Kindle version 2.5 update gets Facebooked and Twitterized
By Thomas Ricker 
posted April 29th 2010 5:04AM
posted April 29th 2010 5:04AM
Amazon just announced a 2.5 software update for its Kindle and Kindle DX readers. At the moment, it's rolling out the update to a "limited group" of Kindle users with a general release coming at the end of May. Enhancements include the ability to organize books and documents into "collections," pan and zoom within PDFs, Kindle password protection, larger and sharper fonts, and just what you've always wanted: the ability to "share book passages with friends on Facebook and Twitter." Somebody pinch us.
And still free wireless internet? If the wireless data remains free, the kindle can be an interesting twitter/facebook tablet.
Oh forget it. Forgot to read the whole paragraph. I thought it will have a facebook/twitter client.
Kindle: Welcome to the Social
Farmville is going to suck in black and white :(
@The Joker
Farmville "sucks" in color. That game is so freaking stupid. I think its dual purpose for existence is to keep brainless idiots busy during the day and hog half the bandwidth of the entire planet...
I, for one, am ashamed that out of all of the great games out there, Farmville is the most popular game in the world. D:
/rant
@The Joker
The article is four sentences long. Please read it.
@gesinger I was rummaging around the backyard after my kite flew over the fence and found 10 syllables for you
"The Internet is serious business"
@The Joker Farmville, yoville, Mafia Wars, fishville, and on down the line all suck. I get so annoyed when people on facebook send me these invites! grrrrrrr!
@XChrisX It's annoying huh? Like ads on websites I've become adept at ignoring them (I must admit I rage at the ones which expand to take up the top half of the screen and then contract again. Stop moving my page around f**ckers!).
The only one I like playing is Texas Hold'em. The chat function is cool and I could buy a thousand iPads if that money was real :(
Pan and zoom in PDF and book organization... finally!
@harrykim23
No kidding. Pan+Zoom in PDF == win.
@harrykim23 I agree that this is great if it is true. Is it?
Might not keep me from adding an iPad but it will improve my PDF experience.
I cannot however imaging a great real time experience with Twitter and Facebook. They must be simply making the pages better structured for reading.
Where is UNICODE.
I am so tired of waiting.
Should I waited until Nook has it first?
It appears to be two new large font sizes, not two new fonts.
@sbressler
The article suggests both: "Amazon are also boosting the number of fonts on offer, promising sharper clarity and two new larger sizes"
But the writing isn't very clear, so who knows.
Yeah like I want to check facebook in black and white.
wow, facebook in black and white.... great Amazon, only too you a couple of years.
@bingster
Or you could, you know... read the article.
This is worth it just for the ability to organize books -- that's a feature that should have been included from the start, and I'm happy to see it in the pipeline.
@greyseal Really, it is a news to me that this was not there. A book reader with no organization feature? Some body must really love Amazon or E-Ink enough to pay over $400 for that DX.
@NewBie
the iPad is $500 and it cant organize anything.
@DrDr that's because the iPad does it for you. You know, like iTunes and iPod?
@Spiky haired boy
Yeah, the iPad does everything for you. It chooses which software you're allowed to run, it chooses which webpages you're able to look at, it chooses which political cartoons are appropriate for viewing...
@Spiky haired boy More like the iPad/iPod/itunes does it how it would like you to do it. It is not flexible in allowing you to change organization at all. So long as you how they do it, you're fine. If you want to orgnaize it any other way, you need to buy a different device.
PDF zoom, FINALLY!! Now I can put my PDF's back on there and actually read them.
@admlshake Yeah! that prevented me from taken a second look at the Kindle, now I have to wait for Kindle 3 hardware :)
BTW, how do you pan on the Kindle? (since there is no mouse or touch)
@NewBie
there's a 5 point super mini "joystick" that allows you to move stuff around and selecting texts and such.
That sound as a great update! Collections will improve the usability and all there's something for all the facebook addicts.
Well done, Amazon!
ORGANIZATION!
Finally... how was this not a feature out of the box. Hell, it feels like cheating to call it a "feature".
It looks like its two larger font sizes, not two brand new fonts. But they have made the fonts much sharper and crisper than before.
Also, there will be a feature enabling you to see popular highlighted or bookmarked pages, based on the entire Amazon communities highlights and marks.
Screenshots: http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,23791.0.html
Info:
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,23766.0.html
@Jason Shaffer
Thanks for the link. The lack of the "PDF Pan and Zoom" feature is one reason why I did not even consider buying a Kindle, since I ready have several e-books in PDF.
Question: With no mouse or touch support, how is the panning done in Kindle? (do they mean scrolling?)
@NewBie The Kindle2 and the DX both have little 'joystick' buttons that click in the 4 cardinal directions as well as 'in', so you can pan up, down, and side-to-side as well as click it in to select.
@srxdba Thanks for the information.
@NewBie Regarding your comment about PDF's, there are a lot of free PDF converters that work great. I personally use Calibre, it manages ebooks and will convert almost any format to any other format (.mobi is the kindle format I use). So for all my PDF books I simply convert them and then you have control over the font size, and it reads just like a book you bought from the Kindle Store.
"share book passages with friends on Facebook and Twitter." 3.2.1....copyright infringement claims? it will happen :-(
@alexiaco This is simply a review feature, copying the contents to your friends is a different issue, of course.
@alexiaco Actually, I think 'fair use' will come into play here...would be a stretch to claim that sharing a sentence or two would be a copyright violation. (not a lawyer, though...)
@srxdba @NewBie of courses i was a bit hironic, sorry for my bad english (i'm italian). nonetheless i bet some crazy lawyer will sue someone over a twitter/kindle message. ciao
For the love of god please tell me that I can finally configure the god damn screen saver!
I am so sick of turning off my Kindle and seeing a picture of Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen or Alexandre Dumas. I don't read books by any of these people so WHY THE HELL ARE THEY EVEN ON MY KINDLE!
I would love it if my Kindle would show me the cover the book I'm currently reading... just like a real book.
I hate the fact that my Kindle has a personality of its own. That's lame. The iPad will bury the Kindle if Amazon does not get off their fat asses and accelerate the rate of improvements. (Note that I said improvement, not innovation... organizing my books into folders isn't innovative).
@quag umm...I think that you've always been able to put your own pix in for the screensavers...the ones they have never bothered me, but I know that I've seen forum posts on how to get your own in there.
@quag >>The iPad will bury the Kindle if Amazon...
I do not own iPad or Kindle, but I do not see how I will prefer iPad to a Kindle. Kindle may have issues, but I will take that over iPad.
I will always take Dell Vostro V13 running the Winner 7 over iPad.
@quag http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=400528&postcount=150
Yawn
AWESOME
Chrissakes!! I just want to read ebooks. What's with all this stupid obsession with Facebook and Twitter on every single device?
Does the Kindle still flash the entire screen when you flip the page?
@mondeca Yes, there is still a flash for less than a second. This is needed to clear the screen and paint the next screen. It is very similar the "flash" when you turn a page in a paper book.
In practice, you very quickly get used to it and don't notice it as you flip to the next page, just as you probably no longer notice the same thing on a paper book. It just is not that bad.
And Kindle 1 owners are left out in the cold. Thanks for supporting your early Adopters Amazon, the ones who made it successful enough for you to build 2 more. At least give us a discount on the Kindle 2 or whatever the newest kindle is when it comes out, hopefully this year.
@Bananarama Please keep that vintage Kindle well. Very soon, there will be e-readers hall of fame.
>> hopefully this year.
Ah! then there is no problem, I am also hopeful of something better coming out of Kindle this year. Some of the planned features are being released for the capable hardware.
Good to see that Amazon is trying to keep up with the competition. The Copia ereaders that supposed to be out this year is supposed to have social networking as one of their main features. Can't wait on the new ereadres from Asus and Copia so that I can make up my mind on which to buy! Kindle is still too expensive for me.