Amazon has just dropped the price of its remaining inventory of new Kindle DX Wireless Reading Device, Free 3G, 9.7″ Display, White, 3G Works Globally – 2nd Generation units to $359 each. So far it’s just the normal Kindle DX with all the new features of the firmware update to version 2.5.x

So it comes as usual with free global 3G.  Until last week it was the newest Kindle DX and was selling for $489!

Well that is still a lot of money, but here it comes, if you don’t mind to take a refurbished model of the same Kindle DX – they are usually as good as any brand new one – the price now goes down to $299 !  These Kindles are factory refurbished and sealed. The only difference to a brand new one is that it does not ship with the AC adaptor plug. This accessory must be purchased separately.But in 99% you will charge it via USB anyway.

All purchases eligible for Amazon customer service and 30 day return policy.

It seems that after updating the iPhone to iOS4 the shelf of your iBooks app is empty, even if you already bought some ebooks. If you want to redownload these books, the store recognizes that you already purchased them but wants you to buy them again at full price.

Just to remember: with  my Kindle I can redownload any book I bought on Amazon at anytime anywhere for free! Well actually you can do this with all Kindle applications on any device, but at the Kindle itself even the 3G connection is for free. It goes even further, I actually can download any mobipocket ebook for free from the internet from any site i.e. from google docs.

Also with the Kindle you can read any  ebook purchased at Amazon on any of your devices with a Kindle app running, no matter if its a Kindle, a PC, a Mac, Android device and so on! Any device with an internet connection can instantly download your books, sync the last read position as well as bookmarks and annotations.

The conclusion: “Forget about iBook, and use Amazon Kindle and Stanza for your reading needs.”

Read the hole story over at www.baekdal.com

Amazon announced the Kindle for iPad applications availability for users worldwide. It had previously been available for US subscribers only. The Kindle for iPad offers access to the complete Kindle-format bookstore with over 550,000 titles.

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As usual Cory Doctorow makes his latest young-adult novel – For the Win – available as free e-book. The hardcover came out last week -  you can buy it at amazon.com for $12.23

In this book Doctorow seems to expand the themes he first explored in his 2004 Salon.com novella “Anda’s Game”. So it might be wise to read that book first.

Doctorow posts his books in plain text, HTML and PDF. All other hosted formats are provided by readers. Here Doctorow follows the policy, first come – first serve. So if someone sent a horribly formatted conversion of the original files, it is just what you can download.

Since the book is released under a Creative Commons license, there is nothing stopping you from creating your own version.

One of the most common complaints with Amazons bestseller list has been that it lists both free and paid books in the same list. So for the interested reader it is harder to distinguish between what people are downloading just because it’s free and what they actually buy for real money.

Amazon now will be separating the list into two distinct lists, for the top sellers and the most popular giveaways.

Personally I think that is a real good idea, as long as you can easily switch between the two lists with a single mouse click. My guess is, that a lot of people, including me, are just downloading nearly anything that is free or under a dollar. Well, it must be some sort of interesting, but if it is the right genre I would not hesitate to download, maybe tomorrow it isn’t for free anymore. So this list would not show what people are really interested in.

So far Amazon did not announce a start date for the splitting to begin.

If you are a fan of good and sound science-fiction, be sure to read this novel from Christian Cantrell.

You can get it at Amazon.com for only $0.99 without DRM or even for free from the authors own web page. If you own an other eReader than the Amazon Kindle or you can forgo whispersync you can download the book and two other short stories from the authors page for free (EPUB and HTML) and then convert it in any desired format. You may use calibre for conversion.

The book hast 18 reviews so far with 4.7 out of 5 stars.

The story:

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There are two new additions to the free Kindle books offer from Amazon (as usual – free for a  limited time period)

The Scent of Shadows Free with Bonus Material by Vicki Pettersson (Kindle Edition – May 11, 2010)
$0.00  Available for Pre-order. This item will be released on May 11, 2010.

When she was sixteen, Joanna Archer was brutally assaulted and left to die in the Nevada desert.

By rights, she should be dead.

Now a photographer by day, she prowls a different Las Vegas after sunset—a grim, secret Sin City where Light battles Shadow—seeking answers to whom or what she really is . . . and revenge for the horrors she was forced to endure.

But the nightmare is just beginning-for the demons are hunting Joanna, and the powerful shadows want her for their own . . .

Dragon Keeper Free Edition with Bonus Material by Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm by Vicki Pettersson (Kindle Edition – April 27, 2010)
$0.00  Available for Pre-order. This item is released eff. April 27, 2010.

Enter the spellbinding world of dragons . . . and those who tend them

One of the most gifted fantasy authors writing today, New York Times bestselling author Robin Hobb has dazzled readers with brilliantly imaginative, emotionally resonant, and compulsively readable tales set in far-flung realms not unlike our own. In this enthralling new novel, she returns to the territory of her beloved Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies with a story of dragons and humans, return and rebirth, and the search for meaning, belonging, and home.

Bursting the Brussels Bubble the battle to exposecorporate lobbyingat the heart of the EU from ALTER-EU

about ALTER-EU

The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation in the EU (ALTER-EU) is a coalition of over 160 civil society groups, trade unions, academics, and public affairs firms concerned with the increasing influence exerted by corporate lobbyists on the political agenda in Europe, the resulting loss of democracy in EU decision-making and the postponement, weakening, and blockage, of urgently needed progress on social, environmental, and consumer-protection reforms. ALTER-EU is a coalition of organisations, not an organisation in its own right. It does not have its own staff or budget. Organisations on the Steering Committee, together with some other ALTER-EU members, contribute staff time and share the costs for specific activities. ALTER-EU is registered in the European Commission Register of Interest Representatives under number: 2694372574-63

Download the free ebook at:

http://www.lobbycontrol.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/bursting-the-brussels-bubble.pdf

216 Pages – 1.58 MB

For Amzon the e-reader Kindle remains the best selling product as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says.

Although the Kindle is repeatedly referred to as sales pitch, sales numbers of the e-book reader are kept secret by the world’s largest online retailer. Rumors speak of up to 3.3 million units sold so far, but who really knows?

Amazon’s chief financial officer Tom Szuktak said on request, that the demand for the Kindle did not suffer from the launch of the iPad. And the demand is still very strong. He also stressed again that the Kindle and the iPad are two completely different types of devices that are not necessarily in competition.
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