Kindle Update, 3.1

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Kindle 3 with 3.1 Software (New York Times Capture)

Ama­zon announced today an update for the lat­est gen­er­a­tion of the Kin­dle e‑book read­er, com­mon­ly called Kin­dle 3. Users can wait for their Kin­dle 3 or Kin­dle DX devices to auto­mat­i­cal­ly be updat­ed, or they can down­load the soft­ware and install it them­selves at:

Kin­dle Soft­ware Update Ver­sion 3.1 — Ear­ly Pre­view Release

Accord­ing to Ama­zon, the update pro­vides the fol­low­ing ben­e­fits:

  • Pub­lic Notes — In the inter­est of help­ing peo­ple become “social” about their read­ing, Ama­zon will allow peo­ple to share their notes and high­lights with oth­er read­ers. In addi­tion to pub­lic shar­ing, there will also be pri­vate shar­ing, allow­ing book clubs or stu­dents to share their notes only with spe­cif­ic peo­ple.
  • Real Page Num­bers — This has been request­ed from the begin­ning. In order to allow for what is called “re-flow­able” con­tent, Ama­zon, and most oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers of e‑readers, pro­vide loca­tions in an inter­nal scheme that does­n’t mean any­thing to users, and makes it dif­fi­cult for peo­ple using a Kin­dle to have close-text dis­cus­sions with oth­ers, say class­mates, read­ing the same book on paper. The Kin­dle page num­bers will be based on one spe­cif­ic print­ed edi­tion.
  • Before You Go — At the com­ple­tion of  a book, read­ers will be invit­ed to rate it or to com­ment in a more detailed way.
  • New News­pa­per and Mag­a­zine Lay­out — Designed to give users a quick­er overview of the con­tent, and eas­i­er nav­i­ga­tion to it.

These changes will be port­ed to oth­er Kin­dle soft­ware-based read­ers, such as Kin­dle for Mac and Kin­dle for Android. I could not get any of the books I have pur­chased before to dis­play pages, even after down­load­ing them again. The new for­mat for news­pa­pers and mag­a­zines is a big improve­ment.

Geneal­o­gists should know that the new­er ver­sions of the Kin­dle (the Kin­dle 3 and the Kin­dle DX) can read any PDF native­ly. I find it handy to bring along dozens of PDF books with me every­where I go, in a portable, quick start­ing, low pow­er device that can go weeks with­out a charge. I am also enjoy­ing Shel­by Foote’s The Civ­il War: A Nar­ra­tive as an audio book from Audi­ble (a sub­sidiary of Ama­zon), which I also have on my Kin­dle.