Amazon allows Kindle ebooks to be gifted

Amazon has announced that you can now gift someone a Kindle book, and that you don't even have to worry if that person has a Kindle or not.
The only requirement is an Amazon account for you and an email address for the recipient. The ebooks can be read from Kindle apps on iPhones, iPads, Android and Blackberry phones and both Macs and PCs. All Kindle apps are free.

"We are thrilled to make it easier than ever for our customers to give their favorite Kindle book to a friend or family member as a gift," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "We're making this functionality available in time for the holidays to offer an easy, stress free holiday shopping option for anyone - not just Kindle owners."

To give a Kindle Book as a gift, customers simply choose a book in the Kindle Store, select "Give as a Gift" and send their gift to anyone with an email address. Notifications of Kindle Books gifts are delivered instantly via e-mail and the recipient redeems the gift in the Kindle Store to read on any Kindle or free Kindle app.

Australian Millenius e-book readers

Australian  Millennius is taking orders for its new e-book readers, as they have two models are available soon. The $A249 unit has a 6in E-ink screen, Wi-Fi with supported formats like TXT, EPUB, FB2, PDF, DOC, XLS, PPT, CHM, HTML, MP3, WMA, AAC, etc. The larger one has a 7in colour (LCD) 800 x 480 pixel screen. In addition to e-books, audio and photos  it can play video files. The 7in model , which runs Linux, is also able to act as a voice recorder.
Battery life is said to be approximately 8000 pages for the 6in model (E-ink uses power when redrawing the screen) and up to 15 hours reading (less for audio or video) for the 7in model.

New York Times to Launch Ebook Best-Seller Lists

It really seems like 2010 will be remembered as the year ebooks finally went mainstream. That ebook sales in the United States are projected to hit almost $1 billion by the end of the year and now The New York Times has announced they plan to launch ebook bestseller lists in early 2011.

The New York Times Best-Seller List, which has been published since 1935, is known as the true mark of a book's success for both publishers and authors. The ebook rankings will reflect sales aggregated from a number of online service providers who sell ebooks to consumers.

Barnes & Noble Introduces NOOKcolor

Barnes & Noble Introduces NOOKcolor, claiming it will be the ultimate reading experience, featuring:

• First-Ever Reader's Tablet with Full-Color Touchscreen and Wireless Access
• Enhanced Graphic Books, Magazines, Newspapers and Interactive Children's Books
• Amazingly Thin and Portable
• The Most Social Reading Device Ever Built: Lend, Borrow and Share with Friends

Time will tell how true that claim willl be. Anyway, it sounds really good.

NOOKcolor is now available for $249 for pre-order at www.NOOKcolor.com and at Barnes & Noble stores tomorrow, and will begin shipping on or about November 19.  Also at the  NOOK(TM) Boutique or display at  Barnes & Noble bookstore, as well as at Best Buy, Walmart and Books-A-Million starting late November.
 
"With NOOKcolor, we've combined the functionality and convenience of a 7-inch portable wireless tablet with the reader-centricity of a dedicated eReader, and employed a breakthrough color screen technology that will wow customers," said William Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble. Added Lynch, "NOOKcolor enables Web browsing over Wi-Fi, music, games and much more, but reading anything and everything in brilliant color is the killer app and squarely the product's focus. At $249, NOOKcolor offers a tremendous value, particularly in comparison to the many other 7-inch tablets coming to market at twice the cost and often requiring expensive data plans.  Most importantly, NOOKcolor is designed for and differentiated by what Barnes & Noble knows best: reading."

Amazon Windowshop - Amazon.com for iPad

Amazon.com has launched Amazon Windowshop, a complete rewrite of Amazon.com specifically for the iPad. Amazon Windowshop's intimate and fluid user interaction is made possible by the iPad's responsive, multi-touch interface. Amazon Windowshop sets a new bar for e-commerce, and many Amazon customers may prefer Amazon Windowshop even when a large screen web interface is readily available. On the backend, everything remains the same - 49 fulfillment centers with millions of in-stock items that ship with Amazon's customary low prices and fast delivery. But on the front end, customers will experience a new Amazon.com.

"Amazon Windowshop is a top-to-bottom rewrite of Amazon.com - designed and built without compromise just for iPad," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "Try it. I think you'll find it's an amazing new way to shop Amazon's millions of items. Same selection, same low prices, same fast delivery, same benefits of your Amazon Prime membership - just a completely new, fluid interface designed specifically for lean-back, touch screen tablets."
This new experience is designed to make exploring everything from textbooks and jeans, to video games and golf clubs, easy, fun, fast and incredibly useful for iPad owners. Amazon Windowshop is now available for free on the App Store at www.itunes.com/appstore.

Amazon announces 14-day Kindle ebook lending

Amazon will be introducing a 14-day lending feature for Kindle ebooks later this year, the Kindle team announced yesterday. User won’t be able to read ebooks while they’re lent out. The feature won’t be available for all ebooks either, as it will be entirely up to publishers and rights holders to enable it.

Second, later this year, we will be introducing lending for Kindle, a new feature that lets you loan your Kindle books to other Kindle device or Kindle app users. Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period. Additionally, not all e-books will be lendable - this is solely up to the publisher or rights holder, who determines which titles are enabled for lending.

NOOK eBook Reader Will Be Sold at Walmart

The world’s largest bookseller, has announced its award-winning NOOK eBook Reader will be sold in 2,500 Walmart stores (NYSE: WMT) and online at www.walmart.com. The popular NOOK devices are expected to arrive on Walmart shelves beginning as soon as October 24, in advance of the holiday shopping season.

The NOOK eBook Readers will be prominently featured as the premier eBook Reader in the consumer electronics area. Many Walmart stores will feature a NOOK-branded eReading area where shoppers can see and touch a demonstration device.
Walmart will offer both great choice and value with two NOOK by Barnes & Noble eBook Reader models – NOOK 3G, which offers free AT&T 3G wireless and Wi-Fi connectivity, as well as NOOK Wi-Fi, a Wi-Fi only model. Both offer a crisp, paper-like E Ink display for reading and a beautiful color touchscreen for navigation, and access to shop the Barnes & Noble expansive eBookstore with more than one million eBooks, magazines and newspapers, most available for $9.99 or less and more than half a million free titles. Digital content from Barnes & Noble is downloaded wirelessly in seconds. NOOK devices are also the only to offer sharing of eBooks with friends through Barnes & Noble’s breakthrough LendMe™ technology.
“Sales of NOOK devices continue to exceed our expectations, and we are thrilled to be able to partner with Walmart, one of the world’s greatest retailers, to expand the distribution of our award-winning NOOK eBook Reader,” said Chris Peifer, Vice President, Digital Business Development at Barnes & Noble. “Walmart’s millions of shoppers will have an easy and convenient way to try NOOK devices in many stores and to learn why NOOK is the most full-featured eReading device on the market, and the perfect gift solution for anyone who loves to read.”

Source: Barnes & Noble