamic and therefore breaking any time the reader changes font size or a Kindle DX, it’s a good thing to have around, most likely.  If nothing else, the reader response could point out to Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN)  that this is a desired, and quite possibly easy to include, feature for a future patch.  The best way to get your point across about a product has always been to vote with your wallet, after all.

There seems to be significant interest in this long overdue feature for the Kindle, so to clear up some of the confusion for people I thought I’d look at some of the functionality and ideas surrounding Collections.

In essence, Collections are short lists of books created by the user to make browsing easier.  The idea is to save time on moving through the library and keep things nicely organized along the way.

• Books can belong to more than one collection, or none at all
• Collections are built directly on the Kindle
• Your collection data will be stored by Amazon and all books will remain in their collections until you remove them
• No data is changed by Collections, they are simply an organizational tool
• While you are able to import collections from other people, this will not transfer the books themselves; simply the lists.
• There are no sub-listings.  This is a one-level categorization, not a real directory tree.

So what are Collections going to be good for?  In addition to saving you from having to sort through your entire library every time you want to read a specific book, there’s a lot of customization that can come into it.  Since all Collections are user-created, it adds a certain depth of individuality to the device.

Some suggestions I’ve read so far:

• List by Genre
• Rate Your Books After Reading
• Keep a List of Books To Read
• Keep Track of What You’re Reading Now
• Regional Listings
• Literary Period

Any other ideas I’ve missed?

And finally, some bad news for Kindle 1 owners – it looks like Amazon is focusing all of their development effort on software version 2.* so original Kindle will not be getting the Folders update.

In a fairly timely manner, given the recent impressive nook functionality update, Amazon gives the Kindle a few new features that are actually something to get excited about for once. And a couple that aren’t of course.

One of the more exciting new additions is simply a long overdue organizational concern.  Users will now be able to define collections of books.  I don’t know when this became something people didn’t expect an eReader user to need, but it’s about the only thing I missed when I made the move from the PRS-500 to my Kindle.

Password protection, going down Amazon’s list, is simply a useful new feature.  Not exciting, per se, but anything that adds a sense of security to this otherwise almost scarily portable device I like to take out in public with me is a good thing.

In terms of functionality, we get the ability to Pan & Zoom on PDFs, and some font enhancements.  I’m on the fence about the PDF thing.  It seems like a great idea, but until we see the actual implementation, it might end up being about as useful as the note-taking feature for all I know.  Sharper fonts, as well as larger font options for those in need of them, can’t help but be a plus.  Anything that makes reading even more pleasant gets my vote.

The most hyped part of the update, however, is about Facebook and Twitter integration.  At very least it gives you (and Amazon) the ability to advertise to people that you’re reading on a Kindle right this minute and show off what your book of the day is.  Depending on how functional this social highlighting would be it can turn out to be quite useful. I read several periodicals and blogs on my Kindle when I’m on the go. I highlight and clip interesting articles and paragraphs so that I can later get back to them or share with other people only to forget about them five minutes later. The problem is that although Amazon let’s you view your notes and highlights online so theoretically you could conjure up a web-service that would email them to you, this functionality doesn’t apply to periodicals and blogs. Hopefully with this update you could tweet your interesting highlights and then read your own tweets so they are actually not forgotten.

Anyway, this one’s going to be a fun one, especially for those of us with huge collections.  Bringing some order to the chaos that is my ebook shelf is going to be a huge relief.

There are a lot of good reasons to pick up a Kindle.  It’s neat to read, occasionally very useful for its ability to be a portable internet device, and it saves on effort and potential injury when you compare it to the hundreds or thousands of paperbacks you might otherwise have to carry down a flight of stairs on moving day.  One of the less talked-about uses, however, is as a vessel for audiobooks.

Having worked with the Kindle while helping out students with learning disorders, I can tell you that this is a really useful feature.  It’s also proven helpful with an elderly relative of mine who sometimes has trouble even with the device’s largest font sizes, but who still really loves her books.  The Text-to-speech feature isn’t bad, though it can trip over some words in odd ways sometimes.  I personally prefer to go with actual narrated book readings.  It adds something that, if you’re forced or inclined to be listening to a book rather than reading it yourself in the first place, helps significantly with personal immersion.

Since I’m sure there are those of you out there who agree with me, as there are certainly those who find my position ridiculous, I figured it was worth pointing out the current incentive for people still on the fence about the usefulness of eReaders.  For the moment, Amazon is offering a discount of $100 off their device if you sign up for a year of Audible.com membership.  I don’t really know how limited a time this offer is, but I’d guess not terribly.  It’s been around a while.  I personally consider it a worthwhile investment if you’re interested in audiobooks.  Audible provides good prices on good readings of good books.  What more can you ask, really?  Chances are that if you’ve read this far into the post, you’re interested in audiobooks anyway.  Might as well get a discount on your Kindle and a new source for your reading all at once, right?

Though Amazon Kindle and Apple iPad are touted to be arch rivals in the e-Reader segment, it hasn’t stopped Amazon from building a Kindle app for iPad. Amazon previewed the Kindle iPad app a couple of weeks ago and yesterday, the app made its way to the Apple iTunes Store. The Kindle app for iPhone has been around for a while now and is very popular amongst iPhone users. The iPad Kindle app is a logical extension of the iPhone Kindle app and its release was on the cards after Apple announced the launch of iPad on April 3. However, there’s one major limitation of using Kindle on iPad – Books bought through Kindle app must be read within the app itself. These books will not be viewable in Apple’s iBooks app.

The Kindle app for iPad lets people enjoy the best of both worlds – easy to use Kindle app interface and supreme performance of the iPad. Further, it gives the users a choice to read books from either Amazon or Apple. Customers always want more choices and e-Readers are no exception to this rule. I’ve come across many voracious readers who are addicted to kindle interface and therefore, they are reluctant to try out the iPad. The Kindle app for iPad is welcome news for all such readers.

While a lot of people have been debating the fortune of Amazon Kindle after the launch of Apple iPad, I believe that Amazon will emerge as the major e-Book provider for iPad. Since iBooks is not pre-installed on Apple iPad, many users might prefer to install Kindle app for iPad as compared to iBooks.

I’ll publish a review as soon as 3G-capable version of iPad hits the stores that I intend to get for myself.

Amazon Kindle is gaining immense popularity in China these days even though Kindle and Kindle 2 are not officially shipped there. While buying a Kindle online on Amazon Store, if you enter the location as ‘China’, it shows a regret message – ‘Unfortunately, we are unable to ship Kindles or offer Kindle content in China’.

However, Chinese are known to be avid technology lovers and true gadget freaks. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that Kindle is selling in large volumes in Chinese Gray Markets, stalls in Beijing electronics bazaar and other Chinese websites including Taobao.com, an auction site similar to eBay. PC World reports that Kindle 2 was on sale for 2,600 yuan (US$380) and the Kindle DX for 4,300 yuan ($630) at the Beijing bazaar. In fact, many people in China get the Kindle through their friends and family in United States by ordering the Kindle online, having it delivered to an address in United States and then having it mailed to them in China. e-Readers are quite popular in China these days and it is expected that sales of e-readers could reach 3.5 million units in China this year, up several fold from around 400,000 last year. Though there are numerous Chinese e-Readers in the market, Amazon Kindle stands its ground against one and all.

It is not hard to imagine that as and when Amazon Kindle starts shipping in China, it is bound to be a monumental success.

According to Andrew Nusca’s article on potential growth in the e-book market following the Apple iPad launch, “the average e-reader is 47 years old, makes 75,000 a year and reads two books per month.”  This generation tends to associate reading with pleasure, and the lightweight, easy to navigate, Kindle 2 strives to meet those demands.  Therefore, the e-ink technology that the Kindle uses is much more akin to reading a regular print book than any computer.  The general consensus is that the e-ink technology is more comfortable for reading for longer periods of time.  Can anyone picture curling up with an iPad at the beach?

The tablet market, which includes the Apple iPad , is geared towards younger, internet savvy users.  The younger group tends to search the internet for smaller chunks of information such as articles, blogs or social networking sites.  The average teen spends nearly a full time work week surfing and downloading media from the internet each week according to Nusca.

Another key factor for growth is price.  Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, suggested that Amazon will lower the price of the Kindle to $149 according to an article from CNET News. That would distance the single purpose e-reader market from the multifunctional tablet market.  So, in essence, its all about the marketing strategy.

In a rather interesting move, Amazon seems to have increased the general utility of their Kindle. It could, in fact, be on its way to becoming a must-have for vacation-goers this summer. Sure there’s the expected advantage of being able to lug a pile of books to the beach in your pocket, but the sightseers are targeted now too.

In short, it’s been reported that Amazon has recently acquired exclusive rights to sell the always helpful Michelin Driving guides. When added to the functionality of browser-based mapping programs like Google Maps, you can find yourself with an entertaining way to tour the nation without ever getting sidetracked. At present, such offerings as a driving tour of California Wine Country or a run around the Florida Keys are going for a mere $3.99. There’s certainly no shortage of other material there for the taking either, with popular publications like the Zagat Restaurant Guides, Frommer’s Travel Guides, and the Regional Hiking series already available at reasonable prices.

As a fun aside, as you prepare for the upcoming vacation weather, remember that road trips with kids are much more tolerable when they’re having a good time and for the moment Amazon can be very helpful there too with the majority of the popular Series of Unfortunate Events books being available free of charge to Kindle customers for what will likely be a very limited time!

This updated version of Kindle Unicode Fonts Hack works on all versions of Kindle software including the most recent 2.3 and installs on Kindle 2 US, Kindle 2 International and Kindle DX.

I’ve added more font combinations:

• GNU FreeFont – this hack uses GNU Free Fonts that come with Linux and are free to redistribute. All font styles are preserved (serif, sans-serif, mono-spaced, bold and italic) but these fonts only support Latin, Cyrillic characters and some others (click here for full coverage data). So if you are only interested in Russian books – this is the way to go. Otherwise this patch will do you little good. Here are download links:
  • Kindle 2 (serial number starts with B002) – update_ufh_gnufreefont_install-k2.bin
  • Kindle 2 International (serial number starts with B003) – update_ufh_gnufreefont_install-k2i.bin
  • Kindle DX (serial number starts with B004) – update_ufh_gnufreefont_install-kdx.bin

• GNU Free Fonts SansSerif (recommended for Cyrillic) - same fonts as before but SansSerif family is used instead of Serif. In my opinion it looks better. Bold and italic styles are preserved:
  • Kindle 2 (serial number starts with B002) – update_ufh_gnufreefont_sans_install-k2.bin
  • Kindle 2 International (serial number starts with B003) – update_ufh_gnufreefont_sans_install-k2i.bin
  • Kindle DX (serial number starts with B004) – update_ufh_gnufreefont_sans_install-kdx.bin

• Droid Fallback Fonts (recommened for Asian glyphs) - this hack uses open-source Droid fallback font that is part of Google Android platform. Unfortunately styles and typefaces are missing completely. You’ll only get regular Sans Serif. The upside is the broadest character support. It supports Cyrillic, Chinese, Japanese and a bunch of other languages. This font also looks very good on the Kindle screen (in my opinion way better than native Kindle fonts). This is the patch I currently have installed on my Kindle 2. Here are download links:
  • Kindle 2 (serial number starts with B002) – update_ufh_droid_install-k2.bin
  • Kindle 2 International (serial number starts with B003) – update_ufh_droid_install-k2i.bin
  • Kindle DX (serial number starts with B004) – update_ufh_droid_install-kdx.bin

• Droid Fonts with Styles – Same fonts as above but all families and styles are there. However Asian characters are not supported:
  • Kindle 2 (serial number starts with B002) – update_ufh_droid_styles_install-k2.bin
  • Kindle 2 International (serial number starts with B003) – update_ufh_droid_styles_install-k2i.bin
  • Kindle DX (serial number starts with B004) – update_ufh_droid_install-kdx.bin

• Droid Fallback with Styles SansSerif – Same as above but Serif fonts are replaced with Sans Serif because I believe it is more readable on Kindle screen:
  • Kindle 2 (serial number starts with B002) – update_ufh_droid_styles_sans_install-k2.bin
  • Kindle 2 International (serial number starts with B003) – update_ufh_droid_styles_sans_install-k2i.bin
  • Kindle DX (serial number starts with B004) – update_ufh_droid_sans_install-kdx.bin

Visit the Kindle Unicode Fonts Hack page for detailed instructions.

It definitely looks like I’ll have to eat my words… One month ago I made a statement that there will be fewer Kindle software updates and that chances of new features being added via update are slim. At least on the second count I was wrong. Amazon has released Kindle software version 2.3 for Kindle 2 US, Kindle 2 International and Kindle DX. It added significant features to all of these devices. In fact Amazon deemed the update so significant that they’ve sent out emails to Kindle owners about it.

• Kindle 2 International (wireless by AT&T) got a significant battery life boost. You can now go for a week without having to recharge the device and keep the wireless on. Since it doesn’t apply to the US version of Kindle 2 (that uses Sprint for wireless connectivity) it looks like Amazon didn’t change the poll frequency but either fixed some bug in wireless driver or took advantage of a technology similar to PUSH email.
• Both US and international versions of Kindle 2 got native PDF support based on the same code that was used in Kindle DX. Now you can also manually switch screen orientation to landscape. Kindle DX style automatic switching doesn’t work since Kindle 2 devices lack the accelerometer hardware. PDF files are better cropped now as blank margins don’t use up valuable screen space. This is especially important for small 6″ Kindle screens since PDF viewer still lacks zoom feature.
• Since all Kindle versions now support PDF, sending PDF file to @kindle.com email will no longer convert it to native Kindle format by default. If you still want the conversion to happen, you should put the word “Convert” in the email subject.
• Kindle DX screensaver activation time was increased from 5 minutes to 20 minutes. This makes sense since larger screen can contain more text that takes longer to read.
• All Kindle versions will not require signed update packages. This problem however has already been solved.

Normally you Kindle would update itself automatically if you have wireless connectivity. However if you do not or the update failed because you had hacks installed, you can update Kindle manually. This time around though, rather than trying to hit dynamic URLs that are supposed to always provide the latest version, you can download the update from the appropriate static location. These locations are listed on Amazon.com Help page.

By bringing all Kindle devices to the same version, Amazon will simplify software development process in the long run. They may change the update process in the future to cut the update delivery costs. 2.3 update package was around 10 megabytes large. If they keep the current method update packages will get only larger.

At the moment there is no update for 1st generation Kindle. And dare I make another prediction – the chances of it happening are rather slim.

While we are on the topic of updates. There might be another update currently in the works in Lab126. On Kindle Facebook page Kindle developers have posted the following message:

Amazon Kindle Kindle Customers, We have heard from many of you that you would like to have a better way to organize your growing Kindle libraries. We are currently working on a solution that will allow you to organize your Kindle libraries. We will be releasing this functionality as an over-the-air software update as soon as it is ready, in the first half of next year. – The Kindle Team

Personally I have just one question left: Where are the bleeping Unicode fonts? Amazon, seriously! Is it too much trouble to replace the current fonts with ones that support wider range of characters? Although with PDF support in place there is workaround via PDF font embedding, it would be nice to have native support as well.

I guess this leaves me with little choice but to recompile Kindle Unicode Font Hack to work with Kindle Software 2.3… I’ll post as soon as it’s ready and tested.

Personally I’m used to updating software. Pretty much every week one or another piece of software on my PC updates – be it Windows itself, the antivirus, iTunes or whatever. I’ve subconsciously come to expect the same from Kindle. And at first Kindle firmware did update quite frequently:

• February 23 (day zero) – Kindle 2 is released
• March 7 (12 days later) – Kindle software 2.0.1 is released
• March 19 (12 days later) – Kindle software 2.0.2 is released
• April 20 (32 days later) – Kindle software 2.0.3 is released
• September 3 (136 days later) – Kindle software 2.0.4 is released but it takes a while for this update to find it’s way to all users. Kindle DX 2.1.1 is also out but I’m yet to get mine…

As you can see it seems that Kindle 2 got several updates soon after release and then there was silence.

Early update rush was caused by bugs in the new software. One or two updates were caused by law suit (Text-to-speech, and Orwell book deletion). However, note that none of the updates introduced new features. I guess Amazon sticks to the policy – don’t fix it if it ain’t broken.

Kindle DX and Kindle international share most of the software with original Kindle so there is little room for new critical bugs.

But most importantly, the number of Kindles in operation has exploded since the beginning of 2009. And this is probably the most important reason why we will not see many Kindle updates in the future and probably none of them will be feature driven. Amazon pays Sprint 12 cents per megabyte transferred. It would be safe to assume that Amazon gets similar pricing from AT&T for domestic traffic and a much higher price for data roaming. Average Kindle update is 2 megabytes in size. Because of the way Amazon structures the update packages, this accumulates as each subsequent update includes all previous updates as well. So first update was 2 megs, second one was 4, third – 6, etc.

6 megabytes times 12 cents is $0.72 per device updated. By some estimates there may be 2..3 million Kindle devices in operation. Let’s assume that 80% of devices are within wireless coverage (although in reality this number can be much higher). This adds up to $1,440,000 to $2,160,000 per software update deployment and increasing with every update version. And this is just to update domestic Kindles. I wouldn’t even want to think about the pricing to worldwide distribution. Also I wouldn’t want to be the software developer who makes a critical bug that causes an update or that software developer’s boss for that matter…

Given these numbers I don’t believe that Amazon would release update unless they have a very strong reason to do so. Strong reason being a court order or something else of this sort. This more or less addresses they questions of where Amazon will add folders, PDF support for Kindle 2 or official Unicode fonts for that matter via an update. The answer is a definite NO.

On the issue of fonts I’m most sure since Unicode fonts in the updates that I use (that add only partial support without all of the font styles) are 1.5..3 megabytes. Proper Unicode support can easily add up to 10 megabytes. So this would mean millions of dollars spent with potential to spend more millions in the future and near zero return of investment since although many people would like to have this feature, for most of them it’s not a deal-breaker (especially since on Kindle DX you can have any kind of fonts via PDF files). The few books that have non-Latin characters that Amazon sells use Topaz format to embed the extra glyphs that they need. So adding Unicode fonts would help customers read books that Amazon doesn’t sell. In this light the question about Unicode fonts via an update for existing devices is a no-brainer.

It is possible that this support would be included in Kindle 3 or whatever else the next generation Kindle will be called since in this case the cost for Amazon is just licencing fee for the fonts.

The Kindle, like all eReaders, is seen by many as a radical departure from traditional reading.  The main reason why you aren’t surrounded by Kindles whenever you step into a coffee shop is simple: a lot of people like the look and feel of a book.  They are wary of any gadget that claims to replace it with a digital imitation.

It’s from this point of view that Jane Isay, a former editor and lover of physical books, writes a humorous confession to loving the Kindle.  The post demonstrates a simple truth that Kindle owners already know: if you love to read you’ll love to use the Kindle.  Even if you are a print die-hard, reading on the Kindle still gives you the chance to enjoy the act of reading, with the added convenience of Whispernet and instant downloads.

Isay’s post does make one good point however: how will devices like the Kindle affect independent retailers?  Isay alternates between buying eBooks from Amazon and buying physical books from small, independent bookstores.  Eventually, people are going to be wary about the digital book industry being monopolized by a select few corporations.  This is another reason why I think Amazon will eventually need to open their device to other formats.  A move to many independent digital stores is probably inevitable, where all they have in common is a shared format.

Kindle International Coverage Map

Well, my speculations actually came true and even sooner and on a much larger scale than I have expected: Kindle 2 World version is available for pre-orders and will start shipping on Monday, October 19. Generally, International version of Kindle 2 is identical to the one that was released in February, except that it uses AT&T 3G network for book downloads and Internet connectivity in the US and roaming partner networks in more than 100 countries outside of the USA. I’ve glued together a full coverage map and a a table that lists different features and restrictions that apply to different countries.

Kindle is currently not available in the following countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chad, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Gambia, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Democratic People’s Republic Of Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen.

Yes, unfortunately Kindle is not available in Canada yet but Amazon promises to fix this as soon as possible. They wouldn’t want to miss such lucrative market after all.

Residents of other 169 countries can buy the international version of Kindle here.

For each country features like whispernet and browser availability vary. In general the picture currently looks like this:

So wireless is available in 100 countries, however browser and blog subscription only work in these 3:  Hong Kong, Japan and Mexico.

EU countries have slightly higher typical book price because it includes VAT.

If you read this page on Amazon.com there is little fine-print about international use of Kindle:

Kindle (U.S. & International Wireless) customers from the United States can travel internationally and still get books in less than 60 seconds. Customers have the option to wirelessly download books, periodicals and personal documents via Whispernet for a fee or transfer files from their computer for free.

• International Book Service: Download books from your Kindle’s Archived Items or the Kindle store via Whispernet for $1.99 per book.
• International Subscription Service: Receive all of your newspaper, magazine, and blog subscription content via Whispernet for a weekly fee of $4.99.
• International Current Issue Service: Download individual issues of newspapers and magazines from your Kindle’s Archived Items or the Kindle store via Whispernet for $1.99 per issue.
• International Personal Document Service: Transfer personal documents to your Kindle via Whispernet for $.99 per megabyte (rounded up to the next whole megabyte). For more information about transferring personal files to your Kindle, see the Transferring, Downloading, and Sending Files to Kindle Help page.

It took a lot of effort to put this table together so if you feel it’s a helpful and intereseting piece of information – spread the word and link to this post.

In the future I’ll post updates to the table above on a regular basis.

If you end up buying Kindle 2 from outside of US, please drop me a comment to share your experience.

In June Amazon dropped the price on Kindle 2 by $60.00 only 4 month after it was originally released. Today, 4 month later, Kindle 2 price dropped by another $40.00. You can now purchase brand new K2 for $259.00. So in eight months since the release the price went down $100.00 or nearly 28%

It looks like competition from Sony, Google, Plastic Logic and other players is forcing Amazon to cut prices to stay competitive. In a recent interview Jeff Bezos claimed that Amazon can now cut the price because larger production and sales volume resulted in cost reduction and they are passing some of the savings to the customers.

In case you’ve purchased your Kindle for $299.00 within the last month you can call Amazon Kindle support and ask for a $40.00 refund to match the price drop. Several users have confirmed that Amazon easily gives these out and sometimes they are flexible and will give you a refund even if you have had your device for slightly more than a month.

Amazon Kindle 1

I’ve lent my refurbished Kindle 1 to a friend of mine to read some books and only a couple days later I’ve come to realize that since I’ve given him an electronic gadget it would have made sense to give him a charger as well since 1st generation Kindle uses custom power cable for charging rather than standard micro-USB like Kindle 2. Several weeks later he returned K1 after having read the books he intended and he never needed the charger…

You can get so used to not charging your Kindle frequently if you keep the Whispernet off that you can forget that you need to do it at all…

Kindle Copy-Paste

As I was playing around with my Kindle DX, I’ve found an undocumented feature that can be used in a couple of ways. I checked and it also works in Kindle 2. It’s possible that it is known in the Kindle community or even documented but I wasn’t aware of it until I discovered it by accident the same way as I’ve found Kindle calculator easter egg.

If you start selecting text in Kindle book or document with 5-way controller but instead of pressing the controller the second time to highlight the selection press any alphanumeric key or space bar, the highlighted text would get copied into the search box as shown on picture.

From here you can go two ways:

• either use this text as a search query against current book/document, all of your kindle content, Kindle Store, Google, Wikipedia or default dictionary (to change search scope tilt 5-way controller left or right)
• or select the rightmost search button “note” that would paste text from a search box to a newly created note. You can then edit the note text as you see fit. The note will be anchored to the location where you have finished your selection.

I hope you will find this tip useful.

Amazon Kindle 1

It looks like Amazon is currently sold out on refurbished first generation Kindles. If you follow this link, the only buy options are from third parties and the price is actually around $225.00. Refurbished Kindle 2 is still in stock however and you can get it from Amazon for $219.00 with warranty and all. Consider this an Amazon “certified pre-owned” program :)

I’ll periodically monitor refurbished Kindle stock status and will keep you updated.

Thanks to Jerry who pointed out the current stock change.

From Sarah Tew at CNET. Kindle has big scratch on screen.

If you were visiting or live in New York and recently forgot your Kindle in a taxicab, one of the editors at CNET may have it.

The Kindle belongs to a John and has the device name of “John’s Kindle.”  If you think it is yours, you can Email the article’s author and verify your identity.  Apparently, CNET decided to not even attempt to contact Amazon because they assumed Amazon would be unwilling to cooperate in giving out customer information.  Maybe that’s the case, but if I found a Kindle I would at least try to return it through Amazon’s customer service.  I don’t understand why Amazon couldn’t just act as a middleman and have you ship it without any idea who the owner is.

Returning the Kindle was also made more difficult because the owner didn’t put any of their personal info in the device.  It may seem pointless, but the Kindle can store your personal info for a reason.  This is it.

Kindle DX, Kindle 2, Sony PRS-505

It so happened that I purchased Sony PRS-505 for my Dad. I chose Sony eReader because my Dad living outside WhisperNet coverage and having very little knowledge of English language (and therefore no interest in any books that are sold on Amazon.com) effectively negated all benefits of Amazon Kindle.

On the other hand Sony eBook reader is extensively used by Russian community so on top of Unicode fonts there’s also complete localization of UI available in Russian (and in many other languages). A lot of credit for this should be given to Igor Skochinsky who also made Unicode Font Hack possible by figuring out a way to create custom updates for Amazon Kindle.

Therefore I’ve had a chance to briefly compare the Sony reader with both Kindle 2 and Kindle DX side-by-side. I would like to share my impressions on the subject. It is in no way a complete review – just an opinion. But perhaps someone will find it useful.

Exterior: Although I found Sony PRS-505 more visually pleasing than Kindle, I found pagination buttons of Kindle more comfortable. This is kind of a big deal since flipping pages constitutes 95% of eBook reader usage. It is nice that Sony eReader comes with protective cover included. I also purchased cover with light prism. It looked really cool all the way up to the moment when I turned it on. Then I found that it somewhat reduces text contrast. On the bright side, it leaks much less light than Mighty Bright XtraFlex that I use with Kindle. I also found 10 numerical buttons on PRS-505 handy and highly functional.

Display: Both Kindle 2 and PRS-505 sport 6″ eInk displays of the same resolution of 600×800. They differ in the number of supported colors: 16 for Kindle vs. 8 for Sony and in contrast which I subjectively found to be higher in the Sony reader.

Storage: Kindle 2 sports 1.4Gb of internal flash memory storage usable for books, while Sony device has significantly less (192Mb) but compensates for it by having 2 expansion slots that can potentially add 10Gb of additional storage. Plus you have the ability to swap memory cards that you carry in your pocket making the storage potentially unlimited. Not that it really matters because as I’ve shown in Kindle 2 vs. Kindle DX comparison, you’ll need to spend around $8,500 to completely fill up 1.4Gb of Kindle storage with books. So unless you use your reader for viewing manga as collection of JPEG files or go on solo many times around the world boat trips without a computer you really should not care either way.

Software: Sony seems to resume from sleep mode faster than Kindle. It also offers more in terms of organizing your book collection. Latter is a major pain point and probably the most requested feature by Kindle users. I would very much like Kindle to do a better job at organizing the books I purchased. There really is no reason for this feature to not be there given that Kindles have fully functional keyboard that would make naming collections and tags really easy. On the other hand Kindle sports some features that are not found in its Sony competitor like text-to-speech and web-browser.

PDF Support: While Kindle 2 only supports PDF via conversion, Kindle DX has a native support like the Sony does. While I didn’t have a chance to explore in detail PDF capabilities of Sony PRS-505 like I did with Kindle DX, I did try one PDF file. I have to admit that Sony does a better job at supporting PDF than Kindle because PRS-505 supports internal hyperlinks and table of contents as well as reflowing text to accommodate different font sizes. 9.7″ screen size of Kindle DX that can also work in landscape mode provides a saving straw because it makes reflowing unnecessary for many PDF files.

PC Software and book buying experience: I didn’t install the Sony software as my Dad would have no use for it (he only plans to read Russian classics that are freely available on the Internet) and I didn’t need to install Amazon software because there isn’t any. Although it may seem unfair (since I haven’t tried the Sony way) I’ll say that comparing book buying experience for Kindle and Sony would be like beating a dead horse. It’s the main selling point of Amazon Kindle and it’s what made it so successful.

Conclusion: Overall I liked the Sony device even tough it’s soon going to be outdated by newer models some of which will have touchscreen (another highly anticipated Kindle feature). Sony seems to have better software and both Amazon and Sony have strong and weak points in ergonomics. If I could have the same book buying experience and selection on Sony as I have with Amazon Kindle, I’d probably go with Sony eReader. However since things are the way they are, I’m staying with Kindle and my dad will use Russian-localized version of PRS-505 to read classics freely available from sites like lib.ru

P.S.: I’ve alredy finished this comparison review when I discovered a new aspect of these devices I wasn’t aware of. Kindle turned out to be much better for non-English speakers who want to learn the language than Sony PRS-505 due to built-in dictionary and text-to-speech capability. My sister started reading English books with intent of enriching her active vocabulary. Built-in dictionary lookup saved her tons of time each time the ran into an unfamilar word. Text-to-speech gave her a very good idea of how each word sounds as she read along with the device. So Kindle although lacking free Internet connectivity outside the US can still be perfect for some foreign users.

When I get my hands on newer Sony eReader models I’ll see how they stack up against the Kindle and post some reviews as well.

Jesse Vincent who is responsible for a number of Kindle hacks in the past (such as Savory and tethering Kindle 2) managed to get Ubuntu Linux running on the Kindle 2.  Since one branch of the popular distro is ported to run on the ARM architecture that Kindle is based on, it seems like it was should have been possible to run a generic Linux version on the device. Jesse proved it to be true. He has actually been at it for quite a while, having run xdaliclock on the Kindle months ago. It seems that recently he was able make most of the Kindle hardware (like 5-way controller) work.

Hypothetically, there is no limit to what other software could be installed.  It’s even plausible that at some point in the future something like this could become more widespread.  If someone likes the Kindle but not Amazon’s platform, they could install some community supported Kindle OS that was more to their liking.  People already jailbreak iPhones; this could be the Kindle equivalent.

On the Kindle source code page two new packages recently appeared:

• Kindle 2.1.1 (351050064) for Kindle DX
• Kindle 2.0.4 (353720025) for Kindle 2

Some users have already reported receiving these updates on your devices. Manual Kindle software update URL still returns 2.0.3 for me and there is no known URL to check for Kindle DX updates at the moment. There doesn’t seem to be any update for the original 1st generation Kindle at the moment.

If you notice any differences after your Kindle updates, please let me know. This would also be a good time to temporarily revert Unicode Font Hack or any other firmware-altering hacks that you have installed so that automated update installation will not fail. You can safely reapply hacks after you get the updates.