If you are a reader of this blog, you may have noticed that there haven’t been any posts in a while. Why? Because there are so many blogs on the Kindle these days that it’s impossible not to become “just another Kindle blog.” For that reason, I’m working on some other plans for this site and will be focusing more on my book and other Kindle topics rather than Kindle news “as it happens.”

Check in later.

Jim

The latest free e-book from Amazon’s Kindle Store is Linda Winfree’s Truth and Consequences. You can get it here.

The Boy Genius Report has posted some pictures of what is supposed to be a second generation Kindle.  I have to say that this report looks like it might possibly be a good fake to me, but only time will tell.

There are some disappointing pieces to the report. BGR reports that the battery may no longer be user-accessible and also that the SD card slot has been removed.

Take a look for yourself here. There are plenty of pictures.

After Forbes’ sensationalistic proclamation of the iPhone beating the Kindle, one might be tempted to think of the unveiling of Sony’s PRS-700 tonight in New York as another non-story. That would be a mistake. The new Sony e-reader is a heavy blow to the Kindle because it has some of the neat features that Kindle readers (at least some of them) want to see.

Among the most appealing new features are a touch-sensitive screen complete with finger gestures for page turning (and hopefully smudge-resistant) and an LED (white) for night reading without a third-party accessory. Price: $400.

Read more here.

Forbes is reporting that Apple’s iPhone is more popular than the Amazon Kindle in the e-reader arena. Stanza, an e-reader application for the iPhone, is experiencing 5,000 downloads a day according to Lexcycle, the application’s developer.

Is this surprising? Not really.  In fact, I believe that Forbes’ article is hyperbolic. Stanza is available to all iPhone owners from the iTunes App Store. How much does it cost for someone to download Stanza? Nothing! It’s free. Therefore, I submit that there isn’t a 1:1 relationship between Stanza downloads and people who are regularly using the iPhone as an e-book reader.

Among people who are actually reading books on a device regularly, I suspect that Kindle is still more popular than any other device by a wide margin.

Read the Forbes article here.

Now this is cool. Scientists in the UK have begun a three year project to develop color, interactive e-ink displays. These displays aren’t going to use the same technology that we see in the Kindle. Instead, they use electrical charges to change the color of a thin, liquid layer in a process called electrowetting.

Not only will these new displays bring full-color to electronic reading devices, but the display can also update quickly enough for video! I expect we’ll see these displays appear on Plastic Logic devices before anything else because Plastic Logic is helping to back the project.

It’s a brave new world.

iStyles has released a wide assortment of skins for the Kindle. These skins are attached to the Kindle using an adhesive backing. The skin can be repositioned or removed without leaving any sticky residue.

Included with each skin is a download link that will let you get a matching wallpaper for your Kindle (as shown in the figure to the right) so that your Kindle disappears within the unique design of your skin.

iStyles has plenty of skins available for the Kindle, and one of them is bound to suit your tastes. Each skin sells for less than 15 dollars.

I was recently interviewed by Len Edgerly of the Kindle Chronicles. My interview airs on this week’s podcast and you can listen to it from the Kindle Chronicles website or by subscribing via iTunes, the Zune Marketplace, etc.

Even if you aren’t interested in my interview, you should subscribe to Len’s podcast. It’s a great Kindle resource.

TechRadar seems to be pleased with the new BeBook being sold in the UK. According to TechRadar, the BeBook is “far cooler looking than Amazon’s unwieldy Kindle.” I found this particular passage interesting:

Alternatively, and again rather coolly, you can use the BeBook as an RSS reader on-the-go – merely update from all of your favourite newsfeeds from your PC first thing in a morning and you can read all your chosen news as you travel into the office. Beats Metro or London Lite in our (e)book!

It’s also a real plus point that the BeBook has over Sony’s Reader, which can’t currently handle RSS feeds. (For the record, Amazon’s Kindle can read feeds, but you will need to install the mobireader software on it first.)

This is yet another example of the Amazon Kindle being passed over out of a fundamental misunderstanding of how it works. Unlike BeBook or Sony’s Reader, the Kindle can be used to read RSS feeds without a computer as long as you are in an area with Whispernet service. (I realize that this obviously excludes the UK, but TechRadar is a worldwide blog, so geography is no excuse.) 

It’s obvious that TechRadar misunderstood the forum post to which they link. What that post is recommending is an install of Mobipocket Reader in order to download RSS feeds to a computer and then sync them with the Kindle. (You can’t install software on the Kindle.) Not only did TechRadar misunderstand, but they chose an awful scenario as the “only” way to read RSS feeds on the Kindle. In my book, Feedbook’s solution is a much better choice, and Google Reader is also a great way to go. Either of these allows you to sync and read RSS feeds at no charge on the Kindle, and you don’t need a computer to sync up.

I sure wish these tech “news” sources would do some research before posting information “for the record.”

I’ve frequently seen Kindle users asking about a Kindle seemingly stuck in a powered on state. These users say that even after switching the power switch off, the Kindle’s display continues to show the same image or page and none of the buttons has any effect. In my experience, many times this kind of problem is caused by a discharged battery.

The Kindle uses E Ink for the display. One of the benefits of E Ink is that it consumes very little power. In fact, power is only required for changing the display. Once a page or an image is displayed, it can be maintained on the display without any power usage at all.

When you switch off the power switch on the back of the Kindle, the screen goes blank. It does that because Amazon designed the Kindle to blank out the screen when you switch off the power. The blanking of the screen requires power, but if your battery is dead, there’s no power to blank the screen. Therefore, when you switch off the power switch, the screen doesn’t change.

We’re not used to electronic devices working this way. In fact, I’ve had to prove this to several Kindle users by pulling out the battery. If you want to prove it to yourself, disconnect the battery of your Kindle while the screen is displaying text or a screen saver picture. Even with the battery removed, the screen will continue to display the same content.

The next time your Kindle seems to be locked up and stuck in the On position, try plugging it into the charger. Chances are it will “fix” your Kindle and you’ll be back to reading in no time.