Amazon as just introduced their first golden Kindle. The Kindle Oasis has been given a lavish champagne gold makeover.

Kindle Oasis is Amazon’s most advanced Kindle ever. It features Amazon’s largest, highest-resolution Paperwhite display and a thin and light ergonomic design. This means that you can read more comfortably for hours.

Furthermore, Kindle Oasis is the first waterproof (IPX8) Kindle. So, no issues if you prefer to read in the bath or by the pool.

Finally, with Audible built in, you can listen to the world’s largest library of audiobooks. You can also easily switch between reading and listening to a professionally narrated performance on Bluetooth headphones or speakers.

Price and availabilty

You can pre-order a Gold Kindle Oasis for £259.99 today. Orders will start shipping on March 22nd.

Prime Reading

Get started reading right away if you are a Prime member.

Prime Reading is available to Prime members at no additional cost. It offers unlimited access to a rotating selection of more than a thousand books, magazines, comics, Kindle Singles, and more.

The post Kindle Oasis becomes first golden Amazon appeared first on GadgetyNews.

Amazon has announced an all-new Kindle app that makes it easier than ever to turn your phone or tablet into a book.

The Kindle app is designed for book lovers and provides easy access to the most popular Kindle features.

You are able to effortlessly move between the pages of your book, your library, your personalised bookstore and more.

All-New Design

With the new Kindle app, it is easier to get to what you want.

Whether it’s starting the next chapter in the book you’re reading or a quick search through your library, the all-new design makes switching back and forth seamless.
[youtube id=”qcv9kuLXgd4″]

Key updates

• All-New Look: The app features a new look and feel inspired by books. Details include larger book covers, new fonts, a new app icon, and new light and dark background themes to choose from.
• One-Tap Access: New bottom bar navigation automatically shows an icon of the book you’re currently reading. This makes it easier than ever to get back to reading at any moment. The bottom bar also provides quick access to Kindle’s most popular features allowing you to switch between the pages of your book, your library, your personal bookstore, and more.
• Easy Search: The search bar is now always available throughout the app. So, whether a book is in your library or among the millions of titles in the Kindle Store, it’s easier than ever to find it.

Words

Alessio Santarelli, Director of Kindle Content EU, said:

We’ve built the new Kindle app from the ground up for book lovers, giving readers easy access to everything they might want to do with their books, all in one place. It’s now easier than ever to turn your phone or tablet into a book and immerse yourself in an author’s world at any time.”

Availability

The all-new Kindle app is available now in the App Store and Google Play.

It will be delivered as part of a free, over-the-air update starting this week.

The post Amazon Kindle app even more inspired by books appeared first on GadgetyNews.

If you’re still running an old Kindle model and keep hitting the ‘Skip’ button whenever updates are in store then you had better take note of this one.

If this is the case, then you should know that your e-Reader will be disconnected from the internet unless you do the updates.

Amazon published this announcement:

If you do not update your device by March 22, 2016, you will receive the following message on your device: Your Kindle is unable to connect at this time. Please make sure you are within wireless range and try again. If the problem persists, please restart your Kindle from the Menu in Settings and try again. If you see this message on your device on or after March 22, you will need to manually install the latest software update for your device. Go to Fire & Kindle Software Updates for more details.

This goes for all models up to 5th Generation (2012). The affected include the following:

• 1st Generation (2007)
• 2nd Generation (2009)
• DX 2nd Generation (2009)
• Keyboard 3rd Generation (2010)
• 4th Generation (2011)
• 5th Generation (2012)
• Touch 4th Generation (2011)
• Paperwhite 5th Generation (2012)

The updates won’t have a significant effect on user experience and should have no negative effect.

Do it or lose it.

The post Update your old Kindle today or lose it appeared first on GadgetyNews.

Amazon’s Kindle has killed off Sony as the company is now giving up on e-readers.

Sony is pulling out of the e-reader arena which means that the PRS-T3 will be marked as the last version made and will exist as long as supplies remain in Europe.

A spokesperson for Sony spokesperson gave a statement to BBC News and said that:

We do not have plans to develop a successor Reader model at this time

The move comes just months after Sony shuttered its e-book distribution store in the US and Canada, making it less surprising that the company is killing off the associated hardware. North American customers using Sony Readers have been directed to buy books from Kobo since February this year, and European and Australian customers since May, a Sony spokeswoman said.

Sony will still keep selling its e-reader hardware in Japan alongside e-books from its online store. That might not mean much for its prospects in Sony’s home turf of Japan though.

While Sony and Kobo have attempted to beat Amazon’s e-readers, the Kindle became Japan’s top-selling e-reader taking 38.3% of the market just months after its launch in the region.

The Sony e-reader axing follows recent plans to give up on PlayStation Mobile for Android, and the selling off of its VAIO computer division earlier this year which returned last month under the control of a Japanese investment fund.

The post Sony passes business to Kobo and admits defeat to Kindle appeared first on GadgetyNews.

Recently, social media has been buzzing with incredible street illusions of giant holes opening up in the earth, people walking across glass bridges above sweeping cityscapes or even hands jumping out from the centre of the page. On a more practical level, the markings on roads often appear elongated so the driver can see them properly from a distance. This popular technique, known as Anamorphic Design, has been used for years on the roads, but it is now taking the artistic world by storm.

It was popularised in the 1920’s by two cousins from Cottingley, Yorkshire, who created paper cut out fairies that when photographed looked so realistic their authenticity wasn’t questioned until the 1970’s!

Put simply, anamorphic design uses perspective to make an image look 3D, tricking the viewer into thinking it’s ‘popping out’ of the page (or street, wall, whatever you like!). This deception only occurs when the viewer looks at the image at the right angle, or with a lens. It has gained great popularity on the street art scene in recent years with artists such as Julian Beever, Kurt Wenner & DALeast producing bold designs, as well as being used by Renault to advertise its range of trucks.

Print specialists instantprint have launched a new section of their website (Outside the Box) showcasing some of the most creative examples of anamorphic design which are scarily realistic! To help promote this, we’re collaborating with them to run a competition where one of you guys can win a cool 3D Street Art book, £25 Amazon voucher and one of instantprint’s anamorphic designs.

All you need to do is leave a comment or tweet your ideas on what you would like to see as an anamorphic design using the hashtag #printoutsidethebox and tagging @GadgetyNewsCom.

The competition is open to UK residents only, starting on the 23^rd September 2013 and closing on October 7^th 2013, so get entering as soon as you can!

The post 3D Street Art book and Amazon voucher up for grabs! appeared first on GadgetyNews.

Amazon stepped up its fight with Apple and unveiled a new set of Kindle Fire tablets including some designed to compete with the iPad. The best news for UK is that they’re heading over here too!

In a former airplane hangar in Santa Monica, California, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos unleashed 3 brand-new Kindle’s; ranging from an all-new Paperwhite E-reader to the new Kindle Fire HD which will be pitted against Apple’s all-conquering iPad.

Naturally, Amazon has an eye on Apple but the slate of new products will also compete with rival devices from Google, Microsoft and bookseller Barnes & Noble.

Kindle Paperwhite

The first product to be unveiled was the Kindle Paperwhite. The new and improved E-reader boasts a screen which has 62% more pixels and, thanks to the new screen, it is capable of 25% more contrast than its predecessor.

“Thinner than a magazine, lighter than a paperback“. Paperwhite, priced at $119, is lit from above rather than from the back, which, according to Bezos, made it “perfect in direct sunlight”

The Kindle Paperwhite still keeps an impressive battery life when using the front light technology and can last up to 8 weeks from a single charge.

New software features designed to enhance the reading experience include ‘Time to Read,’ which gives you estimates of how long it’ll take you to finish a book, or the chapter you’re on. ‘X-Ray’ helps you learn more about the characters in a book. You can also purchase books directly from author biography pages now.

Paperwhite starts shipping on 1 October in the US, and will also be available in the UK. The 3G connected version will cost $179

Kindle Fire HD

The main tablet announcement, of course, was the company’s new Kindle Fire HD.

The all-new tablet comes in two sizes: 7-inch and 8.9-inches (US only) and will sell for $199 and $299, respectively, for a 16GB model.

The new product will have two wi-fi channels for faster transfers.

The power plant is a 1.2GHz dual-core processor which is coupled with the Imagination PowerVR 3D graphics chip, both of which should make the Fire HD a nimble game player.

The Kindle Fire HD is available in 16GB and 32GB flavours in both screen sizes.

The 32GB, 8.9-inch version of the Fire HD has a much improved screen boasting a resolution of 1900 x 1200 and so capable of 1080p viewing.

There’s a front-facing camera, dual Wi-Fi antennas for better and faster connectivity and Dolby Surround sound thanks to a pair of speakers. There’s also a HDMI port so you can hook the Fire up to your HD telly.

There will also be a premium version which will come with 4G support. It’s not expected to ship until November 20th and, crucially, will only be available state-side as the UK hasn’t got the necessary 4G chops yet.

It will cost $499 and the data plan will run at $50 a year.

The 7-inch Kindle Fire HD is coming to the UK in 16 and 32GB sizes, costing £159 and £199 respectively, neatly undercutting the price of the Nexus 7.

You can pre-order the Kindle Fire HD from Amazon UK right now. The basic Kindle fire costs £129.

“We haven’t built the best tablet at a certain price. We have built the best tablet at any price,” bragged Bezos.

The Kindle Fire has captured 22% of tablet sales in the US in the nine months since it went on sale last November and has been the company’s top-selling product since launch, Amazon said last week.

As impressive as that is, it still leaves Amazon trailing far behind Apple’s far more powerful iPad devices which accounted for 68% of global tablet shipments in the second quarter, compared with Amazon’s 5%, according to research firm IDC.

Apple is said to be planning an iPad Mini so that it can muscle in on the smaller, cheaper tablets. Amazon’s response is said to be the launch of its own mobile device that would compete with Apple’s iPhone.

The post Amazon release Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Fire HD range – UK Prices appeared first on GadgetyNews.

Could Amazon be following Apple in preparation of a new Kindle? It appears that one model of the Kindle family has been removed from Amazon’s US site – is there a replacement on the way?

If you head over to Amazon.com you may notice the distinct lack of availability of their Kindle Touch 3G – (it’s still available at the UK store – for now).

This has been the catalyst for rumours of the online retail giant preparing to ‘do an Apple’ and refresh its line-up of ebook readers.

Not only is the Kindle Touch 3G listed as being currently unavailable, there’s also a shipping delay on the Wi-Fi-only Kindle Touch.

This could just be put down to shortages, you may counter – but Amazon has also slashed the price of the Kindle DX by 29% as well.

Apple does similar ahead of a new iPhone landing – getting rid of current stock to make room for the new model.

Originally I thought that the discounts could be a preemptive strike on Google’s Nexus 7 tablet but I reckon everything is pointing to a new Kindle.

What do you think?

The post Amazon makes space for new Kindle appeared first on GadgetyNews.

Amazon has announced that it will be launching the Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G in the UK – only a year after the touchscreen e-book readers appeared in the US.

The Kindle Touch was released in September in the States along with the Kindle Fire (another Kindle we have yet to get although an “early 2012” release has been rumoured) and went global (except the UK) last month. Now, finally, the new UK models have been given their due date.

The UK Touch and Touch 3G will be identical to the US versions, but will feature some software tweaks and bug fixes before an official update hits in the near future.

“UK customers have been asking us to make Kindle Touch available on Amazon.co.uk and we are excited to do so today,” said Jorrit Van der Meulen, vice-president of the company’s Kindle division in Europe.

If you want a purely touchscreen e-Reading experience you can pre-order one from Amazon.co.uk right now or you could wait until they go on sale in the UK on 27 April.

The Wi-Fi-only Kindle Touch costs £109 and the Kindle Touch 3G, Free 3G + Wi-Fi costs £169.

The Kindle 3G connectivity will be powered by Vodafone in the UK and doesn’t need a contract because Amazon has factored the cost of using the network into its sale prices. Nice touch. Or, should that be Touch?

Like the £89 Kindle, the Kindle Touch features the same 6-inch screen. The Touch weighs in at just 213g, with the Kindle Touch 3G tipping the scales at 220g. Both promise two months of battery from a single charge.

The new models also feature Amazon’s X-Ray. Unfortunately it’s not a modern version of those glasses that you always wanted to order from the back of a comic.

X-Ray allows you to see all the passages across a book that mention ideas, fictional characters, historical figures, places or topics of interest, as well as more detailed descriptions from Wikipedia.

You going to be Touched?

The post Amazon Kindle Touch and Touch 3G UK Launch Date Officially Released appeared first on GadgetyNews.

You may have heard that the Encyclopedia Britannica has officially announced that it would scrap its print edition due to plummeting sales. You may think it was about time that they handed over to the digital format but there is a smoking gun – and holding that is Wikipedia.

True, owning the $1,395 32-volume hardcover library of the Britannica may seem quaint in this age of instant info but, to me, it still has its place.

Wikipedia, the crowd-powered reference site, is arguably the greatest knowledge experiment recent civilization has ever seen.

True, it can be wildly unreliabile and be controlled by polition’s PR people, but its supporters are only to quick to point out that a self-correcting collective is more reliable and scalable than a room full of scholars (who, on occasion, also make mistakes).

Studies have even shown that Wikipedia is almost as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica. This infographic highlights how Wikipedia has revolutionized research and how it has become a reliable fountain of knowledge.

Check out the cool infographic below

Via: Open-Site.org

The post Wikipedia Replaces Encyclopedia Britannica – Wiki Infographic appeared first on GadgetyNews.

It certainly looks like iPad 3 will be packing a very high resolution screen. More proof has been spotted thanks to the arrival of the iBooks 2 app.

As cool as iBooks 2 is, with its interactive textbooks, the more interesting tidbits are to be had when rifling through the iBooks 2 code.

The tell-tale ‘2x’ tag points to the pictures being designed to look sexy on a hi-res screen.

To prove it further the ‘2x’ version of the images are indeed set at a higher resolution.

Could there be another reason for the 2x images being squirreled away? Well, short of the next gen iPad possessing a connection to a high definition television, such as the iTV, I reckon it’s looking good.

This is not the first hint of the new Apple tablet featuring a spanky eye-pleaser.

There has already been confirmation from a group of people close to the production of the tablet as well as other bits ‘n’ pieces.

Personally, a Retina display is much needed as the iPad’s smaller kin iPhone 4, 4S and even the latest iPod touch are all swaggering around with one. Poor ol’ iPad 2 is still lumbered with a 1024×768-pixel screen – it’s good but could try harder

There’s other good things heading towards the iPad 3.

Well, just a few weeks to wait for the iPad 3 announcement.

The post iBooks 2 Reveals iPad 3 High Resolution Retina Display appeared first on GadgetyNews.