US$199 Amazon Kindle Paperwhite upgrades Hardware and Software - How to find free Ebooks and e-Book Readers for Laptops and PC

As expected, Amazon has launched an upgrade to the popular Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, the first E-reader with a built in Nightlight as per the posting on Amazon’s website on Tuesday September 3^rd 2013 as stated in “Amazon officially announces all-new Kindle Paperwhite”, published September 3, 2013 9:40 AM PDT by Don Reisinger, CNET News.

The new Amazon Kindle Paperwhite is the 6^th of it’s name, Game of Thrones Style, and has a few improved hardware and software tweaks over the previous version as mentioned in the article “Amazon’s New Kindle Paperwhite Gets Official”, published 09.03.13 1:47 PM By Roberto Baldwin, Wired  and “Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Refreshed with Improved Screen, Software”, published Sept. 3, 2013 By JOANNA STERN, ABC News.

I’d made a passing reference to the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite in my article on the Amazon Kindle Fire HD entitled “Amazon launches Kindle Fire HD and Kindle PaperWhite e-Readers - ACS-Xerox Call Centers in Jamaica ramp up as Kindle Fires begin to Sparkle”.

The new and improved Amazon Kindle Paperwhite has the following Hardware tweaks as noted in “New Kindle Paperwhite hits September 30, starts at $119 (hands-on)”, published September 3, 2013 12:21 PM PDT, by David Carnoy, CNET Reviews:

1.      E-Ink's Pearl 2 display

2.      1GHz processor, a 25% improvement on the 800MHz found in the original Paperwhite

3.      A Brighter LED light

4.      19% more responsive Capacitive Touch

5.      7.3 ounces instead of 7.5 ounces, which isn't really noticeable but is worth noting

6.      2GB of integrated storage ,  which Amazon says stores up to 1,100 e-books

The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite also has improved software features:

1.      Page Flip to keep track of pages as you jump ahead or back to get a better feel for the book

2.      Vocabulary Builder that gives on-the-spot app driven definitions of words encountered in your book.

3.      Amazon MatchBook, a Book matching service that allows Amazon users to get the e-book version of any hardcover versions of any book they have ever purchased in e-book format

4.      Kindle FreeTime, a parent nanny service that allows parents to keep track of their kids usage of the Amazon Kindle Fire and filter inappropriate content form their wandering gaze.

5.      GoodReads integration, giving Amazon Readers access to all the content at that Website

The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite is available for pre-order on Wednesday September 4th 2013 and ships on Monday September 30^th 2013 once you follow my directives on how to shop online ass per my blog article entitled “How to purchase items and subscribe to Magazines online and ship them to Jamaica”, as it’s a very popular item. It comes in the following versions:

1.      US$119 for Wi-Fi with “special offers” (ads)

2.      US$139 without “special offers” (ads)

There is also an Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 3G + Wi-Fi version. Those versions ships Tuesday November 5^th2013 and it’s priced at US$189. One thing is for certain, e-Book Piracy is sure to ramp up with this cheaper Amazon Kindle Paperwhite as opined in my Geezam blog article “Piracy and E-Books in a Tale of Two Cities”. 

For those UWI and UTECH students wiling to shell out to get their own personal Tablet as opined in my blog article entitled “Crowdsourced, Teleworking Flex-work Publishers needed for UWI and High School Students with Tablets in 2014 - How Jamaican Writers can make money via ePub Publishing Books”.

So what about free e-books? Aside from Torrenting e-books, which is the same as torrenting Music as explained in my blog article entitled “How to download High Quality Music via torrenting - The Mortal Instruments City of Bones used to get Free Music”, there are legitimate and good sites where you can get free copies of popular books.

First you have to know the correct name for the book. To do this, get the books ISBN (International Standard Book Number), a unique Serial Numbering system that uniquely identifies every publication, periodical or book that has ever been printed on the face of the Planet Earth. That’s the number on the inside or the back of the Book with the words “ISBN”.

Once you have this number, use one of the following ISBN Search Engines as listed in “Find that hard-to-find book with an ISBN number”, published August 21 2013 By Wendy Boswell, About.com Guideto find the name book you seek or use the name of the book if known to do a lookup:

1.      Amazon Advanced Search

2.      Bookfinder

3.      ISBN Search

4.      ISBN.nu

5.      ISBNDB.com

Hint: Even if you know the Books’ name, it’s best to do a search for the correct name of the book, as sometimes books may have different names or may even be out of print, an explanation for Amazon’s new service of MatchBooks, as many book are not really hard to find they just have very difficult names to locate or they may not be on any of the above databases!

At this point you should have the name of the book. Once you have that in hand, finding the book to download should be a cinch. Then it’s onto yet another list of great websites for free content, condensed into this blog post just for you, dear reader!

This list is for those of you who are not quite comfortable with Piracy, despite the ease of doing it, especially as you can avoid spending unnecessary cash and resorting to Pirating a book that might otherwise be free:

1.      FreeBookSpot

2.      4eBooks

3.      Free-EBooks

4.      ManyBooks

5.      GetFreeEBooks

6.      FreeComputerBooks

7.      FreeTechBooks

8.      Scribd

9.      Globusz

10.  KnowFree

11.  OnlineFreeEBooks

12.  MemoWare

13.  BluePortal

14.  OnlineComputerBooks

15.  SnipFiles

16.  BookYards

17.  The Online Books Page

18.  AskSamEbooks

19.  Baen Free Library

20.  EBookLobby

Most of these books are in PDF format. Some are in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and some of them are in e-Pub format. That being said, you may need more than just your regular *.PDF or Web Browser to read some of these books as noted in the article “Five easy to use desktop ebook readers”, published November 27, 2012, 10:35 PM PST By Jack Wallen in Five Apps, TechRepublic:

1.      Calibre

2.      Adobe Digital Editions

3.      FBReader

4.      EPUBReader for Firefox

5.      Blio

Combined with the above list of free e-books in a variety of formats, this should go a long ways in easing your conscience on the issue of Pirating books. Then again, if you are a UWI or UTECH student, with the tuition now up by 5.5% and you have a tablet as explained in my blog article entitled “UWI'splanning to increase all Tuition by 5.5% come the new Academic Year 2013-2014 -How to Download ANY Video, including Facebook Videos, Convert and Free VideoHosting Online” you would realize that you need carry nothing more to school.