When it comes to reading, I use a Kindle PaperWhite. I hate paper books with a passion -- they take up space and are obsolete. The Kindle is wonderful because it allows me to easily bookmark pages, look up definitions, and scan the book for certain words with the x-ray feature. An Amazon Prime membership enhances the Kindle experience by letting the user "borrow" a book from among 350,000 choices.

Today, Amazon announces Kindle First , a new program that gets unreleased books into the hands of readers before the official release date. This is not just a few days either, it can be up to a month early. This will give Kindle owners extreme bragging-rights in the book-club community. I can already picture pretentious people sitting in Starbucks saying  "oh, that book is so last month".

Continue reading →

Amazon has continued to roll out its Cloud Player application with the release of Amazon Cloud Player for Mac 2.0 (despite the version number, this is the first release on the Mac platform). The new player is practically identical to the Windows build, which debuted in May.

Amazon Cloud Player, also available for iOS and Android, allows Amazon users to access all music stored in its Cloud Player service.

Continue reading →

It has been nearly two months since online retail giant Amazon announced its MatchBook feature for Kindle, complimenting the previously unveiled Autorip service for music. Now, the company finally shows the feature the light of day, unveiling MatchBook availability effective today.

If you aren't familiar, MatchBook for Kindle provides customers with the opportunity to purchase a Kindle version of any book already bought through Amazon in physical form. You could, of course, do this previously, but only by paying full price for each copy. With MatchBook, prices range from free up to $2.99 for the digital version.

Continue reading →

Amazon Prime today continues its battle with Netflix and Redbox Instant, in a fight to get control of that monthly fee you lay out in the name of entertainment. This time the retail giant strikes with a new agreement between it and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio to expand availability of content.

The company brought the hit series Vikings to its British and German viewers through LOVEFiLM back in May, but those who failed to watch season one in the US can now also catch up with Ragnor and his crew.

Continue reading →

It has been almost a month since Amazon unveiled its Kindle Fire HDX tablets and began thrusting them in consumer's faces via its homepage. While its been long enough for this tablet model to seem the new norm, Amazon was not actually shipping the devices, but that changes now.

The seven-inch Amazon Kidle Fire HDX begins shipping today, coming along with the latest version of Fire OS 3.0, known as "Mojito". Amazon promises "a beautiful 323 ppi perfect-color HDX display, 3x the processing power, 2x the memory, 4x the graphics performance, and Fire OS 3.0, we think customers are going to love the new Kindle Fire HDX", according to Peter Larsen, Vice President of Amazon Kindle.

Continue reading →

We've grown rather accustomed to logging into web sites through the use of other services, most notably Facebook and Twitter. Now retail giant Amazon is stepping into the ring, and adding a financial twist to the concept.

Today the online behemoth announces its new "Login and Pay with Amazon" service, aimed at allowing "participating companies to empower customers to go from browsing to buying in just a few clicks using their Amazon account information".

Continue reading →

Amazon has been busy producing original content to bolster its Prime streaming video service, releasing 14 shows for testing back in April and letting the viewers decide which would stick. Now the Studio arm of the retail giant is announcing three more shows going into pilot production.

Mozart in the Jungle from Roman Coppola, The Outlaws written by Jeremy Garelick and Jon Weinbach, and Transparent from director Solloway are all heading for filming.

Continue reading →

Microsoft held an event in NYC to launch the Surface 2 and Brian was live-blogging. The full video of the launch is available to view online as are advertisements that show off the tablets' versatility. Microsoft is pinning a lot on the updated product after the first generation suffered from poor sales. There were no great new features, but there is a redesigned kickstand, a healthy speed boost, new dock and updated covers -- Brian was particularly impressed by the Blades.

Anyone buying a Surface 2 or Surface Pro 2 earns themselves a SkyDrive upgrade. Purchase a new device and your online storage gets upgraded to 200GB, but the same amount of space is available for $100 per year. Moving away from Surface-related news, Microsoft turned its guns on Google Docs, highlighting user complaints to demonstrate the superiority of Office 365.

Continue reading →

Earlier today we reported on Amazon's launch of three all-new Kindle Fires. Thanks to the introduction of improved enterprise and productivity features in Fire OS 3.0, Amazon hopes to make the latest Fire HD and HDX more attractive to BYOD and business users.

"Kindle Fire is already the second most popular tablet at work in the US," says Raghu Murthi, Vice President of Enterprise and Education at Amazon. "As employees increasingly bring their own devices to work, the new Kindle Fire tablets can be easily integrated into the workplace with the new enterprise features, including encryption, secure Wi-Fi, a native VPN client, integration with leading MDM solutions, and Kerberos support for Intranet access".

Continue reading →

It’s all about tablets this week as following on from Microsoft’s Surface reveal, Amazon today announces three new Kindle Fires -- the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, and the Kindle Fire HDX, in 7 and 8.9-inch sizes. The new devices offer a slimmer design, better screens, faster hardware and an updated OS.

The $139 Kindle Fire HD has a high-definition display with 1280 by 800 resolution and 216ppi -- 66 percent more pixels than the previous generation Kindle Fire. It’s powered by a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor, and has dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio.

Continue reading →

Many of novelist Stephen King's books and short stories have found their way to the screen either through a movie or mini-series. Some, like The Shining, have become classics in the eyes of fans, while others...well... This season a King novel has returned the author to prominence on the small screen -- Under the Dome has been the most watched show of the summer season.

Now Amazon and CBS announce that the streaming deal that was in place for season one has been renewed. "Prime Instant Video will remain the exclusive online subscription home for Under the Dome. Amazon Prime members will have unlimited streaming of all the series' episodes four days after their initial broadcast on CBS and will be able to enjoy them on hundreds of compatible Amazon Instant Video devices including Kindle Fire HD, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Roku, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the Wii U gaming console" reads a joint statement issued by the two parties.

Continue reading →

Looking at the biggest stories on BetaNews from September, 1 - 7, 2013. This was a week packed with news from IFA in Berlin -- lots of big announcements to whet our appetites for the coming months. LG's G Pad was revealed as a potential competitor to the Nexus 7 and iPad mini, while Acer was found to be proudly showing off its new R7 notebook complete with innovative Ezel hinge that allows for a range of working positions.

IFA was also where Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 3 as well as the Galaxy Gear smartwatch which will allow us all to live out our Star Trek dreams. It wasn't long before Note 3 pre-orders were being taken. If you've noticed that phones are getting bigger and bigger, the same is certainly true of tablets -- the Panasonic Toughpad 4K is a staggering 20 inches from corner to corner.

Continue reading →

Apple says it will appeal against a court ruling that bans the company from entering into deals with publishers that could allow ebook prices to be fixed or inflated. The case was raised by the Department of Justice and judge Denise Cote's decision is very much in line with what they were seeking. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company is banned from entering into agreements with five named publishers in ways that might restrict ebook prices.

Having been found to have conspired with publishers to prevent retailers (rather than publishers or Apple) from setting ebook prices, Apple fell foul of antitrust legislation. The company is required to wipe out a controversial 'most favoured nation' clause in its contracts that effectively ensure that Apple's ebook prices would always match the lowest price available online. Restrictions are in place for different lengths of time for various publishers, ranging from two years in the case of Hachette, to four years for Macmillan.

Continue reading →

The Kindle Paperwhite is the most successful e-reader ever, and Amazon is updating the range with the sixth generation of the Kindle family. It's the "All-New" prefix that aids identification, but aside from the name, there's a new display, faster processor and a raft of new features for readers to use. In terms of appearance, there are few differences to its predecessor, but the display is where things are most noticeable.

New display technology gives a higher contrast ratio and Amazon claims that pages are "virtually indistinguishable from a physical book". No new version would be complete without an extra turn of speed, and the latest Kindle Paperwhite doesn't disappoint, offering a processor running 25 percent faster than in the previous model. The touchscreen has been upgraded with a tighter grid to help improve sensitivity and accuracy.

Continue reading →

Playing with fire is generally considered bad practice -- I know, as a parent I recommend my kids avoid it. Amazon, however has a whole new Matchbook that it can not wait to set alight. In this case, thankfully, there are no pyrotechnics involved -- just some good literature.

Today the online retailer announces Matchbook -- "a new benefit that gives customers the option to buy -- for $2.99, $1.99, $0.99, or free -- the Kindle edition of print books they have purchased new from Amazon".

Continue reading →