All posts tagged ‘Kindle’

Kindle Fire 2 Will Arrive Within Two Months, Report Says

The Kindle Fire, shown here, could be updated with a snazzier metal case. Photo: Victor J. Blue/Wired

With Google’s Nexus 7 tablet set for a July release, Amazon is fast-tracking the production of its next-generation Kindle Fire. This is the message from China Times, which reports Amazon has already ordered 2 million Kindle Fire 2s from Quanta, and the tablets could arrive sometime in July or August. This information lines up with a recent report from BGR concerning a quad-core Kindle Fire arriving in July.

Both BGR and China Times point to a higher-quality metal casing replacing the plastic enclosure of the current Kindle Fire. BGR expects a 10-inch Kindle Fire while the China Times article points to three possible screen sizes: 7 inches, 8.9 inches and 10 inches. China Times reports that components for the 7-inch version began shipping in June. If this is true, it would put the Kindle Fire 2 development and release time at under a year.

The first Kindle Fire was announced in late September 2011, with tablets shipping to consumers in November 2011. The Kindle Fire went on to dominate the Android tablet market, but lately sales of the device have fallen as Samsung has taken over second place to Apple in the tablet market.

With the impressive Nexus 7 reaching consumers in July, Amazon needs to step up its 7-inch tablet game — and quickly.

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Amazon Acquires 3-D Mapping Startup UpNext, Report Says

Is Amazon about to follow a new direction? Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Everyone’s getting into the mobile mapping game. While Google has been mapping the world for years, Apple has only recently jumped into the cartography pool. And now it seems that Amazon wants in on the 3-D mapping action as well.

Ferdinand Magellan would be thrilled.

According to a GigaOM, Amazon closed a deal to acquire UpNext on Monday. The 3-D mapping startup currently has apps for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire. The app uses vector-based 3-D images to recreate virtual buildings — this as opposed to the photo-based technology used by Google and Apple’s map offerings.

The UpNext 3-D maps are available for more than 50 cities, with 23 cities sporting textured 3-D with roadways. The vector-based textured maps resemble those you might see in a videogame, like Grand Theft Auto. GTA might not be the image Amazon is going for with its acquisition, but the maps look impressive nonetheless.

Amazon’s UpNext acquisition is curious considering that the Kindle Fire doesn’t have GPS capabilities. The purchase could therefore point to interesting developments in Amazon’s hardware line-up. Perhaps the next Kindle Fire will sport GPS. Or maybe Amazon is working on a smartphone.

If we’ve learned anything in the past few weeks, it’s that if you’re going to make a phone, it better have a nice map app.

Queries to Amazon and UpNext yeilded no replies as of press time.

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Hands-On: Nexus 7 Tablet Is a Media Hub that Amazon Must Fear

Google and Asus have teamed up to build the Nexus 7 tablet, a rival to Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

I’ve only been using it for about a day now, but the Nexus 7 is already the best 7-inch tablet I’ve ever tested. Without question, it out-classes the hugely popular Amazon Kindle Fire. It’s also a better-performing device than Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet and Nook Color, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, Toshiba’s Excite 7, and anything else out there in this size.

The Nexus 7 is manufactured by Asus but serves as a full-fledged Android flagship device. This means it runs a completely pure, unadulterated version of Google’s latest mobile operating system — Android 4.1, aka Jelly Bean. The hardware was designed by Asus and Google together, and it just can’t be matched in terms of 7-inch tablet value.

For one thing, it’s the world’s only quad-core 7-inch tablet, and it will sell for $200 with 8GB of storage and $250 with 16GB of storage. The Google Play storefront has the tablet on pre-order now for shipment in mid-July.

Inside is Nvidia’s Tegra 3 quad-core processor, a 12-core Nvidia GPU and 1GB of RAM. These internals give the Nexus 7 plenty of speed and processing power. When I first turned on the tablet, and logged into my Google account and began downloading content, swiping between different home screens was a bit stuttery. It wasn’t any worse than what I’ve experienced on other tablets, but I didn’t get the feeling the Nexus 7 was brimming with category-leading components.
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Kindle App Updated With Batman and Curious George Support

Holy Kindle app Batman! Photo: Peter McCollough/Wired

Amazon’s latest Kindle app update for Android, iOS and Cloud Viewer was released on Thursday, and fans of comic books and reading to their children should take note: The update adds support for reading graphic novels panel by panel, as well as enlarged text pop-ups for children’s books.

The Panel View panel-by-panel reading experience for graphic novels and comic books is slightly different from the feature found in the Comics app from Comixology. Instead of presenting the expanded panel alone on screen, the Kindle app zooms in on the the comic panel, and darkens the panels behind it. You simply swipe to advance to the next panel. The zoomed-in panel-by-panel method reduces the chance of accidentally seeing a later panel on a page, and ruining the flow of the story.

For children’s books, Amazon has introduced the Text Pop-Up feature that enlarges the text of a story, and pulls it out of the artwork into its own text box. The enlarged text is great for reading along with children. It’s also helpful for people with poor eyesight.

The Panel View and Pop-Up Text features only work with supported titles. Amazon says that 1,000 comic book and children’s book titles are currently available in the Kindle Store and support Panel View and Text Pop-Up.

Amazon has been bullish on bringing its Kindle app to as many devices as possible. Even though the online retailer has its own line of Kindle e-readers and the Kindle Fire, its main focus is to sell wares on as many platforms as possible.

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Kindle Fire Is First Android Tablet to Get HBO GO

The Kindle Fire is on an Android tablet hot streak. Photo: Wired

The Kindle Fire keeps blazing past other Android tablets. In addition to recent news that it owns more than 50 percent of the Android tablet market, the Fire is now the first Android tablet to get HBO GO.

Just in time for the new season of everyone’s favorite blood-sucking/soft-core porn show True Blood, the Kindle Fire has been accepted into the HBO GO-compatible device club. The app is available now in the Amazon app store and gives HBO subscribers instant access to some 1,400 of the network’s episodes.

In addition to receiving online episode access simultaneous to a show’s appearance over cable or satellite, HBO GO viewers get behind-the-scenes videos, episode re-caps and interviews about HBO shows. It’s a nice bit of therapy for anyone going through Game of Thrones withdrawals.

The Kindle Fire is the first Android tablet to get the HBO GO app. Currently the app is available for Android phones, iPhone, iPad, Roku, Samsung Smart TVs and the Xbox 360. HBO told Wired via email that an Android tablet edition of HBO GO is being developed for select tablets and should launch early this Summer.

Recently, a movement to lobby HBO to offer HBO GO access without the precondition of an HBO subscription has taken root on Twitter. The site Take My Money, HBO gives users a chance to declare via Twitter how much they would be willing to pay for a monthly subscription to HBO GO.

The network hasn’t made an official statement, but sent out a tweet this morning stating, “Love the love for HBO. Keep it up. For now, @RyanLawler @TechCrunch has it right” and points to a TechCrunch article that outlines the problems HBO would face if it went with an online subscription model. The most damning would be the loss of support of cable, satellite and IPTV distributors.

Even without an online subscription service, HBO is creeping onto more and more devices while it controls its own on-demand destiny. While exclusive rights to HBO GO for Android tablets will be short-lived for the Kindle Fire, it can only help to bolster the tablet’s market dominance.

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