Kindle Convert , Amazon's new tool to convert physical books into digital format

If you are planning to spend those physical books that you own a digital format for reading through e-book readers from Amazon has a new tool, Kindle Convert , which is a desktop application for Windows 7 or 8 systems with the that, through a scanner can scan pages of your books for conversion to digital format, creating digital versions of themselves fully compatible with Amazon Kindle app and the Kindle devices.

Yes, the application is not available globally nor is it free as it is available only for users in the United States and has a final price of $ 19.

In addition to scanning books to create digital versions, with Kindle Convert you can preserve those unique elements such as handwritten notes, autographs and pictures, and also number them with free copies on Amazon Cloud Drive, among others.

Among the requirements Kindle Convert is the need for a scanner that can generate .jpeg, .tiff or .pdf files of 300-600 DPI resolution, that has a color depth of 24 bits or 8 bits for grayscale or black and white. In addition, states as needed internet connection and user account on Amazon.

Chances are that people do not invest the time needed to bring his personal library to digital format, and less if the number of books available is high, but if you have sporadic books or wish to have digital versions of some or all his books, this app offers Amazon them is an option that may be considered.

Read More »

Amazon opened its first physical store in Purdue University

Amazon just announced the opening of its first physical location, taking by employees of the company, being located on the campus of Purdue.

The idea is that the staff belonging to this university, whether students, alumni, teachers and other workers eligible for the benefits offered by this place, and in the case of students, can also purchase educational materials for their classes simply because the material is identified with the logo of the University and qualified for the class to which it belongs. In addition, students can also buy other items from Amazon and also those items Free One-Day Pickup that are marked with the logo Prime Campus .

To do this, the staff of the university will have to visit the page or join purdue.amazon.com Amazon Student to personalize your shopping experience associated with the university. When paying for the items selected, shall indicate to Amazon @ Purdue as shipping address, allowing them to collect orders in the same place. When orders reach the local people who have done the same, will receive a notification via email or text. When you go to pick up their orders, they must click on the link that has come to them via email or text to generate a barcode, which will be the one used in the home for scanning and collection in a space of self, or go to reception collection to be helped by the staff there available.

The first location will be the beginning and the company plans a second physical Local elsewhere on campus this spring, and besides, is also planning free overnight shipping for textbooks specifically for all students in Purdue once that the expansion is carried out.

Apart from Purdue University, Amazon also has similar agreements with the University of California, Davis and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Read More »

Google, Microsoft and Amazon would be being forced to pay Adblock Plus to avoid hide your ads

On several occasions we have spoken about Adblock Plus, a tool that aims to hide the ads shown in the vast majority of Internet websites. The problem is that using Adblock Plus the work of many small websites facing the same costs through advertising revenue, why is difficult Adblock web sites offers the opportunity to join a whitelist or white-list so that your ads themselves to be displayed while the tool is installed .

From Adblock Plus is responsible for analyzing the quality of advertising of all those sites that are within the white list, claiming that thanks to this measure achieved greatly reduce annoying and aggressive ads on the Internet. Although for small websites belonging to this list is completely free, Adblock Plus would be taking advantage of the situation to collect outstanding amounts at different tech giants who want to prevent your ads are hidden . As echoed from The Financial Times, among these websites would be technology companies like Google, Amazon or Microsoft, who would be being forced to pay large sums of money for Adblock Plus does not block your ads on Internet .

Thus, developers Adblock Plus have some control over the advertising displayed on the Internet , besides being a profit from the publicity.

Source: Financial Times .

Read More »

Amazon Cloud Drive and has its own API

The file storage service in the cloud from Amazon Cloud Drive is not just a service that is sufficiently known to the users who are more familiar with Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, and other similar services.

Still, Amazon wants to grow their signal service by launching its API that will allow third party developers to integrate into their own applications without having to worry about issues such as the complexities of storage, screen resolutions, metadata management, indexing search and synchronization functionality, the company says in a statement.

Further notes that Amazon Cloud Drive is available in other development tools, including filepicker and Temboo, and has drawn the top 11 mobile applications that have already integrated the API, as OfficeSuite, Perfectly Clear, FreePrints or Photo Gifts on MailPix between other. In addition, they promise that they will inform the new API as they become more integrated into other mobile applications. Urges interested in the new API to leverage the customer base and the Amazon.com Cloud Drive integration into your applications, providing additional information on the blog developer portal and API documentation .

On the customer side, they will be able to interact in more ways with those files with staying in Cloud Drive through the different applications and they are supporting this service.

Read More »

Amazon shares its diversity report: 63% of employees are male

As has been the trend for quite some time, companies related to the technology world are sharing their diversity reports, which shows the percentage of employees divided by gender or race. Now, Amazon has been who has shared this report :

In it, we see that 63% of the employees of the company are men, while only 37% are women . If we focus on the positions of more responsibility, such as management, we find that in this case, the percentage of men rises to 75%, while that of women is reduced to 25%, figures which are unfortunately something quite common in the world of technology-related companies. The report diversity-ethnic present Amazon are also indicated in the workforce of the company (in the US). Of the total employees, Amazon has indicated that 60% of them are white, while the rest, 15% are black, 13% Asian and 9% Hispanic. The remaining 3% is described by Amazon as "other races" . In addition to the figures in the report, Amazon stated what he is doing to try to improve diversity in your company and also for the future. Therefore, in addition to working internally in the company in order to improve these numbers, we can see that it is working with various educational institutions to promote the female interest in science and technology .

You can check out the report on diversity in the Amazon website.

Read More »

now available Kindle Scout , Amazon's service to vote on which books should be published

A few days ago, Amazon made ​​known his new Kindle Scout service that allow readers should vote what books should be published by the e-commerce giant. Now, a few days after being announced, Kindle Scout has started operation .

Thanks to Kindle Scout (which for now is only available in the US), readers will be able to read from the books whose authors participate in the program and if one is to your liking and manages to attract their attention, they may vote for him to be released by Amazon . For now, we can see that books from different categories, among which are romance, science fiction, mystery and thriller, among others are included. Since I will be 30 days during which residents of the United States can read the books in the Kindle participating Scout program and decide which will get your vote. Also, once you have completed the voting period and there is a winner, Amazon will give away the voters of winning a copy of the book as a token of appreciation on your part as the author.

Undoubtedly, it is an excellent measure, thanks to the huge audience of Amazon, will be a boost in the career of many perpetrators, as well as rewarding the best content.

Read More »

Fire Phone: bump keys monumental of Amazon

The very name of Fire Phone is certainly incendiary, and this fire appears to have been transferred to the headquarters of the firm, where Bezos will have to join forces and explain to the shareholders of the company what happened to the revolutionary terminal. The truth is that the expected launch of Amazon smartphone went all out and managed to catch the attention of a very polarized market. But it was not long before they took the first warning signs: in July this year and was moved a major loss of $ 120 million, due in part to the development costs of the Fire Phone. But as often happens in these cases, the reality exceeded the forecast.

Possibly the great miscalculation Bezos with this product is trying to repeat the success of the Kindle Fire can not say otherwise: the Fire Phone has been a fiasco of considerable size, and largely responsible for the losses announced in the quarter, which totaled 437 million dollars, what portion of the hole corresponds to the smartphone from the house? 172 million dollars. A very risky move that has gone askew for Bezos, the man who so far seem to have the wind always on your side. Inventory costs soar and the firm does not know quite what to do with the stock.

What exactly has gone wrong? It makes little sense to take the analysis to the field of hardware or performance, because the terminal was solvent in this regard. Possibly the great miscalculation Bezos with this product is trying to repeat the success of the Kindle Fire with a smartphone. The Amazon tablet itself was a success, because he managed to give more air to the ecosystem allowing users to enjoy films, series and books on the big screen of the computer. The manufacturer was able, on the other hand, a very aggressive selling price and the wheel suddenly started spinning at high speed.

A miscalculation

Things could not go wrong. With the know-how which has the largest store in the world and now the experience of the tablets, the entry into the smartphone segment had to be triumphant. In Bezos plans, the Fire Phone would be a new instrument for the user shoot impulsive buying and downloading books and movies continue to be enjoyed on your big screen. Surely more than a prudent caution that the voice telephony market is different, but we assume it will not be easy to contradict a leader breaks and tears as Albuquerque. There would be no aftershocks. The Fire raze Phone.

But this provision came face to face with one of the walls against those that would have stamped the Bezos: customer perception . Nokia is a manufacturer of smartphones, such as Samsung or HTC is, but it's hard to escape the image of Amazon with its well managed slogan 'The everything store'. The retail giant online has become so strong in the segment sales through the internet that costs assume now catering to this smartphone. Well, one could say that this deviation in perception could also be applicable to tablets, but this item, at the bottom, not far from ebook reader or format, or benefits.

But a smartphone opens a new range of use which is not always strong content consumption online, the great value Amazon, but in applications, services, or features that make life easier for the user. If this chain of miscalculations add own high end price range , we will understand much of the bump Bezos and company. And on top of misfortunes, the few users who have bought the team have turned their frustration into lacerating reviews on Amazon itself. We assume you have missed a bit of everything on this bet, or as simplifies the analyst Avi Greengart, " Amazon has not provided sufficient grounds for the user to buy."

Read More »

Amazon Financial results (Q3): $ 170 million in losses only for its Fire Phone

Terribles have shekels Amazon's financial results for its latest fiscal quarter. Confirmed on Yahoo Finance about historical losses in net income reaching US $ 427 million, including 170 million (40% of total) because of the disaster in sales that has been their first smartphone, the Fire Phone , presented in June this year. Another statistic: 85 million units of the equipment are still waiting buyer .

Analysts expected a loss of just 76 cents per share, but all surprised that the strategy of producing and promoting Fire caused Phone came to 95 cents. Sure, there may be other factors affecting the profit and loss -señalan at VentureBeat causes as the decline in income over their cloud services and even billion dollar investments such as the recent purchase of Twitch - but almost half is caused by a single item is alarming what are wrong? How is it that the biggest online store in the world suffer so much trying to sell a mobile simple?

The Fire Phone, plus innovative features 3D does not add anything different to that offered by the competition. Worse, to have a modified version of Android optimized to have a meter software Google to promote only their ecosystem services, many users, as has been seen in their negative recommendations within the sales page Team at Amazon.com , talk about how bad they have found it.

But there is something far worse: the price. Yes, after that does nothing different, is powered by a high price and only one operator in the United States. Anyway, it is quite difficult to ask the impossible ...

More info: Amazon Financial results (Q3 2014)

Read More »