Amazon announced that the Kindle DX will be released on June 10th. I had to pat myself on the back as I tweeted the Friday prior that it would probably be within a week; I won’t tell how I figured it out 
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Note to potential Kindle DX buyers. A line seems to be forming at Amazon. On the Kindle DX page it says: “Pre-orders placed prior to June 5th will begin shipping on June 10th. New pre-orders will be prioritized on a first come, first served basis. Pre-order today and your Kindle DX will ship in approximately 7 to 10 days.” I’m wondering if they are getting near the end of current stock.
Lots of ‘Kindle Killer’ claims this week – iRex announces plans for color eReader probably out in 2011, an article in MACWorld notes that AT&T plans a Kindle competitor (no date), Pixel Qi unveiled a new screen technology for netbook devices that offers an ebook mode along w/ the standard LCD mode (very cool).
InformationWeek noted Google plans on competing with Amazon in the ebook space. I kept stumbling over the term “publishing partners”, but would like to see some real viable big-boy competition in the arena, hopefully with Kindle formatted books.
The company that manufactures the Kindle display, e-Ink, was purchased by a Taiwanese company Prime View Int’l. They will use the purchase to develop in their development of color screens.
Random House added a few books to their limited-time free book downloads and Orbit has a new $1 book for June. See here.
Amazon started featuring an ‘Optimized for Kindle DX‘ tag on some Kindle versions. No definitive statement by Amazon on what that means, but I’m sure that when the DX ships, there will be comment on what exactly this seems to mean for readers.
Saddest news of all was the passing of David Eddings. I can honestly say that his series were my favorite in the fantasy arena. I have multiple copies of each, but would love to see them all Kindled. The Belgariad, The Mallorean, Belgarath the Sorcerer, Polgara the Sorceress, The Elenium and The Tamuli, in case you didn’t know. If you’d like to check them out, here’s his page on Amazon.
We added a new page, Kindle Tools-Part 1, Web Tools. Check it out for websites that help you use your Kindle. Upcoming is Kindle Tools-Part 2, Apps n Hacks.
See you next week!
