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Kindle 3.1 Upgrade Allows Sharing of Book Notes

Amazon.com has rolled out a free software update for the latest generation of Kindle and Kindle 3G e-readers that adds capabilities requested by users. Among other things, the preview edition of Kindle 3.1 sports Public Notes -- a new opt-in feature to let users share their personal book notes and highlights with other Kindle users.

Amazon's goal is to make Kindle reading activities more socially oriented, which is hardly a new idea. When Barnes & Noble first launched its nook e-reader at the end of 2009, the device's innovative "loan a book" feature gave readers their first taste of the technology's socializing potential.

At the time, Forrester Research Vice President James McQuivey called the nook's feature a "huge step in an increasingly important direction for e-readers." However, Amazon has elected to leverage the popularity of social networking in other ways, such as the introduction of a new "before you go" feature that enables users finishing a new book to share their thoughts about the title with their social-networking contacts on Facebook and Twitter.

Real Page Numbers

In this case, Amazon is following Barnes & Noble's lead. Launched last November, the nook color sports built-in social features that allow users to link their Twitter, Facebook and Gmail accounts to the device for seamless content sharing, noted Gartner Vice President Al Weiner.

"The device is slightly heavier than the original nook, but still has a portable 'stick it in your pocket' feel to it, unlike a larger tablet device," Weiner wrote in a blog.

Kindle 3.1 also aims to make the e-reading experience more social by generating real book page numbers that match the layout of print-style books. This will let Kindle users easily reference and cite passages during social-networking sessions with friends, family and professional contacts.

Kindle users who manually download the new software preview from Amazon's web site will be able to immediately access real page numbers from the tens of thousands of Kindle books that have matching print editions and thousands more of the most popular books, Amazon observed. Eventually, however, everyone who owns the latest generation of the Kindle or Kindle 3G "will receive this software update automatically via Wi-Fi once it becomes available," the retail giant said.

What To Read Next

With Kindle 3.1, real page numbers are only displayed when the Menu button is pushed. "If your Kindle book includes page numbers, you'll see page numbers displayed next to locations when you push the Menu button," Amazon explained in a web-site post. "Page numbers will also be available on our free 'buy once, read everywhere' Kindle apps in the coming months."

Kindle 3.1 also sports a new and improved Kindle screen layout for displaying newspapers and magazines. The aim is to give Kindle users access to a snapshot of the news that helps readers quickly decide what they wish to read first.

Additionally, commuters will be able to command their devices to read them selected books and other text content while driving to and from work. Though the new software will enable them to select a male or female voice, as well as slow down or increase the rate of speech, this text-to-speech option is only available on published works for which the rights holders have expressly granted permission.