“Harry Potter” Added to Kindle Lending Library

On May 10, 2012, Amazon announced that the “Harry Potter” series would be coming to the Kindle Lending Library. The Lending Library is a service that Amazon provides to members of Amazon Prime, allowing Prime members to borrow a limited number of e-books per month. Starting June 19, Prime members will have access to the “Potter” books. These books will only be available for members who own a Kindle and not those who use one of the free e-reader Kindle apps. Pottermore, the recently-launched “Harry Potter” website, will remain the only source to purchase the “Potter” books.

United States Postal Service to Stop Shipping Kindles Overseas

Also on Thursday, the United States Postal Service (USPS) announced that, effective May 16, it would stop shipping Kindles, iPads and any other consumer electronics devices containing lithium-ion batteries. The USPS expressed concern about the safety of lithium-ion batteries in making its decision. When overheated or mishandled, lithium-ion batteries may combust or catch fire. The USPS pointed to a series of fatal cargo-jet crashes which are believed to have been caused by exploding lithium-ion batteries. This decision will have a major impact on the cost of shipping these items internationally, forcing consumers and firms to use third-party parcel delivery services such as UPS and FedEx.

Is a Colorized Kindle Coming?

Rumors recently began to spread about the possibility of a colorized Kindle e-reader, in addition to the Kindle Fire. According to a report by an industry insider, E-Ink Holdings has plans to reveal color e-ink panels soon. Amazon has started ordering large volumes of color screen parts. Amazon has also started ordering multitouch capacitance panels, further evidence that a new Kindle may be in the works; the current Kindle touch screens use infrared technology to detect touch. Experts predict the new Kindle to surface in the second half of 2012.

The guys over at Priceonomics did a cool research project on the Kindle, who is buying it, and where they live. They came up with some very intriguing statistics!

First, while you might think that the largest and most educated cities would have by far the most sales of the Kindle, but it isn’t. it actually sells best in smaller venues in the Midwest and in the South (it was great to see my city – Oklahoma City, make it in at #12!). It also seems that e-reader sales correlate well with bad weather, oddly enough. They mention that maybe the folks with the best weather are too busy to read! They also show that the Kindle is handily beating the Nook.

I do want to try to answer one of their questions – they find it odd that you do not see many Kindles in the secondary market odd, and they seem to assume that the fact that you do not see many Kindles being re-sold is a problem. I actually see that as a positive. Here’s why -

Kindle owners, for the most part are very brand loyal and won’t let somebody take their Kindle out of their cold, dead hands (I know that’s how I am!). In addition, you don’t see as many Kindle sales outside of Amazon because of the strong branding they have done. Given those two factors, you are not going to see many Kindles on the secondary market, at least not yet.

It is a great read, and Priceonomics is a cool site I am going to be spending some time on for sure. They are set up to help people not get scammed when buying stuff by gathering research on a host of tech and other products, which is most certainly a noble cause. You can check out their special page dedicated to the Kindle here – http://priceonomics.com/e-readers/#kindle-index.

There were lots of unhappy potential e-book readers this morning when an outage caused most titles in the Kindle store to go down for while today. They were back up and running by about 11 Am Central, but by that time, there was a lot of uproar around the web about it!

Fortunately for Amazon, this did not affect the release of the new digital Harry Potter books, which according to CNET actually redirect to another store for the sales.

While Amazon has not come out with a statement about the outage, I actually see this as a good sign for Amazon. The fact that an outage in the Kindle store caused such an outrage on the web means that they continue to grow in popularity as the e-book behemoth on the web.

Kindle Singles are shorter than regular books but longer than your typical article – between 5000 and 30000 words – and, unlike the larger Kindle Direct Publishing program, go through an approval process before being published. Amazon gets about 50 submissions per week and only publishes three.

In addition, the Singles get a significant sales boost from the fact that they are promoted hard by the company. While Nook and Apple have tried similar programs – the Nook Snaps and Apple Quick Reads – they just haven’t taken off like the Singles have at this point.

I foresee Kindle Singles continuing to grow in the future, and I wouldn’t be surprised to the Amazon up the number of Singles they publish per week soon, given the overall success of the program.

You can read more about Kindle Singles here.

Here is how you can avoid that as best as you possibly can. First, let’s secure your apps -

• Go To “Apps” From The Home Screen
• Go To The Settings And Choose “Parental Controls”
• Set up a pin for purchasing apps.

This will ensure you don’t get any adult or generally questionable apps on your device. Now, of course, this doesn’t fix the problem of the internet on your Fire.  That’s where Mobicip comes in.

Mobicip is a content-filtering browser for the Kindle Fire and many other devices. It has a free and premium option, and either one should do the trick, although I recommend the Premium option, because of the added features, such as Youtube filtering and settings for specific users. You can get a free month trial on their site, and it is only a few bucks per month after that.

After securing your apps and adding Mobicip, you will be about as secure as you can possibly be. Something could still get through, but it is much less likely.

If you haven’t checked out the Kindle Owners Lending Library before, it basically wors like this – if you are an Amazon Prime member, and you own a Kindle or have a Kindle reading app, you get access to any books in the lending area for free. You can only check out one at a time, and only one per month, but it is still a great deal. Prime comes with a few other cool options as well, like access to the Amazon Video on Demand system for free, meaning you can watch any of the shows or movies for free on your Kindle Fire or your computer.