Amazon.com is firing up interest in its latest hardware at an event in Santa Monica, Calif., today. USA TODAY's Ed Baig is reporting from the scene.
Among announcements: Amazon has upgraded the original Kindle Fire and dropped the price to $159. And it announced a brand new Kindle Fire HD that will come in two sizes starting at $199. First up in the event, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced a new Kindle called Kindle Paperwhite. It has a brighter, sharper front-lit screen. It will compete against the read-in-the-dark Barnes & Noble Nook with Glow Light.
Follow along with our latest updates here:
2:49 p.m. Bezos is showing the larger screen Kindle Fire HD now to show off X-Ray For Textbooks. If you tap on the word "skull" you get a Wikipedia entry, YouTube videos, all instances of word, etc.
He is now showing Elle Magazine on the 8.9 inch display. He is showing a model in Elle up close. Looks good on huge screen in the room but wants to audience to see it up close on actual tablet to make point.
Bezos is playing the TV spot for Kindle Fire HD.
Also on board, HDMI out, Bluetooth, powerful processors and graphics engine.
There are two versions -- 7 and 8.9 inch HD displays.
And the prices:
7-inch 16GB version $199. Ships Sept. 14
8.9 inch is $299. Ships Nov 20.
2:42 p.m. Bezos is demonstrating XRay for Movies. When you pause a movie you can see what other titles actors in the scene were in. Even add a movie the actor was in to your watch list before resuming the movie.
Now Bezos puts Fire HD into portrait mode to show off recommendations, Customers Who Bought this also watched this. When you're reading magazines, you get recommendations. When you're in Email you get quick links for composing new messages. In Photo album you get thumbnails of photos at bottom of the screen, etc.
Now Bezos is playing music (a tune called "Some Nights") to show off streaming and Dolby sound. "You don't need headphones to do this...and games sound really amazing as well," Bezos says. Amazon keeps everything for you in the cloud. He pumped up the volume on stage really loud.
Now Bezos is demonstrating games. He says the company worked with Activision on a popular game (for the Wii franchise) called Skylanders, which he's now playing on the Fire HD tablet. When you click on an icon in the app it pulls up an in-game offer from Amazon of course, for a physical toy product delivered by Amazon, and you also get the virtual character in the game.
2:37 p.m. There is still no pricing announced for Kindle Fire HD.
Bezos is now talking about movies through an interesting feature called X-Ray for Movies, which Bezos says would have been impossible without popular movie website IMDb as part of the Amazon family. Basically you can be watching a movie screen, and pull up info about actors in the screen.
Games: Whispersync for Games stores all of your "unlocked" levels in Amazon cloud to pick up where you left off.
Bezos claims Kindle HD has best Exchange email. There's are also custom Facebook and Skype apps to take advantage of HD front facing cameras.
Bezos says he has four kids and kids "love screens. Parents have this strange notion that kids should sometimes do something else like go outside." (So true.). It involves negotiation, Bezos says. So there are built in tools to help limit this kind of negotiation. It's called Kindle FreeTime to set different time limits for different apps. You can set screen time limits for games, say, or TVs and movies, but lets the kids read without limits. And you can set up multiple profiles for multiple kids.
The screen turns blue when locked in Kindle FreeTime mode. A parent can tell from across the room.
On stage Bezoz is demonstrating that the new Kindle is fast and fluid.
2:32 p.m. Now Bezos is talking about local storage and how putting magazines, games and a movie can have you run out of space. For high def devices, Bezos says, "8GB is dead on arrival. We're starting Kindle HD at 16GB."
Bezos says Kindle Fire can also handle audiobooks (Amazon owns Audible). People like actress Anne Hathaway are narrating books.
And here's a cool feature, called Whispersync for Voice. You can listen to your audiobook on the way home and when you get home, pick up where you started reading. "People are going to love this. Bimodal reading improves retention and understanding." That's for high functioning readers and readers who struggle.
2:26 p.m. The new Kindle Fire HD also has "glorious sound."
The standard today in tablets is one speaker, mono sound. So the new Fire HD tablet has dual stereo speakers. And it has Doby Digital Plus, first tablet to ever have it. It's same sound Dobly puts in high end home theater, Bezos says. "It's worth it."
Now Bezos is discussing Wi-Fi, which he says other tablet makers are not giving the attention it deserves. The 2.4 GHz wireless band used in today's Wi-Fi is too congested he says. 5GHz is newer and cleaner and that's what Amazon is using. They also added two antennas, to help with signal fading. It also helps if your hand covers one of the antennas--the other can kick in. More technology built in--MIMO. Radio would be much simpler if there were no walls, signal, fridges, cars, etc. which all reflect radio waves causing echos that confuse the receiver. MIMO technology is meant to combat this. What MIIMO does--with enough computational power--you can turn echoes into "opportunities."
Bezos says this was figured out in principle a couple of decades ago, but required ridiculous amounts of computional power. Kindle Fire HD is the first tablet ever to incorporate MIMO. It has dual band, 2.4 AND 5GJHz and MIMO.
The iPad 3 had dual band but only one antenna, for example.
He says i'ts faster than iPad and Nexus 7.
2:22 p.m. There are big and small versions of the new Kindle Fire HD.
A large display tablet is 8.8 mm thin and weighs 20 ounces. 1920 x 1200 resolution. 254ppi.
25% less glare.
"Is it more expensive, yes. Is it worth it, absolutely."
Bezos says as soon as you go to HD the price gets bigger.
2:14 p.m. Amazon is upgrading the orginal Kindle Fire with a faster processor, 2x RAM, 40% faster and longer battery life. The price drops to $159 and it ships Sept. 14.
"We were happy last year to have the best tablet at a certain price. This year we want to have the best tablet at any price," Bezos says.
The result is Kindle Fire HD.
2:13 p.m. Bezos is talking about an Kindle Serials. You can buy once and receive all future episodes, automatically and seamlessly. Readers and authors can join the discussion.
First offerings will include Downwards Facing Death, a yoga murder mystery from Neal Pollack. All those books will be $1.99.
Amazon is also reissuing Dickens Pickwick Club and Oliver Twist to kick off Kindle Serials.
2:07 p.m. Bezos is reading rejection letters sent to Stephen King, Dr. Seuss and Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help. The latter sold over 10 million copies. Bezos asks, "Who are the creators we've never known." That is rejection letters sent before such authors struck it big.
It's a lead in to talk about Kindle Direct Publishing, which lets authors self-publish in hours, publish for free and keep their copyrights.
Amazon says that of the top 100 paid Kindle books, 27 are Kindle Direct Publishing books (KDP).
Bezos is showing a video featuring KDP authors.
2:04 p.m. Amazon said it is keeping the cheap $79 Kindle in the market but is improving it with new fonts. "And we're going to change it's name--now calling it the $69 Kindle, reflecting new price.
2:01 pm. Here's what you get.
It's $119 and ships today. Paperwhite with 3G costs $179 and ships Oct. 1
First-ever Paperwhite display
8week battery.
Light guide
Carry your library
Millions of books
Over 180,00 exclusive books
Lending library
XRay
Tiume to Read
Whispersync
Free storage in Amazon cloud
2 p.m. Bezos is showing off tiny fonts, yet the screen looks sharp. Couldn't have done it without this display, he says. And couldn't do a font like palontino properly without this resolution.
One new cool feature is called Time to Read. Tells you how many minutes are left in a chapter or how much time is left in a book. Kindle can detect your reading speed, and adjusts time accordingly. Very cool.
1:55 p.m. Bezos is showing another video with Kindle fans. It talks of new Kindle with an improved screen. It is a front lit device. Yes, this is Amazon's answer to the Nook with Glow Light from B&N.
It is called "Kindle paperwhite."
It will be perfect in bedroom, perfect in direct sunlight, Bezos say. "People are going to love the light and love the light so much they're going to leave it on all the time." It can get 8 weeks of battery life, even with the light on. You won't have to recharge paperwhite until Halloween.
It weighs 9.1mm or 7.5 ounces. It is thinner than a magazine, lighter than a paperback.
1:50 p.m. The event starts with a video, the TV commercial that aired during the NFL opener between the Giants and Cowboys last night.
Jeff Bezos comes on stage. "We love to invent. We love to pioneer. We even love to go down alleys that turn out to be blind alleys. Every once in a while those blind alleys open up to a broad avenue--and that's really fun."
He is now reading an email from an Amazon fan who says, "You keep adding more, but not charging more. So, thanks again for all the additions." Bezos says "we live for email like this."
Kindle Fire is a service, Bezos says. What does that mean. It greets you by name, prelaods content, buy once, enjoy everywhere in big ecosystem, keeps your place and keeps all your content in Amazon cloud backed up, worry free.
Our service, he says, includes 180,000 books exclusive to Kindle Store.
Includes Kindle owners lending library. No due dates. Never waiting list.
Includes all seven Harry Potter books in several languages.
25,000 movies on Prime with Epix added two days ago.
Hardware is a critical part of the service, he says.
1:25 p.m. I'm sitting in an airplane hanger at Santa Monica Airport, venue for Amazon.com's media gathering. The room is crowded with journalists and analysts but there are far fewer in attendance than you typically see at an Apple event. I even see empty seats. I don't detect the frenzied anticipation that you often feel at Apple media events. Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos is expected on stage shortly.
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