Amazon kindles e-book device market

IN a bid to kick-start the e-book market, online retailer Amazon.com has launched a wireless reader device with “electronic paper” features for downloading books, blogs, newspapers and magazines.

Called the Amazon Kindle, the device has a high-resolution electronic paper display that looks and reads like paper – even in bright sunlight – and is priced at US$399 (A$452).

“Our top design objective was for Kindle to disappear in your hands – to get out of the way – so you can enjoy your reading,” Amazon.com founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said.

“We also wanted to go beyond the physical book. Kindle is wireless, so whether you're lying in bed or riding a train, you can think of a book, and have it in less than 60 seconds,” Mr Bezos said.

“No computer is needed – you do your shopping directly from the device.”
Kindle is lighter and thinner than a typical paperback and fits in one hand. Its built-in memory stores more than 200 titles, and hundreds more can be stored with an optional SD memory card.

The Amazon wireless delivery model in the US uses the mobile phone network, and books can be downloaded in less than a minute, while newspapers and blogs are delivered automatically to subscribers.

Amazon pays for the wireless connectivity bills for Kindle, so there are no monthly wireless fees, data plans, or service commitments for customers.

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Facebook opens a new social page

SOCIAL networking comer Facebook has opened its platform to other application developers with the aim of making the service a kind of operating system for the new Web 2.0 world.

Facebook’s 23-year-old founder Mark Zuckerberg said the company has set in place programs to encourage third-party developers to build applications that tightly integrate with the platform.

“Until now, social networks have been closed platforms.Today, we’re going to end that,” Mr Zuckerberg told an audience of more than 750 developers and partners.

“With this evolution of Facebook Platform, any developer worldwide can build full social applications on top of the social graph, inside of Facebook.”

The keynote opened the Facebook f8 event, named to reflect the developer hackathon that ends 8 hours after the address during which new applications will be created for Facebook.

This week, Facebook Platform launched with more than 65 developer partners and 85 applications and with the introduction of an example application called Video.

E-commerce giant Amazon.com is the highest profile of the third-party firms committed to using Facebook Platform to deliver applications. Amazon will next week launch an application that lets Facebook members publish book reviews on their profile page.

Mr Zuckerberg detailed how any developer can build an application that is as integrated into the site’s information flow and connections of relationships as Facebook’s own applications.

Facebook users decide which applications to add and can control their order and appearance within their profiles, all with the familiar Facebook design. Users can always remove applications, including those built by Facebook, and will have their privacy controls maintained across applications.

Facebook introduced a new markup language, Facebook Markup, which along with its previously released APIs allows developers to build applications fully integrated into the site.

Facebook Markup includes features, such as dynamic information tags, conditional privacy tags, image caching and Flash. Developers can build anything they want in full, unlimited application pages on Facebook, called the “canvas pages,” and applications also can have a box in users’ profiles and navigation.

The Facebook site is now the sixth most trafficked internet destination in the US, and is second only to News Corporation’s MySpace as the world’s largest social networking site.

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