22 Oct 09 Amazon's international Kindle surprises owners with $20 refund, limited web browsing
By "strong customer demand" we assume that Amazon means "we're trying to stay competitive with the $259 Barnes and Noble Nook," but that's just a hunch. A hands-on at the Gadget Lab also reveals the inclusion of web browsing thought to have been disabled. For the most part it is disabled but Amazon does let you browse to the English version of Wikipedia and nowhere else. The hands-on also notes "dead slow" 3G performance and Amazon's decision to ship the international Kindle with a US power plug regardless of destination. Weird.Good news! Due to strong customer demand for our newest Kindle with U.S. and international wireless, we are consolidating our family of 6" Kindles. As part of this consolidation, we are lowering the price of the Kindle you just purchased from $279 down to $259. You don't need to do anything to get the lower price--we are automatically issuing you a $20 refund. This refund should be processed in the next few days and will appear as a credit on your next billing statement.
[Thanks, Simon]
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Handhelds
Amazon's international Kindle surprises owners with $20 refund, limited web browsing originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsTagi: barnes and noble, amaz, billing statement, customer demand, amazon, web browsing, hunch, nook, wikipedia, gadget, 3g, surprises, gadgets, sim, few days, nbsp
29 Oct 09 Amazon Patents Changing Authors' Words
theodp writes "To exist or not to exist: that is the query. That's what the famous Hamlet soliloquy might look like if subjected to Amazon's newly-patented System and Method for Marking Content, which calls for 'programmatically substituting synonyms into distributed text content,' including 'books, short stories, product reviews, book or movie reviews, news articles, editorial articles, technical papers, scholastic papers, and so on' in an effort to uniquely identify customers who redistribute material. In its description of the 'invention,' Amazon also touts the use of 'alternative misspellings for selected words' as a way to provide 'evidence of copyright infringement in a legal action.' After all, anti-piracy measures should trump kids' ability to spell correctly, shouldn't they?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: scholastic papers, kids ability, amaz, slashdot, amazon, editorial articles, copyright infringement, including books, acti, short stories, anti piracy, hamlet, movie reviews, patents, news articles, product reviews, measures
29 Oct 09 Amazon.com rolls out shortcut for paying online
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc on Wednesday announced the launch of "PayPhrase," a shortcut for making purchases on the Web, as the online retailer prepares for a rush of holiday season shopping.Tagi: line retailer, amaz, amazon, launch, reuters, rush
05 Nov 09 PayPal Introduces Open API
m2pc writes "PayPal has just announced the availability of their Open API under the 'PayPal X Program.' This enables developers to integrate PayPal payment processing services without forcing users to redirect to PayPal's website to enter payment information. This new initiative is designed to allow the company to better compete with the likes of Google and Amazon, which offer similar services. I wonder how much they paid for their domain: x.com?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: payment processing services, open api, amaz, google, paypal, similar services, initiative, developers
15 Nov 09 7 Cloud Computing Myths Busted
Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others are investing aggressively in the cloud, even as critics point to security, reliability, and compatibility issues. We cut through the fog. 
Tagi: amaz, google, myths, fog, reliability, compatibility, microsoft
