Amazon Kindle, Tablet Computer | featured news

Barnes & Noble Inc posted a lower holiday-quarter profit as investments to keep its Nook e-reader competitive with Amazon.com Inc's Kindle continued to hurt its results.

The Kindle Fire turned out to be a popular device largely because of its comparatively low price tag. it was the first sub-$200 tablet (by a buck) that didn't feel like a $25 device you'd expect to find in a Fisher Price catalog, and as a result, Amazon closed out the fourth quarter of 2011 with a 14 percent share of the global tablet market,...

Amazon's Kindle Fire is a Catch-22 for retailers: The $199 tablet computer could both help Christmas traffic and hurt future sales.

After months of speculation, it's here: Amazon's tablet, the $199 Kindle Fire, was unveiled Wednesday. Smaller and cheaper than Apple's dominant iPad, the Kindle Fire has a 7-inch display and runs on a heavily customized version of Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android operating system. The tablet offers Wi-Fi connectivity, but no 3G or other cellular connection. It also lacks a camera and microphone, two features found in most rival tablets.

Amazon’s souped-up color version of its Kindle e-reader hopes to undercut the iPad in price and steal away a couple of million in unit sales by Christmas.

Amazon.com said it will allow readers to borrow Kindle books free at more than 11,000 U.S. libraries, a new twist in the growing battle for market share among electronic tablet makers.

Amazon.com Inc said sales of its Kindle e-reader were strong over the holiday season amid competition from devices such as Apple Inc's iPad, a computer tablet that also has e-reader capabilities.

The Kindle is no longer an ebooks-only device; developers have just released two Kindle-ready games, thanks to the Kindle Development Kit (KDK).

Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos cut prices and added features to the Kindle to defend it against a threat from Apple Inc. in the fast- growing market for electronic readers. Amazon introduced two new versions of the device today, including a $139 model that works with Wi-Fi. A second version, with 3G mobile technology as well as Wi-Fi to download books, costs $189. Bloomberg News reported details in May about Amazon’s plans for the Kindle, its bestselling product.