Tag Archives: Amazon Kindle

Amazon Apps Expand to 200 Countries

By 24/7 Wall St.

Filed under:

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), often seen as the most progressive tech company in America, will expand its Appstore so “that developers can now submit their apps for distribution in nearly 200 countries.” Amazon may not have a ready customer base in most of those countries, but the announcement makes its reach seem impressive, even if it is ineffective.

In Amazon’s race to dominate, or at least have a prime position, in the mobile app development business, it finds itself behind Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). Apple’s massive distribution channel through its iPad and iPhone products, and the many years it has had its own store, give it a built-in advantage. Google has leverage of its own because of the nearly universal adoption of it Android mobile operating system. Its large share of the mobile OS industry cannot be underestimated as an app distribution network, via Google’s own store. Developers with direct relationship with Google can create products for both Amazon’s Kindle and all other Android products

Amazon Appstore for Android was created to help Amazon steal some of Google’s native app developer network. Why developers would not favor Google’s own developer system and store is a mystery. That means most of Amazon’s success with app distribution will be based on its own Kindle Fire tablet, to a substantial extent:

Developers throughout the world are experiencing strong monetization and user engagement through Kindle Fire and the Amazon Appstore.

As far as anyone can tell, the Amazon Appstore is the e-commerce company’s attempt to help sales of its Kindle products, and nothing more. The risk in that is that the Kindle may be overwhelmed by all the other Android-based tablets that have flooded the market. But in the hope of bolstering its position, the company said:

Amazon.com, Inc. continued the global expansion of its Appstore today by announcing that developers can now submit their apps for distribution in nearly 200 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, India, South Africa, South Korea, and even Papua New Guinea and Vatican City.

Vatican City may not be a big enough market to help Amazon reach its Appstore goals.

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Consumer Electronics, Software Tagged: AAPL, AMZN, featured, GOOG

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From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/18/amazon-apps-expand-to-200-countries/

The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly of Facebook Home on Your Samsung Galaxy S3

Facebook just released its new “home on Android” last Friday, appropriately called Facebook Home. Taking a cue from Amazon’s Kindle, Home serves as an “operating system” that runs over Android.

While the HTC First will be the first smartphone to ship with Home out of the box, Facebook did release the launcher for a select few Android devices, and the Samsung Galaxy S3 is one of those to take part in the launch. NOTE: Smartphones and tablets that are not officially supported (like the Google Nexus 7 by ASUS) can still get Facebook Home by installing the modded app files directly.

At its core… more

From: http://gs3.wonderhowto.com/inspiration/good-bad-ugly-facebook-home-your-samsung-galaxy-s3-0146386/

1 Number Apple Stock Investors Should Know Ahead of Earnings

By Tim Beyers, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

If Apple stock rallies after the company reports earnings on April 23, it’ll be because of iPad sales. According to Fortune‘s survey of analyst projections, the median estimate is 18 million tablets sold, or about 56% more than last year’s fiscal Q2 total of 11.8 million. Recent history and industry reports suggest that the iPad Mini could account for the majority of those sales.

Smaller tablets are gaining ground as a whole. Five of the nine most popular tablets listed at Amazon.com were 7 or 8 inches. The Mini ranked ninth, while Samsung’s 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab ranked sixth. Various models of Amazon’s Kindle occupied the other spots.

For its part, Wall Street is expecting fiscal Q2 revenue to increase 8.9% to $42.68 billion, resulting in $10.13 of profit per share. The company beat earnings estimates in only two of its past four quarters, highlighted by a 10.1% miss in the June quarter, according to data supplied by Yahoo! Finance. Apple stock is down 32% over that period.

Will Apple stock rally following the report? Tim Beyers of Motley Fool Rule Breakers and Motley Fool Supernova weighs in on this question in the following video. Please watch and then leave a comment to let us know whether you would buy, sell, or short Apple stock at current prices.

It’s incredible to think just how much of our digital and technological lives are almost entirely shaped and molded by just a handful of companies. Find out “Who Will Win the War Between the 5 Biggest Tech Stocks” in The Motley Fool’s latest free report, which details the knock-down, drag-out battle being waged among the five kings of tech. Click here to keep reading.

The article 1 Number Apple Stock Investors Should Know Ahead of Earnings originally appeared on Fool.com.


Fool contributor Tim Beyers is a member of the 
Motley Fool Rule Breakers
stock-picking team and the Motley Fool Supernova Odyssey I mission. He owned shares of Apple at the time of publication. Check out Tim’s Web home and portfolio holdings, or connect with him on Google+Tumblr, or Twitter, where he goes by @milehighfool. You can also get his insights delivered directly to your RSS reader.The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares of Amazon.com and Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/14/video-placeholder-1-number-apple-stock-investors-s/

Burning The Page: Jason Merkoski Tells Inside Story Of Amazon Kindle

By The Huffington Post News Editors

The following is part one of a five part excerpt from Jason Merkoski’s Burning the Page: The eBook revolution and the future of reading. Merkoski was an early innovator on Amazon’s Kindle team, and his new book discusses how ebooks came to be, as well as where they’re going. This excerpt is about the inside story of the Kindle:

Working at Amazon was like taking a step back in time to Seattle’s pioneer roots, back when Seattle was the gateway to the Yukon gold rush. Working on the Kindle was like living in the Wild West.

For projects that broke new ground, like the Kindle, there didn’t seem to be any law, any sheriff, or any real consequences for making wrong decisions, because nobody knew the right ones. People seemed to wear their six-shooters out in the open, taking potshots at one another while hiding behind Donkey Kong machines. When vice presidents argued in the hallways, trigger fingers twitching, I could almost imagine a tumbleweed blowing between them.

Read More…
More on Amazon

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

PCWorld Digital Magazine Enhanced iPad Edition now available to subscribers for free

At PCWorld we’ve been producing digital versions of our print magazine issues for the past 10 years. But during most of those years, the digital versions were available only in PDF format—first through Zinio, later through Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook, and most recently through Google Play—as exact copies of the print PCWorld magazine issues. In the past year, however, thanks to evolving technologies and capabilities, we’ve moved beyond the limitations of print (and PDF replication) to offer our readers a better digital magazine experience. Last May we launched the PCWorld Digital Magazine Enhanced iPad Edition, and now we’re now offering current print subscribers free access to it.

We’ve designed the Enhanced iPad Edition to deliver the best possible experience of PCWorld magazine on the iPad, optimizing the pages to work with all iPads (running iOS 5.0 or later) and including support for high-res Retina displays. The enhanced format enables us to provide rich multimedia content not available in print, including videos, interactive slideshows and features, and other multimedia elements. And because we’ve remastered the magazine content into an iPad-friendly layout, you can use the intuitive gestures and touchscreen capabilities native to the iPad to navigate through each issue. Your options include using the interactive table of contents, swiping from page to page, or gliding through article content from the tip of your finger. Embedded links take you directly to related information within the issue as well as to websites for additional content; and the app allows you to bookmark and share articles via email and Twitter.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Amazon.com Buying Goodreads

By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

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Amazon.com is buying “Internet bookclub” Goodreads, the company announced Thursday. In so doing, Amazon brings into its corporate fold a community of 16 million Goodreads members, who use the service to review and discuss books they’ve read, gather suggestions on which books they should read next — and now, presumably, on which books they should buy from Amazon next. In addition, the company may have solved the problems it’s been having with suspect book reviews appearing on its own site, by teaming up with a book reviewer whose reputation is, as yet, untarnished.

In a statement, Goodreads CEO and co-founder Otis Chandler said that joining forces with Amazon — and in particular, with Amazon’s Kindle e-book division — will help Goodreads to “move faster in bringing the Goodreads experience to millions of readers around the world.”

Amazon did not disclose the purchase price it will be paying. The company did say that it expects the acquisition to close sometime in Q2.

The article Amazon.com Buying Goodreads originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Amazon.com. The Motley Fool owns shares of Amazon.com. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Amazon Expands X-Ray to TV, Powered by IMDb and Available on the Kindle Fire Family

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Amazon Expands X-Ray to TV, Powered by IMDb and Available on the Kindle Fire Family

Popular X-Ray feature expands to include the top TV shows on Amazon, helping to answer the classic questions – “Who’s That Guy?” and “What’s He Been In?”

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)– (NAS: AMZN) —Six months ago, Amazon and IMDb introduced “X-Ray for Movies,” a new feature that revolutionized the movie viewing experience by bringing the power of IMDb directly to movies on Kindle Fire HD. With a single tap viewers can discover the names of the actors appearing on the screen and what they’ve been in. Today, Amazon announced that it is expanding X-Ray to TV, bringing the seamless, fully-integrated X-Ray experience to TV shows. Available today for the most popular TV shows on Amazon, X-Ray will quickly expand to even more shows. IMDb, an Amazon company for 14 years, is the world’s most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content, with more than 160 million monthly unique visitors worldwide. X-Ray for TV is also available as part of the free Amazon Instant Video app on Wii U.

“X-Ray has been one of the most loved features on Kindle Fire HD since it launched last September,” said Peter Larsen, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “For people who are passionate about movies and TV, there is no better way to watch than on Kindle Fire HD, which combines an exceptional viewing experience with the unbelievable power of the over 100 million pieces of data in IMDb’s catalog.”

“For over 20 years we have been cultivating a vast database of movie, TV and celebrity content,” said Col Needham, IMDb Founder and CEO. “Can’t remember where you’ve seen the actor playing Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey? No problem. Simply tap on the screen and you’ll see a full filmography, where you’ll realize that Hugh Bonneville was also in Notting Hill. Our vision is to make X-Ray available on every movie and TV show—we’re excited to make another big step forward today, and we are working hard to add X-Ray to more TV shows and movies in the future.”

X-Ray for TV is available starting today on the most popular TV shows from Amazon Instant Video, many of which are also available as part of Prime Instant Video: Justified, Downton Abbey, The West Wing, Sons of Anarchy, Falling Skies, American Horror Story, Grey’s Anatomy, Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Lost, Glee, Breaking Bad and Game …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

BlackBerry 10 App Count Hits 100,000

By Evan Niu, CFA, CFA, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Less than two months after launch, BlackBerry has announced that its new BlackBerry 10 operating system platform has reached 100,000 apps available in its ecosystem.

The platform launched on Jan. 30 with 70,000 apps, and the company has added 30,000 over the past seven weeks, the company announced today.

Amazon Kindle, OpenTable, and The Wall Street Journal are among the new additions, with eBay and CNN expected within a matter of weeks, among others. BlackBerry executive Martyn Mallick said the early response to BlackBerry 10 has been “outstanding.”

BlackBerry did not specify in its press release how many of these apps are ported versions of Google Android apps.

link

The article BlackBerry 10 App Count Hits 100,000 originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Evan Niu, CFA, has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Amazon.com, eBay, Google, and OpenTable. The Motley Fool owns shares of Amazon.com, eBay, and Google. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Amazon Gets Aggressive

By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Just yesterday, e-tail kingpin Amazon.com decided to get even more aggressive than usual. The company permanently slashed the price of its 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD tablet and expanded country availability.

The larger version of its popular tablet can now be had for just $269 for a Wi-Fi only model, while the LTE-equipped model now starts at just $399.

Model

New Entry-Level Price

Price Reduction

Wi-Fi

$269

$30

LTE

$399

$100

Source: Amazon.

The change comes shortly after Amazon was offering a promotion last month with similar price points, but now the price changes are here to stay. Why the sudden change of heart?

A little white lie?
According to Amazon Kindle exec Dave Limp, the e-tailer has been able to decrease its cost structure alongside increased production volumes. Amazon has a habit of passing along cost savings to customers whenever possible throughout its business, and Limp maintains that this is just the latest example of that practice.

When Amazon offered the promotion last month, I instead hypothesized that the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD didn’t sell too well over the holidays, and that the company was stuck with a glut of inventory that it needed to clear out. The 7-inch model is still likely doing well at the tempting $199 price point, but the original entry-level price point of $299 for an 8.9-inch Wi-Fi model put it squarely against Apple‘s iPad Mini.

For an extra $30, the iPad Mini is pretty compelling since it has higher build quality and a more robust app ecosystem, even if the Kindle Fire HD features a much better display. That seems to be a trade-off that many consumers were willing to make, since the iPad Mini is off to a strong start and expected to sell upwards of 55 million units this year.

History does not repeat itself
The price cut is in stark contrast to Amazon’s pricing strategy last year. The first-generation Kindle Fire was launched in September 2011, and Google launched its Nexus 7 in June 2012. The Nexus 7 was superior to the Kindle Fire in nearly every imaginable way, yet both devices were priced at $199. At the time, there weren’t many justifiable reasons to pick a Kindle Fire over the Nexus 7 since they were at pricing parity.

That was a whole nine months after launch, and Amazon’s component costs inevitably decreased over that time, yet it did not offer any type of price reductions. Fellow Fool Rick Munarriz entertained the idea of a $149 Kindle Fire after IHS iSuppli compiled a bill of materials for the Nexus 7, with the justified assumption that Amazon was facing a similar cost curve as Google.

Amazon’s strategy has always been to sell hardware at or near cost, but it would be another three months until Amazon cut the first-generation model’s price to $169 when it launched the second-generation models.

What’s the difference? …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Kindle Fire HD Expands Into Europe and Japan; Amazon Lowers U.S. Kindle Prices

By Kevin Chen, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Amazon.com  has launched the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD — the large-screen version of its tablet — in the U.K., GermanyFranceItalySpain and Japan

Dave Limp, vice president of Amazon Kindle, says that Amazon can now increase Kindle production volumes and decrease costs. As a result, the e-commerce giant has lowered the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD price in the United States. The Wi-Fi version will sell for $269, and the 4G version will go for $399, effective immediately.

In the press release, Limp said: “Across our business at Amazon, whenever we are able to create cost efficiencies like this, we want to pass the savings along to our customers.”

The article Kindle Fire HD Expands Into Europe and Japan; Amazon Lowers U.S. Kindle Prices originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Kevin Chen has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares of Amazon.com. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Amazon Launches Kindle Fire HD 8.9" in Europe and Japan; Introduces New, Lower Price

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Amazon Launches Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ in Europe and Japan; Introduces New, Lower Price

Largest-display, highest-resolution version of Amazon’s best-selling tablet now available in Europe and Japan

New, lower price for Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ in the US — starting at just $269 for Wi-Fi and $399 for 4G

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)– (NAS: AMZN) — Amazon today announced that Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ — the large-screen version of its best-selling tablet — is now available in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan. With the expansion of Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ to Europe and Japan, Amazon also announced it is able to lower the price of Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ in the US, with the Wi-Fi version now starting at $269 and the 4G version starting at $399.

“We’re thrilled with customer reaction to Kindle Fire HD 8.9″. Customers tell us they love our large-screen version of Kindle Fire HD for web browsing, email, gaming, watching TV shows, reading magazines, and more,” said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “As we expand Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ to Europe and Japan, we’ve been able to increase our production volumes and decrease our costs. Across our business at Amazon, whenever we are able to create cost efficiencies like this, we want to pass the savings along to our customers.”

Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ is the highest-resolution, largest-display Kindle Fire. Designed for entertainment, it is perfect for web, apps, movies, games and magazines. Features include:

  • Large 8.9″ display has the highest resolution of any Kindle Fire (1920×1200, 254 ppi), with rich color and deep contrast; ideal for movies, apps, and gaming.
  • Custom Dolby audio and dual stereo speakers for crisp, rich sound.
  • Over 23 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, books, and audiobooks.
  • The most popular apps and games.
  • Ultra-fast web browsing and streaming with built-in dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi.
  • Front-facing HD camera for taking photos or making video calls.
  • Exceptional battery life — Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ gets 10 hours …read more
    Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Barnes & Noble shares fall as Nook losses grow

Barnes & Noble Inc. shares are lower Thursday after the retailer said it expects losses from its Nook e-reader business to be larger in 2013 than the year before.

The book seller has invested heavily in its Nook business as consumers increasingly shop online and read e-books. But the Nook faces tough competition from other devices like Apple’s iPad Mini, Amazon’s Kindle and Google’s Nexus tablet.

Barnes & Noble said Wednesday after the market closed that it expects Nook media revenue of less than $3 billion. It also anticipates a loss for the unit from earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to exceed the $262 million loss recorded in its 2012 fiscal year.

Shares sank nearly 6 percent to $13.36 in Thursday morning trading.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

James Gifford: Nexus 7: A Worthy Tool for the System Administrator

The last day of August, 2012, I got a box in the mail. The contents? A 16GB Nexus 7. My first android device.

Since then, its been a fun ride, and I’ve learned the various cool tools out there for a IT person.

I do contract work with a nameless startup incubator in the area, and as part of that, I’m partially responsible for printers, user-facing documentation, etc.

As such, I was constantly plugging and unplugging my laptop to show people this, that or the other. however, the tablet has replaced my laptop for a lot of those duties. Let me explain more.

Documentation.

Like it or not, we all have to document things. And we have to do it well, for our intended audience. Now, we have two main pieces of user-facing documentation – the WiFi setup, and the printer setup. Two documents,one of which changes as we fix things (printers).

The Nexus 7 is just the right for me to pull of the document and refer to it as I’m working on someone’s machine. The apps I use for that are:

  • Dropbox. We use a shared dropbox folder to share the documents.

Now, to view them, I need a office type tool. While I could (and have) use Google drive, it doesn’t lend itself to the situation well.

I’ve looked at the softmaker line of products, but I haven’t been impressed with their linux offerings, so I’m not sure if I should risk the price for the full amount.

However, I am very happy with Kingston Office Writer.

It’s free, and available for Android here.

SSH.

The ConnectBot family is well-known and very well featured for being able to do SSH.

However, I’ve discovered that stock ConnectBot doesn’t play nice with function keys on bluetooth keyboards, so I am using a fork of ConnectBot called VX ConnectBot that properly supports external keyboards.

ConnectBot supports SSH keys, although I don’t make use of them – I don’t do enough SSH on my tablet to worry about that.

Notes.

Evernote. While I used to be a fan of Tomboy/Tomdroid/Ubuntu One, recent events have pushed me into the Evernote fold. And I must say, it’s nice. I’m using it to write this blog post right now.

I shell out the cash each month for Evernote Premium, and while I’m enjoying it so far, there are a few “problems” I have with it, but I also had them with Tomboy.

  • No Markdown support. Really, everything should support markdown.
  • Search sucks. Always has, always will. Someday someone will make search that doesn’t suck, but that day has not yet come.
  • inline image embedding. For this, that’d be really nice. But oh well.

PDF Viewer.

Amazon Kindle or the built-in PDF reader are my go-to PDF readers. They aren’t terrific, but they are ok.

Email.

Ahg. Email, the bane of every IT persons existence. Email is something I detest.
People need to understand that when they email me, I will see it, and then prioritize it. I’m sad that people think that emailing me = instant response and I go …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

Blackberry 10: A New Market Worthy Competitor

By Maribel Lopez, Contributor In a global launch that spanned London, Dubai, Johannesburg, Toronto and New York, RIM announced a re-invented product and company. VP of Developer relation Alex Saunders spoke about the amazing global developer support with 15,000 apps being submitted in one weekend and another 19,000 in the following the next. Saunders said “It’s the largest catalog of apps every for a first generation launch in mobile. Developers have embraced BB10.” Martyn Mallick said over 70,000 applications available on BB10 today. “With this momentum, we expect thousands of apps to be submitted per week.” He mentioned that it wasn’t just the volume of apps, but the critical apps that were important. He stated Blackberry has support for the top 1,000 apps globally. These include business and consumer  apps such as Skype, Angry Birds, Amazon’s Kindle, and SAP.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest