Amazon Kindle celebrates five e-inked years

Can you imagine a holiday season without Amazon's e-reader series? The Kindle celebrates its fifth birthday today -- a device that, since its debut, has added bigger screens, slimmer builds, and even some damn decent backlighting. Back at the start, Amazon's first hardware was just a little chunky, covered in buttons, and housed a 6-inch 800 x 600 e-ink display. However, the online bookseller went on to dominate the then-nascent e-reader market, with no shortage of rivals now wanting claim their own slice of the book-loving crowd. Five years goes pretty fast -- we just wonder how many still have their DRM-protected Mobipocket e-books to hand.

[Source: Engadget]

DC Comics brings a veritable justice league of titles to Kindle, iBooks and Nook Stores

Not that there's been any lack of ways to get Batman or Supes on your chosen tablet, between Comixology and the devoted DC app, but if you happened to need on more, the publisher announced today that it will be bringing its entire line to three prominent e-bookstores. Justice League, Batman, Superman and a slew of others are hitting the Kindle Store, iBookstore and Nook Store. Never let it be said that your tablet doesn't support Flash. check out some thoughts from co-publisher, cartoonist and all around awesome dude Jim Lee after the break.

[Source: Engadget]

Amazon debuts Kindle Windows 8 app

With all the hubbub surrounding today's Microsoft event, who can blame Amazon for wanting to get in on the action? The mega-retailer used the opportunity to announce the Windows 8 version of its popular reading app. Interested parties can download the thing for free from the Windows Store, giving them access to the company's selection of 1.5 million titles. The app is available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese and offers up good old Amazon features like Whispersync. Amazon also used the opportunity to announce that Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung will be pre-loading the app on their devices. More information can be found in the source link below.

[Source: Engadget]

New Kindles start shipping today in Europe, Lovefilm launches on Kindle Fire

As promised, Amazon has started shipping its latest Kindles on the other side of the Atlantic, with theKindle Paperwhite as well as the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD making the trip. Amazon's branded video services did not make the trip, so Lovefilm is filling in, offering a free month to buyers of either Fire tablet. Despite the switch in names, the Kindle Fire / Fire HD Lovefilm app will support features owners have gotten used to in the US like Whispersync pause / resume across devices, watch list and X-Ray for Movies that brings in extra info about any actors or scenes that are being watched. The Kindle Fire 8GB is available for £129/€159, while the Fire HD in 16GB or 32GB editions costs £159/€199 and £199/€249, respectively. The Kindle Paperwhite isn't invited to the video party, but it starts at £109 for the basic model or £169 with 3G.

[Source: Engadget]

Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite coming to the UK on October 25th, starting at £109

Amazon has found a relatively clear day in the calendar on which to launch its excellent Kindle Paperwhite e-reader in the British Isles. The ad-supported basic model will knock you back £109, while an extra £60 will get you the 3G version. Amazon's Lending Library service will roll-out at the same time, offering Prime members free loans from a collection of 200,000 books as part of the £49 per year subscription (which also has other perks). If you're shopping around, don't forget that Barnes & Noble's equally glowing alternative is also available in the UK these days, wearing a pretty much identical price tag.

[Source: Engadget]

Amazon Kindle Mac app update adds gesture features and visually richer Kindle book support

Amazon has refreshed its Kindle app to include support for swiping and other gesture navigation features for Macs running Lion OS X or higher. It will now display Kindle's new Format 8 books, allowing for more complicated formatting, HTML5 support, pop-up text, embedded fonts and other visual accoutrements to spice up your Mac-based reading. The update also adds Japanese language support alongside the typical pile of bug fixes and tweaks. You can download the new reader from the Mac App Store now, right at the source link below.

[Source: Engadget]