LibraryCity knocked Amazon for not letting users of the Kindle Fire HDs adjust their line spacing. But guess what I noticed just now within the font-related submenu of my Kindle HD 8.9” model running version 8.3.1 firmware? Alas, on my several files tested, I still couldn’t narrow the spaces sufficiently on the HD even though the Kindle app for Android, as in previous versions for my Nexus 10, pulled off this trick just fine. Apologies if the HD improvement is old news, but Amazon pushes out updates automatically, and this is the first time I myself became aware of the line-spacing change. May Amazon...

Amazon has just gone live with its own digital currency dubbed Amazon Coins. Announced in February 2013, Amazon Coins is described as a new way to buy Kindle Fire apps, games and in-app items from the Amazon App Store and on Kindle Fire. To kick off the launch of Coins, Amazon also announced that they are giving away 500 coins for free to existing and new Kindle Fire customers in the U.S. Said free coins have a store value of $5, which will be deposited into your Amazon account today, assuming they're not there already. Not only is Amazon Coins a new...

As if to confirm a 10-inch Kindle Fire tablet is in fact in the works and coming our way soon, Amazon has decided to slash the prices of the thing’s existent smaller siblings, namely the 7-inch Fire HDs. However, the promo likely has nothing to do with the alleged coming of the 10-incher, being instead a special, time-limited Mother’s Day offer. Well, who cares why is Amazon doing it, right? As long as they’re comfortable with shaving a cool $20 bucks off the slates’ prices, we’re comfortable with paying just $179 for the entry-level model. Be careful though, because the $20 discount applies only...

You're familiar with the saying “Go big or go home?” Well, it doesn’t exactly apply to the tablet market nowadays, but the tide could turn soon enough. One of the biggest ongoing battles is for the small tab crown, with Google, Asus, Amazon, Apple, but also Acer fighting each other guns blazing. Meanwhile, the bigger throne remains in Cupertino, Calif., with only Samsung (timidly) trying to steal the 9.7-inch iPad’s thunder. However, if we are to trust newly emerged online reports, Amazon is planning to spread its Fire instead of cooling it down. The next generation of the company’s Kindle Fires will...

By Jeff Kleist Amazon has been making its own devices for quite a while now. From e-readers to tablets to a rumored smartphone, the company has been pretty successful in establishing its own Apple-style ecosystem. So it makes perfect sense that Amazon wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to take charge of the one device in the home that even Apple hasn’t been able to dominate—the television—with a “Kindle TV” set-top box. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, such a set-top box is actually in the works. Given that Amazon Instant Video still isn’t exactly ubiquitously supported on TVs, it makes sense that the company...

Kindle for iOS received a major update yesterday, allowing it to work with the VoiceOver features of the iPhone and iPad. This is a good thing for the blind and visually impaired. It also has application for sighted readers who don’t mind computer text-to-speech voices and want to listen to their books on the go. I tested it out for a bit. VoiceOver takes some getting used to, if you’ve never used it. I had to relearn most of the ways I interact with my iPad, but I finally figured it out well enough to get my Kindle app reading to me. If you’ve ever used...

Has Climate Change Created a New Literary Genre? (NPR) What Kids Think of Books, Reading and Technology {Infographic} (E-Book Friendly) Bill for compulsory science fiction in West Virginia schools (The Guardian) Sydney bookseller holds Kindle 'amnesty' (The Bookseller) 30 Things to Tell a Book Snob (Booktrust) Kindle Daily Deals: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (and 3 others) * * * ...

I've seen people mention eReaderIQ on various forums, but I never took the time to check them out until today. Wow, have I been missing out! The site allows you to track a few things, mainly price and availability on Kindle. They also show freebies, but I'm personally less interested in that since I've been disappointed often enough by freebies that I rarely download them anymore. However, if you're a fan, the site should give you enough to fill several Kindles in a few days. Let me show you the two features that got me all excited. 1. Track price drops on your...

The New York Times has a fascinating preview up of a forthcoming tell-all from Jason Merkoski, formerly of Amazon and one of the developers of the first Kindle. Merkoski has a lot to say about both the benefits (a complete library; accessible using your phone) and drawbacks (sadness for paper fetishists) of the revolution he helped to spawn. I may change my mind once I've read a bit of the book, but the impression I got from his interview surprised me. Merkoski is ever-practical. "We can lament the older experience of reading, because that’s what we were raised with," he says. "But there’s...

Assuming you don't mind signing a two-year contract with AT&T, this is a good deal. Here's the price breakdown, assuming you already have a Mobile Share plan. • $399 base cost for the Kindle Fire • Minus $150 in credits (new 2-year plan & activation at AT&T store) • Plus $240 for 2 years worth of Mobile Share date ($10 per month) Total: $489 If you buy from Amazon, you'll pay $399 + $50 for one year's data plan (250MB per month). The total for that is $449. But buying from Amazon only gets you one year's data at the $50 price. No one knows yet what the...

Hat tip to an alert reader on The Digital Reader for this one. As far as we knew, when the Kindle Paperwhite came out last year, Amazon retired the Kindle Touch. But now it looks like they plan to continue selling it, at least for a while. You can only find it through a search. It's not listed on the Kindle comparison page, but if you're interested, you can find it here. I'm guessing they brought it back some time this month. I did a search back through reviews, and reviews from February and January were primarily for "Certified Refurbished" Touches....

We’ve discussed ‘read later’ apps before. Personally, I like the simplicity of Pocket, as Evernote is so overly-capable that it seems daunting to dive into head-first. Perhaps in due time, I suppose. Another nice option I’ve used is Google’s ‘Read it Later’ feature on its Reader service, but well, yeah, we all know where that’s headed. Anyway, Amazon has been on the offline reading tip for quite some time now. And their latest Kindle update makes it even easier to store Web content for later perusing. Introducing a “Send to Kindle” button to several popular media websites and blogs on Wednesday, Kindle users can now easily and...