WebProNews

Amazon Revises Kindle 2 Text-To- Speech Policy

Amazon.com has changed its position on its Kindle 2 book reader and says it will allow copyright holders to decide if they want to enable a text- to- speech feature on a title-by-title basis. "Kindle 2's experimental text-to-speech feature is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given," Amazon said in a statement.

Shortcovers Could Challenge Amazon's Kindle

You've probably heard a lot of hype about the new Kindle 2 from Amazon that people just started receiving this week. This isn't the only news in electronic reading materials though. What if you could just get books delivered to your phone? That doesn't sound too bad, and it's exactly what Canadian Indigo Books & Music, Inc. is doing with its well-timed release of Shortcovers, which launched today.

Author's Guild Goes After Kindle

Not everybody’s thrilled with Kindle 2, namely Roy Blount, Jr., author and president of the Author’s Guild. The last time we heard from the Author’s Guild, they were mighty upset about Google scanning and indexing library books. This time the objection is over the text-to-speech function Amazon included, which reads the downloaded book aloud.

Amazon's Kindle 2: First Images

Amazon's Kindle 2 has arrived in the hands of those lucky enough to get the early pre-orders. Luckily WebProNews was among the first batch of recipients. So let's take a look at this bad boy.

Judging the Book Without a Cover

With the Unveiling of the newest generation of Amazon Kindle (which began shipping on Monday) bloggers, publishing houses, newspaper editors, and even lumberjacks are thinking: what's next?   It's the second version of the Kindle, a wireless reading device, capable of storing thousands of titles within its svelte design.  

Amazon Unveils Kindle 2

Rumor had it that Amazon would unveil a new version of its Kindle e-book reader today; pictures of a slim and slick-looking device were already circulating, and Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO, had called a press conference in New York.  Now, Amazon's investors and (slightly) late adopters will be happy to hear that the rumor was realized.

Will Kindle 2.0 Mirror iPod's Success?

Rumor has it Amazon will unveil the second generation of its ebook Kindle at a press event next Monday. The device is expected to be thinner and cheaper, but still will lack certain functionalities the digital consuming public might expect. Beyond that, predictions for the device seem overly optimistic.

Citigroup Analyst: 500,000 Kindles Sold Last Year

The Kindle, Amazon's e-book reader, has been sold out for months.  Over 7,600 (mostly positive) reviews have been written on its official product page.  And even though Amazon's chosen not to share official figures, a Citigroup analyst has now estimated that around 500,000 Kindles were sold last year.

Hitwise: Interest In E-Books, E-Book Readers On The Rise

The market for e-books and e-book readers seems to be growing bigger and bigger.  It's not at all time to declare the death of the paperback, but new UK data from Hitwise shows that searches for certain e-book-related terms are becoming much more common.

Data Portability and the Cloud

We've been hearing a lot these days about cloud computing and data portability. It only makes sense that we see some data portability through the cloud as well right? Confused yet? Think services like Facebook Connect combined with Google Apps.