Next year the VAT thing is probably going to change. There will be a review anyway.

Well, I was reading last night both at the hospital (bright fluorescent lights) and in bed (a single energy saver bulb in my bedside lamp) and the kindle was easy to read in both conditions.

No eye strain, no problem with contrast etc...

It is possible to get a reflection off a light so that it is too bright to read the screen though. Although I had to angle it in a certain way to get that to happen. I imagine the same would happen if you were reading a glossy magazine. But it only happen in cases where I was reading at around a 60degree angle.

Other than that I love it!

Amazon announces Kindle Singles, the short-form book format

Amazon has created a new format for its e-reader, which it is calling Kindle Singles.

While the name suggests that it is reading material for all the singletons out there, the format is more for bits of literature which aren't full-blown novels, neither magazine articles.

Kindle Singles will be around 30-90 pages in length (10,000-30,000 words) and is for those texts which have added depth.

"Kindle Singles will have their own section in the Kindle Store and be priced much less than a typical book," said Amazon in a statement.

"Today's announcement is a call to serious writers, thinkers, scientists, business leaders, historians, politicians and publishers to join Amazon in making such works available to readers around the world."

Kindle surprise

Amazon also explained that: "Kindle Singles will be 'Buy Once, Read Everywhere'," noting that "customers will be able to read them on Kindle, Kindle 3G, Kindle DX, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, Mac, PC, BlackBerry, and Android-based devices."

This is part of a whole host of new features for its Kindle Store, including the ability to write your own novel and get it published on the store.


Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/portable- ... z12AJBbyRP

I think that's quite an interesting idea, though I'd be quite surprised if anyone gives a crap

Also, I actually think there could be a niche market for magazine-type articles from freelancers or something, maybe even mini subscriptions. Price, as ever, would be the key...

Sounds good to me Fogmeister, keep the updates coming.

Well, I love it.

It now feels natural to read from it.

Definitely would recommend it to anyone.

+1

Does anyone know how the web browsing works, especially on 3g?

I remember reading that Wiki was free, but only in America. If it just did wiki and webmail on 3g, that would be excellent for many people. I know it's a book not a browser, but I really do want a simple 3g browser with a 30 day battery!

I'll ask my mate when he comes in to work.

Mark

Thanks for that. I'll check that forum before I go to France next year, and might risk buying one just on that. If it works, it's awesome news.

Hi All,

Just wanted to add my experiences with my kindle. I have to say Overall I love it and its a very easy device to read from. A few caveats though!

One of the ways I justified it to myself was the pdf reader ability. It will read pdfs accurately and you can zoom, but it wont reflow text. I.e. if you increase the size you have to move the page around to read the text. Its main rival (sony) reflows pdfs and I think this would have been a real benefit.
As is its readable but not overly comfortable in full page. I think once the tablet market settles a bit, i'll look for one of those for pdf duties.

The navigation through a page (to read footnotes pratchet fans) is cumbersome and you do miss a touchscreen.

Overall though as a device for reading, fantastic. Very flexible. For example my 7 year old son grabs it, i rack up the font size and he will sit for over an hour reading king arthur etc.
pick it back up, rack the font back down and it looks like a grown up book again

I wouldn't bother with the 3G version unless you really need to download stuff on the move. I'm not even sure the 3G connection will allow browsing its amazon 'whispernet' and seems primarily geared for downloading content.

Major things i see as issues on the horizon:
swapping books: big thing in my family. Amazon have announced that you can now lend a book for 2 weeks max to only one person. Thats something I suppose but can't match the flexibility of a printed book!
will amazon ditch the hardware at some point? the kindle reader is already available across pc/mac/mobile devices.

If you want a pdf reflow you need to email the pdf to your kindle email address and amazon will convert it for you and it will send it to your kindle.
You can also send text documents to it the same way. I use it a lot when I find long article on the internet and I don't have time to read it. I will copy the text from the webpage, paste it into Notepad in windows and email it to my kindle as an attachment. Then I read it on my kindle.

There are also programs that I believe will do a reflow. I've heard the name "Calibre" as one of the good ones, I think it is a convertor of files or something. I've never needed to use one but feel free to try it and let us now how it went.

There a other functions that some people might not be aware of. For example you can press alt+shift+M and it will bring a Minesweeper and Noughts and Crosses that you can play on your Kindle.

One excellent feature is "Samples". When you are browsing Amazon store you can download a free sample of the book. First few chapters for you to read so you can get a feel for the book if you are not sure if you want to buy it or not. Download a sample, read it and then make a decision. It gives you a great opportunity to dig into authors or genres that you might have not considered before.

Will multi-colour e-ink splash down in six months?

Electronic ink is going colour - but you should probably wait a bit for your rainbow-friendly e-reader.

A year ago we looked at e-ink technologies, and suggested it would be 2011 before we saw colour e-ink devices on the shelves. On this occasion it seems we got it about right; though if you can wait until the latter part of the year, and are prepared to pay for it, then you'll get video as well, as e-ink and traditional technologies get closer together in good ways and bad.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/14/colour_e_books/

If you're remotely interested in e-readers and where they're headed, give that a read

Amazon Removing More eBooks You 'Bought' From Archives

Last year, you may recall, Amazon got into some trouble for deleting a supposedly "infringing" copy of George Orwell's 1984 from peoples' Kindles. After this got a ton of attention, the company announced that it would change its system so books won't get deleted from Kindles any more. Of course, they never said they wouldn't delete them from your archive, however. Separately, you may recall that a few weeks back, Amazon got into a bit of a kerfuffle over a book concerning pedophilia. The company initially defended allowing this book for sale, by stating:

"Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable."

However, hours later, Amazon changed its mind and suddenly became one with its inner censor. Apparently, with its newfound willingness to go that route, it's begun unleashing those powers widely, taking down a whole bunch of "erotica" books without explanation. Apparently, many of the books in question include fictional accounts of incest. Of course, as some have pointed out, the Bible also contains accounts of incest -- and a book seen in a recent Amazon ad includes a fictional account of incest.

While the Slashdot account of this story says that the books are being removed from the Kindle that's not exactly true. They're being removed from your Kindle archive. This means that if you delete the book from your Kindle, you can't redownload it. In other words, it's like the bookshelf in your basement where you store books you might want to go back to some day, but probably won't touch for a while. However, for a company trying so hard to pretend that its ebooks are just like real books, it really ought to stop deleting things after you've supposedly "bought" them.

Update: Amazon emails me to say they've put out a statement saying this was a mistake that has now been fixed, stating:

Due to a technical issue, for a short window of time three books were temporarily unavailable for re-download by customers who had previously purchased them. When this was brought to our attention, we fixed the problem and those books were once again made available for re-download. We apologize for the inconvenience.

It still appears that the books themselves are no longer for sale. That's Amazon's prerogative, of course, but the lack of explanation still seems pretty weak -- especially after supposedly defending not being about censorship. Also, there is no explanation of just what kind of technical "glitch" this was. Considering the trouble the company got into for deleting books in the past, you would think this would have been more carefully reviewed. Finally, the fact that it took nearly a week and numerous high profile media mentions to get Amazon to respond to questions from the authors is pretty weak customer service.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201012 ... ives.shtml

My God, find a policy and stick to it