Amazon focuses on Apple with its new Kindle Fires

Earlier today, Amazon announced a refresh of its entire line of Kindle eReaders and tablets. The company announced a new eReader, a lower price for its entry-level eReader, an improved version of the Kindle Fire, and a new Kindle Fire HD line with three models. Perhaps even more interesting than the devices themselves is that Amazon said that it's services, not "gadgets", that are important, and it's explicitly positioning its devices as the delivery mechanism for its services. Amazon's metric for success is how many goods and services it sells through its devices, not how many devices it sells.

Here are the details:

• The Kindle Paperwhite is the new eReader. It's got a sharper, front-lit display with 25% more contrast and 212 ppi resolution (62% more pixels than before,) with a capacitive touch screen. Amazon claims that the display and lighting systems are both proprietary. The lighting system took four years of R&D and uses a flattened-out optical fiber for even illumination, instead of the discreet LEDs that B&N uses. Amazon claims 8 weeks of battery life. The eReader is 9.1mm thick. The Wi-Fi version is priced at $119, pre-orders begin today and it ships October 1st. The 3G version is priced at $179, same availability.
• The "$69 Kindle"--that's what they're calling it--appears to be the current $79 ad-supported model, just marked down $10. Pre-orders begin today, ships September 14th.
• The updated Kindle Fire has a faster processor, 1GB of RAM (vs. 512KB in the original model,) 40% better performance, a front-facing camera and longer battery life. Price is $159 (down from $199), and it ships September 14th.
• The Kindle Fire HD line is entirely new, and it comes in three models that will ship on November 20th:
• A 7" model for $199
• An 8.9" model for $299
• The same 8.9" model with 4G LTE and twice as much memory for $499, compared to $729 for the roughly comparable new iPad
• All three models use the same basic hardware: The touch screen is laminated directly to the display for 25% less glare and better contrast. They use TI OMAP 4400 series processors--4460 in the 7" tablet, 4470 in the 8.9" model (Jeff Bezos claims that they're better than the Tegra 3, but they only have dual cores vs. the Nexus 7's Tegra 3 with quad cores.) They have built-in stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus, and also have Bluetooth and HDMI out, along with front-facing HD cameras and Skype. The tablets have both 2.4 GHz and 5GHz 802.11n, with dual antennas for better reception and speed--Amazon claims that the tablet's Wi-Fi speed is 41% faster than that of the new iPad. 
• The new 7" Kindle Fire HD has 1280x800 resolution, while the 8.9" models have 1920x1200 resolution, 254 ppi IPS displays. By comparison, the new iPad's Retina display is 9.7", 2048x1536, 264 ppi resolution. Given the slightly smaller screen on the Kindle Fire HD, most users won't be able to tell the difference in resolution. The screen of the 8.9" model is big enough for two-page magazine (and, presumably, eBook) displays.
• The 7" and base 8.9" models ship with 16GB of memory; the Kindle Fire HD with 4G LTE ships with 32GB of memory.
• Buyers of the 4G LTE model can sign up 250MB/month of data usage, 20GB of cloud storage and a $10 Appstore credit, for $49.99/year. (Given that Amazon is encouraging customers to keep all their eBooks and media in the cloud, that 250MB is likely to run out pretty quickly.)
• The updated Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD models run a customized version of Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich.) The original Kindle Fire apparently will not be able to upgrade to the new version of the operating system.
• According to Engadget, the physical design and build quality of all the new Kindle Fire models is far better than that of the original Kindle Fire.
• The user interface has been updated, and some elements, like the "wood bookcase", are gone. The Kindle's "X-Ray" feature for books has been extended to movies (via IMDB, which Amazon owns), audiobooks and eTextbooks..There's now built-in Facebook and Twitter support, and many improvements to email. A new FreeTime feature offers much more extensive parental controls--parents can specify when and how long their kids can read books, play games, watch video, etc. And, parents can set different limits for each child. The screen's background turns blue when the tablet's in FreeTime mode.
• Audible's 100K audiobooks have been added to Amazon eBookstore. Whispersync for Voice allows audiobooks on multiple devices to be synchronized--stop listening on one device, open the audiobook on another device and start listening right where you left off. The Audible audiobooks will display their text at the same time on Kindle tablets, with the text synchronized with the narration, and with real-time highlighting (called Immersion Reading.) Amazon is also launching Whispersync for games--synchronizes game levels between multiple devices.
• Amazon is launching a collection of serialized eBooks as Kindle Serials. Customers can buy a Serial once and get all the installments. Each new installment is automatically appended to the existing portion, and there's support for reader discussion. The product line is launching with eight titles. $1.99 each, and Amazon is making Dickens' Pickwick Club and Oliver Twist available for free.

PressBooks prepares to launch its eBook publishing service

PressBooks, an eBook editing and self-publishing service based on WordPress, has announced its pricing plans and is nearing a formal launch. The service, which has been in beta for some time, enables writers to collaboratively create eBooks, either online or via file uploads. Existing WordPress users can selectively convert their blogs into eBooks using PressBooks. The service outputs EPUBs for Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble's Nook and Kobo, converts EPUBs to Amazon's Kindle formats, creates public or private web versions of eBooks and exports to PDF for print-on-demand. PressBooks offers an assortment of templates that are optimized for different eReading platforms. It can directly post eBooks into Apple's, Barnes & Noble's and Kobo's eBookstores, or self-publishers can download the files and manage their own distribution. (Apparently, self-publishers will have to post titles into Amazon's Kindle Store themselves.)

The new pricing plans, which appear to still be under discussion, are as follows:

• The first five books are free (beta users who've already created eBooks are exempt from monthly pricing on those titles, and will be entitled to five more free titles.)
• Up to 20 books: $50/month.
• Up to 200 books: $200/month.
• Distribution to the Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kindle eBookstores will cost a one-time fee of $100/book + $25/year/book.

Vook launches HTML5 eReader and new pricing models

Vook just launched a new HTML5 eReader for its eBooks (to try it out, go to http://vook.com; http://www.vook.com will take you to their sign-up page for writers). The samples I've seen are similar to a conventional EPUB display with flowable, resizable text plus embedded rich media.  It can display one or two pages at a time. It also has three layout options with different typefaces. A nice feature is that Vook has anticipated that the eReader will be used on both PCs and tablets, so it supports a single-page vertical scrolling mode for smaller devices, as well as two-page mode for desktop and notebook PCs.

The company has dropped its monthly fees and now offers two options for self-publishers:

• Publish the eBook free of charge to Vook's own eBookstore; the author gets 85% of revenues.
• Create eBooks using Vook's tools and then pay the company $99 for the files, which can be uploaded and sold by the author through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple. 

Hiptype offers third-party analytics for eBooks...with a catch

PaidContent reports that Hiptype, a company that offers third-party analytic reporting for eBooks, has launched. Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other eBook vendors can gather a variety of information about how their eBooks are read--how far a reader gets into an eBook, how often they open it, what notes and highlights they add, etc. However, that information is rarely shared with publishers. Hiptype allows publishers to independently gather similar information. The information is anonymized, but consumers can opt-out of Hiptype's data collection completely (assuming, of course, that they know that Hiptype is collecting information.)

There's a huge hole in Hiptype's data collection that may make it unattractive for most publishers: It requires eReaders that support both HTML5 and JavaScript in order to work, but according to paidContent, neither web-based eReaders like Kindle Cloud nor desktop eReaders, even those that are browser-based, will work. Black & white eReaders are also unsupported. That limits the usefulness of Hiptype to Apple's iBooks and a few iOS and Android eReading apps. Frankly, I'm surprised that they even released the service when its practical value is so low. This isn't a Minimum Viable Product--there's virtually no value in the current offering for most publishers.

They're offering a 30-day trial with service for one book, or programs priced at $19 or $99/month. The $19/month program is limited to 1,000 readers, so it's not useful to anyone other than self-publishers and very small publishers.

BISG survey says that eBook buyers are more willing to buy print

The Book Industry Study Group has just released the third part of Volume Three of its Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading research report. Here's a summary:

• The percentage of eBook buyers that exclusively or primarily purchase eBooks has dropped from nearly 70% last August to 60% in May 2012.
• The percentage of survey respondents with no preference for eBook or print formats, or who buy some genres in eBook format and others in print, has increased from 25% last August to 34% in May.
• Amazon's Kindle Fire has overtaken the iPad as the tablet of preference among eBook consumers. 7% of survey respondents owned a Kindle Fire last December vs. 20% in May 2012, while iPad ownership remained flat at 17% in both surveys. By comparison, 5% of respondents owned a Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet in May, and 8% owned another Android-based tablet.
• While overall use of tablets as primary eReading devices is increasing, the changes aren't uniform across devices:
• 35% of respondents cited Amazon's Kindle eReaders as their primary device for reading eBooks, down from 48% last August.
• Apple's iPad was cited as the primary device for reading eBooks by 9% of respondents in May, down from 10% in February.
• Respondents who cited Barnes & Noble's Nook tablets and eReaders as their primary device for reading eBooks declined from 17% last August to 13% in May.

Amazon misses on both revenues and profits, but the stock is up

According to Bloomberg, Amazon reported its Q2 financials after the close of the market today. Gross revenues were $12.8 billion, just short of the consensus analyst estimate of $12.9 billion but still up 29% year-over-year. Net income, however, was only $7 million, or $0.01/share, compared with $191 million or $0.41/share a year ago, and below the $0.03/share forecast by analysts.

The company claims that the decline in profits was due to big investments in distribution centers, but another factor was likely to be declines in sales of the Kindle Fire and Kindle eReaders. Analyst Mark Harding estimates that Amazon sold only 670,000 Kindle Fires in Q2 due to customers' expectations of an updated model (or models) later this year.

Amazon expects a Q3 loss of $50 million to $350 million compared to analyst expectations of a profit of $119.6 million, on sales of $12.9 billion to $14.3 billion, vs. analyst expectations of $14.1 billion. The company has built eight new fulfillment centers this year and plans to build ten more before the end of the year, and much of that expense will be loaded into Q3.

Amazon's stock closed at $220.01, and is currently priced at $222.80 in after-hours trading.

NAPCO/InfoTrends eBook Publisher Survey

The July/August edition of Book Business Magazine has the results of a survey of 261 publishers (including 145 book publishers) done in May by InfoTrends and the North American Publishing Company (Book Business' parent) about their adoption of digital media and approach to digital production and distribution. Some of the results are surprising; here's a summary:

• PDF was the format of choice for 76% of the book publishers, followed by EPUB, with 68%.
• The top priority for eBook production and distribution at the book publishers was improving the overall user experience, cited by 60.3% of respondents, followed by improving overall design and typography (54.9%) and incorporating embedded rich media (44.4%). Only 20.6% planned to add search capabilities, and features such as embedded social media and sharing capabilities; improving footnotes and references functionality; and enabling reader annotations and highlighting were all named by less than 20% of publishers.
• The Amazon Kindle was the most popular device that book publishers use to test their eBooks, cited by 39.7% of respondents, followed by Apple's iOS devices (34.9%), Barnes & Noble's Nook (25.4%) and Amazon's Kindle Fire (22.2%).
• Surprisingly, 30.2% of respondents said that they don't test or tune their eBooks for specific mobile devices, which may explain why so many eBooks look so bad on mobile devices, and 13.5% of respondents don't know which devices (if any) their company tests eBooks on.

Simba Information: Waterstones' deal with Amazon will be "...one of the biggest screw-ups in the history of book retail"

Book Business has an interview with Simba Information Senior Analyst Michael Norris, whose company just published its Trends in Trade Book Retailing study. Norris reiterates something that I've been saying for a while: eBooks aren't growing the publishing market--they're just cannibalizing print sales. Further, print sales are falling faster than eBook sales are growing, so at best, eBooks are slowing the market's overall rate of decline.

Norris says that Barnes & Noble's relative success in the eBook business has a great deal to do with its stores, and with its promotion of Nook hardware and accessories in those stores. He's puzzled by B&N's decision to break its Nook business away from the rest of the company--and even more puzzled by Waterstones' decision to partner with Amazon for Kindle eReaders and tablets. Norris compared Waterstones' deal to Borders' disastrous decision to outsource its online eBookstore to Amazon, and said "...I’ve really got to hand it to companies like Amazon, they know how to kill a competitor and make it look like suicide." He added, "It’s going to be one of the biggest screw-ups in the history of book retail."

When asked what book retailers that sell eBooks can do, Norris said "I urge every retailer who does sell ebooks to buy one of their own ebooks and then buy the same or similar ebook from Amazon, then think...about what kind of experience is going to make people come back. "

Amazon close to deal to double its space in Silicon Valley

The Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal reports that Amazon is close to a deal to lease two multistory buildings in Sunnyvale, CA near Moffett Field for its Lab126 subsidiary, which designs its Kindle hardware and software. One is a completed 224,492 sq. ft. building, and the other is a 357,481 sq. ft. building that's under construction.

Amazon may be having problems with new Kindle front light design

There have been rumors for some time that Amazon is working on a front-lit version of its black & white Kindle eReaders. A blog claimed to have actually seen a working prototype of a front-lit Kindle, shortly before Barnes & Noble launched its front-lit Nook Touch with GlowLight. However, DigiTimes' sources report that Amazon has told some of its parts vendors to stop shipments, and it may stop orders for E Ink displays through July and August, because of a problem with the design of its front light. If true, it suggests that Amazon won't be able to launch a front-lit eReader until late Q3 or Q4.

Target to offer Livrada's eBook gift cards

PaidContent reports that Livrada, a Los Angeles-based startup, will sell gift cards for bestselling eBooks in Target stores' electronics sections, starting July 15th. Customers will purchase a gift card for a specific title, such as Fifty Shades of Grey. The recipient of the gift card goes to Livrada's website and activates the card, and then chooses whether to get the eBooks for Kindle or Nook. Livrada purchases the eBook from Amazon or Barnes & Noble (other platforms will be supported by the end of the year,) and delivers it to the recipient's eReader, tablet or computer.

Livrada gets marketing fees from the publishers of the eBooks, a portion of the purchase price from Target, and affiliate fees from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. There's no word on whether Livrada marks up the price of the eBooks. The question is whether enough consumers will buy the gift cards to make it into a viable business. At this point, there are only six titles available; Livrada is working to get more titles, publishers and platforms.

IHS iSuppli estimates Nexus 7's cost of materials is $151.75

All Things D reports that IHS iSuppli has torn down a Google Nexus 7 tablet and estimates the cost of materials for the 8GB model to be $151.75, and $159.25 for the 16GB model. That's about $30 less than the estimate released late last month by UBM Techinsights, which was made before they had a chance to tear down an actual tablet. At $151.75, IHS iSuppli believes that Google is breaking even on sales of the 8GB model ($199) and is making a nice profit on the 16GB model. Andrew Rassweiler, who runs the teardown team at IHS iSuppli, said "It’s (Google's) getting $50 more at retail for only $7.50 more in hardware cost, which sends $42.50 per unit straight to the bottom line."

The company believes that the Nexus 7 costs $18 more to build than the current Kindle Fire--which indicates that Amazon could easily release a second-generation Kindle Fire with comparable specs to the Nexus 7 at the same $199 price.

eBookstores (and some publishers) are tracking how their eBooks are read

The Wall Street Journal reports that retailers (and, in some cases, publishers) know far more about how eBooks are being used than they ever knew about print books. According to the article, Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Google can track how far readers are getting into their eBooks, how long they spend reading them, how often they read them and which search terms they use. If the eReader supports annotations, they also know what readers are highlighting and the contents of notes. They also know how many times readers open their tablet apps.

This information is just beginning to be studied, and some retailers are sharing the information (albeit selectively) with publishers. Barnes & Noble is in "the earliest stages of deep analytics," but it's already learned some useful information:

• Nook users who buy the first eBook in a popular series tend to read the next title in the series as soon as they finish the first one. 
• Nonfiction eBooks tend to be read a little at a time and are dropped sooner than fiction, while fiction titles are usually read straight through. 
• Science fiction, romance and crime fans often read more eBooks in those genres, and read them more quickly, than do literary fiction readers. 
• Readers of literary fiction quit eBooks more often and tend to skip around between titles more frequently than readers of other fiction genres. 

Amazon has long gathered and utilized information on its customers' purchasing habits; for example, it uses that information to recommend similar titles. Digital security expert Bruce Schneier is concerned that the knowledge that tracking is going on may cause a "chilling effect" on purchases of eBooks on sensitive topics, such as sex, health and security.

Groups such as the Electronic Freedom Foundation want Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other resellers to give their customers the ability to opt-out of eBook tracking. California has a "Reader Privacy Act" that requires government agencies to get a court order before requiring digital booksellers to turn over information about which eBooks their customers have browsed, purchased, read or annotated. The ACLU and EFF are now trying to enact similar laws in other states.

Some publishers, especially those who sell directly to customers, are gathering their own data about reader behavior. Sourcebooks is experimenting with early online "work-in-progress" versions of some of its titles, and is incorporating reader feedback into the final version. Scholastic is using online message boards and interactive games connected to its "39 Clues" series to gather input from 1.9 million registered users. Coliloquy, an interactive digital publisher, is gathering information on the characters and plot lines selected by readers and forwarding it to authors for use in writing future titles.

New Kobo Vox Coming This Fall?

On The Digital Reader blog, Nate Hoffelder writes about a MobileRead post from a current Kobo Vox user who was told by an Indigo Books salesperson that a new Vox model is coming in the fall. Given Google's new Nexus 7 and the multiple rumors about new Kindle tablets coming as early as the end of July, it makes sense for Kobo to be working on a new version of the Vox.

Internet Archive's Peter Brantley wants librarians to take a more active role in the digital transition

The Digital Shift writes about a presentation made by the Internet Archive's Peter Brantley at the American Library Association Conference. Here's a summary:

* As self-published titles comprise more and more of the total number of titles published each year, there's more pressure on public libraries to make at least some of them available. However, there's no way for libraries to get eBooks for lending from some of the biggest self-publishing vendors, including Kindle Direct Publishing.

* The Canadian Urban Libraries Council and eBOUND Canada are working to build "a national public library infrastructure for the storage and distribution of digital content that would also manage lending agreements with publishers as well as transactions between libraries and patrons."

* The IDPF's search for a "lightweight" DRM for EPUB, in Brantley's view, could result in a replacement for Adobe's Content Server for libraries. Brantley said “Adobe Content Server is a very poorly supported software that has seen better days. It is not well loved by anyone who uses it, and it also imposes a lot of technical and organizational burdens on libraries.”

* On the basis of discussions that he had at BEA, Brantley believes that some publishers are willing to consider exploring alternative DRM schemes with libraries.

* Brantley pointed to the Unglue.it project and the Library License being proposed by the Harvard Library Innovation Laboratory as interesting ways to make more eBooks available to libraries. Unglue.it uses a crowdfunding model to underwrite reprinting and free distribution of out-of-print titles, and the Library License would grant libraries full digital rights to titles on the basis of time since publication or sales of the title over time.

* Brantley said that the West Coast technology companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft have become major players in the publishing industry--the first three, through their eBook sales, and Microsoft through its partnership with Barnes & Noble.

Online Publishers Association releases survey of U.S. tablet users

The Online Publishers Association released a study conducted for it by Frank. N. Magid Associates: "A Portrait of Today's Tablet User, Wave II." Here's a summary of selected findings:

• Regular tablet users increased from 12% of the population (28.3 million people) in 2011 to 31% of the population   (74.1 million people) in 2012. 
• The OPA projects that in 2013, tablet users will increase to 47% of the population   (117.4 million people.) 
• The percentage of respondents using Android tablets increased dramatically: In 2011, the split was 72% iOS/23% Android/12% Other; in 2012, the split was 52% iOS/47% Android/14% Other, primarily due to the popularity of the Kindle Fire (percentages add up to more than 100% because some respondents own/use more than one type of tablet, but only one tablet per operating system was counted.) 
• The user base is getting older and richer: Tablet users ages 8-24 decreased 8% year-over-year, while tablet users ages 35-54 increased 8%. As for income, households earning $50K or more comprised 41% of the population sampled by the OPA, but 59% of tablet users. In fact, tablet users were overrepresented in every income bracket from $50K to $150K+. 
• 60% of tablet owners use their tablet several times a day; and addition 14% use it once a day. 
• The average amount of time that respondents spend using their tablet is 13.9 hours per week, with the most popular times for usage being between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. 
• 67% of tablet usage is at home, 15% in school or at work, 14% when commuting or in a car, and 4% while shopping. 
• 94% of respondents in the 2012 survey use their tablet to access content/information, compared to 87% in 2011. 
• 69.7 million people use their tablets to access content/information in 2012, compared with 24.4 million in 2011. 
• 42% use their tablets to read eBooks in the 2012 survey, the same percentage as in 2011. 
• 31.1 million people use their tablets to read eBooks in 2012, compared with 11.8 million in 2011. 
• 35% of respondents have purchased at least one eBook for their tablets. 
• Videos are the most popular type of content accessed by tablet users, and the most popular type of videos are news and sports clips, weather forecasts, excerpts of TV shows, and other short-form news & entertainment. (Note that this doesn't include user-generated content on sites such as YouTube--that's the second most popular type of video.) 
• Tablet users prefer reading on tablets over reading on mobile phones, PCs, print newspapers and magazines, and dedicated eReaders such as the Kindle and Nook. However, the preferences for tablets vs. eReaders are the closest of all the options: 48% for tablets, 33% for dedicated eReaders, 19% "don't know." (By comparison, 71% of tablet users prefer reading on tablets rather than mobile phones, 23% prefer mobile phones, and 5% "don't know.") 
• Tablet users have downloaded an average of 22 apps over the last 12 months, of which 77% were free and 23% were paid. 

Penguin to test eBook lending with the New York and Brooklyn Public Libraries--and 3M

The New York Times reports that, after exiting the library market in February, Penguin is planning to reenter the market--with a different distribution partner. Penguin stopped distributing new eBook titles through OverDrive last November when it learned that OverDrive was violating its contract by serving eBooks to Kindle users through Amazon's servers, and cut off all eBooks to OverDrive in February. Now, Penguin is working with 3M, the New York Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library on a year-long pilot eBook lending program to begin in August. Penguin will make more than 15,000 frontlist titles available to the libraries, but there will be a six-month delay from the books' initial publication dates, in order to help prevent cannibalization of eBook sales. According to a Penguin spokesperson, library pricing for the eBooks will be similar to consumer prices, with licensing on a one borrower/one copy basis. If the program is successful, Penguin and 3M will roll it out to libraries around the country.

This test is a huge win for 3M, and a slap in the face for OverDrive, since public libraries that want eBooks from Penguin will have to get them from 3M. The company has already signed up Random House and HarperCollins, and is adding publishers at a rapid pace.

Kindle Mobile Learning Initiative announcement postponed

PaidContent reports that the Kindle Mobile Learning Initiative that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Amazon's Jeff Bezos were supposed to announce today was postponed. The State Department says that the reason is Clinton's schedule at the G-20 Mexico summit and the Rio+20 conference later this week. However, the State Department knew about those events for many months and scheduled the Kindle press conference anyway, so it's likely that there's another reason for the postponement. 

The National Federation for the Blind sent a letter to Secretary Clinton on June 18th that said that “any agreement by the United States to procure inaccessible Kindle, or other, e-readers is a violation of the law, including Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.” That could be a reason for the decision to postpone the event.

Hillary Clinton, Jeff Bezos to announce Kindle Mobile Learning Initiative at State Department next Wednesday

PaidContent reports that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Amazon's Jeff Bezos will jointly announce the launch of the Kindle Mobile Learning Initiative on Wednesday, June 20th at 11 a.m. Eastern time at the State Department in Washington, DC. From the State Department's press release: "This public-private partnership with Amazon.com and the U.S. government will create a global e-reader program that introduces aspects of U.S. society and culture directly to young people, students, and international audiences in new ways and expands English language learning opportunities worldwide."

That explains the no-bid contract for eReaders and content that the State Department is proposing to give to Amazon. The first year of the contract calls for purchases of 2,500 Kindles and multiple copies of 50 titles for a total of $2.29 million. The contract would be renewable on a year-to-year basis for four more years, for a maximum cost of $16.5 million with up to 7,000 additional Kindles purchased per year. The State Department has already purchased 6,000 Kindles under a separate contract.

PaidContent editor Laura Hazard Owen spoke with State Department spokesperson Phillipe Reines, who told her that even though a press conference and announcement are scheduled for Wednesday, there's "still no deal" with Amazon for the eReaders and content. Reines reminded Owen that the State Department already has 6,000 Kindles. However, as Owen puts it, that seems like a distinction without a difference. Why would the State Department schedule a press event with Amazon if the contract for the eReaders and content isn't already a done deal?

DigiTimes reports that two new 7" Kindle tablets are under development for release in Q3

DigiTimes reports that Amazon is planning new Kindle tablets and hardware eReaders for release this year and in 2013:

• Sources report that two 7" tablets are under development for release in Q3: A higher-end model with 1280 x 800 screen resolution and a faster processor, priced at $199, and a model similar to the existing Kindle Fire, with 1024 x 600 screen resolution, priced at $149. 
• The existing Kindle Fire's price will be dropped to $149 to make way for the new models. 
• DigiTimes' sources say that development of an 8.9" model has been halted, and release of a 10.1" model has been delayed to Q4 2012 or later. The website doesn't speculate about reasons for the (rumored) changes in Amazon's (rumored) product plans, but one reason might be the popularity of the new iPad's Retina Display. Unless Amazon can release a 10.1" model that has a screen comparable to the new iPad with a price well below the iPad 2, it doesn't make sense to go to market.
• DigtTimes writes that a 6" front-light-equipped black & while Kindle will be released in Q3 "at the earliest."