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Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet device announcement - live(Guardian Web Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) 11.39am ET / 4.49pm BST : To answer questions in the comments about UK availability – Amazon made no specific mention of any territory outside the UK at the New York launch. But the new lighter Kindle will definitely be available in the UK – and as BobHughes points out in the comments, here's a link to pre-order the 6oz version. The price is striking – in the UK it ships at £89. But here in the US, it's $79 – equivalent to around £50 at today's exchange rate. A startling example of rip-off Britain? Josh Halliday has just been speaking to an Amazon spokesman, who confirms thatneither the Kindle Touch nor the Kindle Fire will be available in the UK. They are US-only, for now. As I said earlier, the reason why the Fire can't be released outside the US is because it's hooked up to Amazon Cloud, which isn't available outside the US for legal reasons. As for the Touch, that's probably to do with the Whispersync wifi synching service. 11.25am ET / 4.25pm BST: There's some debate in the comments about the price points. NellieIrrelevant says: Those prices are misleading though - they are for ad-supported versions. The ones free of spam cost more. Heck with that - I don't care how classy Amazon's ads are... A UK-based reader, iainl adds: And now there's the rub. The Kindle Touch isn't $99 after all; that's just the price for the "with offers" (read: spams advertising) version that they won't release in the UK and I wouldn't want anyway. The one without adverts is $139, the same price as the current-gen Kindle, so we'll still be charged £111 over here. 11.05am ET / 4.05pm ET: Here's Josh Halliday on the stock market view. Wall Street has reacted – and Barnes & Noble is predictably taking quite a hit. Its stock fell as much as 9% as Bezos was unveiling the new range of cut-price Kindles, which bear an uncanny resemblance to the Nook, rival e-reader from B&N. There's since s have since rallied to a fall of 7%, at $12.25 apiece. Amazon is up a modest 3.5%. 11.03am ET/ 4.03pm BST: The Kindle Fire ships November 15. "But I still suggest you pre-order today," says Bezos. He thanks everyone for coming. And it's over. Golly. That Bezos can sell! The mood is far more upbeat now. 10.53am ET/ 3.53pm BST: Bezos seems to be wrapping up. How much is it going to cost? $199, as expected. "It's unbelievable value," he says. 10.49am ET / 3.49pm BST: So far we've watched X-Men, played more Adele and now Jeff's chopping fruit in the Fruit Ninja game. "I still have more for you," says Bezos. He's showing Amazon's web page. "It's difficult, challenging for mobile devices to show modern webpages rapidly." The solution: Amazon Silk. It's a new browser designed for the era of mobile devices. Golly. This really is turning into an Amazon v Apple event. So far we've had three new cheap Kindles, a new Kindle Fire iPad rival and now a web browser! 10.44am ET / 3.44pm BST: Here's more from Josh Halliday. Unless Bezos goes on to say otherwise, the Kindle Fire looks like it will be US only for the time being. It appears intrinsically tied with Amazon cloud player, which hasn't yet launched outside the US for legal reasons. The launch of the first Kindle was US-only too, so this wouldn't be wholly extraordinary. 10.42am ET / 3.42pm: Bezos is having a little dig at Apple. There's no need for all that annoying synching. The Kindle Fire will do it all via whispersync, a wireless service. There were some giggles and ooohs from the crowd. The tease worked. Bezos has clearly been studying the Steve Jobs style. He even has mum jeans on. Although thankfully he has chosen not to don the black turtleneck. 10.39am ET / 3.39pm BST: So, after all that teasing, here it is: Bezos is announcing the Kindle Fire. It has a 7in colour screen, and will weigh 14.6oz. It has the capacity for 100,000 movies, 17m songs, and magazines. It looks very cute. 10.36am ET / 3.36pm BST: So, so far, we have a non-touch $79 Kindle, a touch-screen $99 Kindle, and a 3G Kindle Touch at $149. The pre-briefing suggests the Fire, which Bezos has not yet revealed, will be $199. Our technology reporter Josh Halliday has this instant analysis: At $199 (or £127), Amazon has undercut all of the high-end players in the growing tablet market, including Apple, Research in Motion, Samsung and HP. With the pricing of its new Kindle family, Amazon has bullishly established that it will continue to dominate the e-reader market for some time to come. You can hear the Waterstones reverse ferret from here. At $79, the cheapest Kindle is almost a commodity item. At $99, the touchscreen Kindle – dubbed Kindle Touch, appropriately – is ripe for Christmas stockings. Amazon's Kindle Fire, at least from the pre-brief, sounds underwhelming, with no camera or 3G. But let's see what Bezos has up his sleeve. 10.30am ET / 3.30pm BST: Hmmmm. I think we are feeling a bit mis-sold. Yes, Amazon is going to sell boat loads of the new Kindles but it's not an iPad killer is it? But wait, there's more. Bozos is outlining all Amazon's online media assets. The cloud player where you can access all your music and films, Amazon Prime that offers cheap shipping and access to streaming video. This all feels like a build-up to something. 10.27am ET / 3.27pm BST:Kindle Touch will be priced at $99. Electronic ink, touch screen, free storage in Amazon cloud. Not bad. And now the big reveal. Kindle Touch 3G. That's $149. Well that wasn't a big reveal – was it? Is there more? Yes there's more! A $79 Kindle. No touch screen, but weighing 6oz. Those things are going to sell. 10.21am ET / 3.21pm BST: Bezos is reading Remains of The Day to us. I feel a bit sleepy. 10.19am ET / 3.19pm BST: Bezos unveils theKindle Touch. It's a very stripped-down looking e-reader. Now I see why he was managing expectations. It fits in the palm of his skinny hand – just. It looks like a Kindle, and has a touch screen. It's black and white. I'm wondering if Bezos is about to do a Steve Jobs and pull out something a bit fancier in a minute. 10.15am ET / 3.15pm BST: Amazon founderJeff Bezosis showing slides of all the negative comments that Kindle received. The sales charts show otherwise, he says. "Four years ago we stated with 90,000 books today it's a million," he says. "You can choose any of these books and have them in 60 seconds wirelessly." This all looks like a pitch for how the new device will get better over time, to defuse criticism that it's an underpowered iPad. 10.12am ET / 3.12pm BST:According to Bloomberg, the Kindle Fire will have a seven-inch display – half the size of the iPad. Priced at $199, it's half the price of the cheapest iPad, which retails at $499, and will run on Google's Android operating system. Bloomberg reported that Amazon shares rose $8.59, or 3.8 percent, to $232.80 at 9:47am on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Apple rose $3.46 to $402.72 10.06am ET / 3.06pm BST: Bloomberg is reporting that the Kindle Fire will cost $199. I guess we are just about to find out. 10.04am / 3.04pm BST: We are sitting in Stage 37 – a warehouse on the west end of 37th Street in Manhattan. It's a capacity crowd. And we are off. "New York City Two years Ago" reads the first slide, introducing an ad about the Kindle. 9.59am ET / 2.59pm BST: The press are filing in. Sadly I think there are too many of us for everyone to get a freebie. Here's some pre-match comment from professor Ajay Bhalla from Cass Business School. He doesn't think it will rival the iPad. "At this stage, it is incorrect to assume that Amazon tablet will be a true rival to Apple iPad." He says Apple's ecosystem is hard to imitate for rivals. Transferring their stuff between Apple devices is seamless. Apple has moved fast to replicate the same user experience across Mac and iOS devices. Can Amazon do what Apple has done? Has it got the focus Apple has? 9.45am / 2.45pm BST: I'm in a distant corner of western Manhattan waiting for Amazon to unveil something. Taking a leaf (or pip perhaps) from the Apple playbook, the company has sent an invite saying that we all expect to be the unveiling of a new tablet device called Kindle Fire. There are hundreds of journalists here. Not since Moses descended from Mount Sinai has a tablet been so hotly anticipated. Well, maybe not. Apple's iPad is way more significant than the ten commandments. Apple now has 70% of the tablet market. So Amazon has a lot to prove. While I wait in line to get in, here's the preview I wrote yesterday. (c) 2011 Guardian Newspapers Limited. |