Stephen King novel UR on Kindle 2; Kindle launches with wider choice of reading material

Stephen King’s Kindle 2 novel UR is ready. UR will be available exclusively on Amazon’s ebook reader Kindle 2, which was released on Monday. UR is the world’s first novella to be written exclusively for the Kindle 2 format.

Kindle 2, Amazon’s new version of the existing Kindle, will start shipping with Stephen King’s UR novel on February 24. For those who buy Kindle 2 at the same price of $349, the ebook reader will come preloaded with the UR novel free.

Stephen King, popular fiction writer and author of dozens of best-selling novels, has backed the Kindle 2 format even before, and owns one. He was tapped by the owners of Amazon to pen a novel solely for the ebook readers. Amazon hopes that the popularity of Stephen King will help the company push some extra sales of the Kindle 2.

In the novel UR, Stephen King narrates the story of a college English instructor by name Wesley Smith. Wesley Smith has just had a break-up with his girlfriend. The last question his ex-girlfriend asked him – “ Why can’t you just read off the computer like the rest of us?” reverberates in his head. This question, coupled with the suggestion from one of his students, prompts Wesley Smith to order a unit of Amazon’s Kindle 2 on the Web. Smith gets the ebook reading gadget in a single day, in a pink package, with a smiley over the box. From then, Wesley Smith’s life takes a turn for the strange and the magical. Well, we can’t give you the complete review because Stephen King has not provided us with a copy of UR, nor do we have the Kindle 2 with us.

Some of the other most popular and best-selling titles on the Kindle include  Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Run for Your LIfe by James Patterson, Michael Ledwidge, Just After Sunset by Stephen King, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham, A Mercy by Toni Morrison, The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death: A Novel by Charlie Huston, Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell, The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First by Mark, M.D. Hyman, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama by Gwen Ifill, Mounting Fears by STUART WOODS, Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher, A. Lincoln: A Biography by Ronald C. Jr White, Arctic Drift by Clive Cussler, Dirk Cussler, and Yes, We Can! by Paula Munier.

The Kindle 2 also displays a larger number of newspapers and  magazines. Among the newspapers currently available on Kindle 2 include New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Financial Times, Washington Post, Politico, and the Los Angeles Times. Other prominent papers on the Kindle are the International Herald Tribune, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and The Oklahoman.

Some other newspapers available on Kindle include the Boston Globe, The Times, Seattle Times, Le Monde, San Jose Mercury News and The Independent.

Prominent magazines and current affairs journals available on the Kindle 2 include Newsweek, Time, Readers Digest, New Yorker, Forbes, The Nation, Fortune, Slate and Salon.
Kindle 2, the second generation model of the Kindle was launched in New York today. The Kindle 2 is lighter, slimmer and can carry more books and newspapers than the earlier model. The Kindle 2 is lighter, slimmer and can carry more books and newspapers than the earlier model. The Kindle Store has been revamped too, and a lot more titles on books, magazines and newspapers have been made available for the Kindle 2, apart from websites and blogs. The buttons on the Kindle 2 are more regressed, and non-obtrusive.
Amazon claimed that the page turns in the Kindle 2 are faster. However, the most user-friendly feature of the Kindle 2 is likely to be its speech capabilities: The Kindle 2 can read out contents from the screen. You can choose whether you want a male or female voice to do the reading and how fast you want the page to be read out. The Kindle 2 can read from books, magazines, newspapers and any web content it displays on its screen. Speaking about the speech function, Stephen King told USA Today: “The text-to-speech option is terrific. If you’re in a car you can put on earphones. It is a little bit like a GPS voice — you know, the navigation in your car. But it’s got a lot of kind of nice features.”
However, we are a little disappointed with the gray screen of the Kindle 2. Amazon claims that it can display 12 shades of grey, unlike the first-generation Kindle which could display only 4 shades.

Like the earlier Kindle, Kindle 2 also does not require any payment for wireless access – Amazon takes care of that. So if you buy books or subscribe to magazines or newspapers over the Kindle, those charges take care of the wireless expenses too. However, keep in mind that even though wireless access through EVDO and 3G technologies come free, the Kindle 2 uses more battery power when the wireless is on. If is switched off, the Kindle can run for much longer. The EVDO/3G speeds ensure that entire books are downloaded in less than a minute’s time.

Amazon says that the Kindle 2 does not get warm during reading, unlike a computer or a PDA. Besides, the patented technology in use ensures that the feeling is one of reading from a printed paper, not a computer screen. There is no backlight or glare either, Amazon adds. The text size and text font on the Kindle 2 screen are adjustable.

The Amazon Kindle 2 ebook reader also comes preloaded with the Oxford New American English dictionary, with 2,50,000 entries. Finding the definition or dictionary meaning of any text item in the Kindle 2 is just a button away. The WhisperSync technology ensures easy synchronizing of data from the earlier Kindle to the new Kindle.

Kindle 2: Tech Specs:
Display screen: 6 inch diagonal E-Ink® electronic paper display, 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi, 16-level gray scale.

Size (in inches): 8 inch (length) x 5.3 inch (width) x 0.36 inch (thickness)

Weight: 10.2 ounces.

System requirements: None, because it doesn’t require a computer.

Storage: 2GB internal (approximately 1.4GB available for user content).

Battery Life: Read on a single charge for up to 4 days with wireless on. Turn wireless off and read for up to two weeks. Charge Time: Fully charges in approximately 4 hours and supports charging from your computer via the included USB 2.0 cable.

Connectivity: EVDO modem with fallback to 1xRTT; utilizes Amazon Whispernet to provide U.S wireless coverage via Sprint’s 3G high-speed data network.

USB Port: USB 2.0 (micro-B connector) for connection to the Kindle power adapter or optionally to connect to a PC or Macintosh.

Audio: 3.5mm stereo audio jack, rear-mounted stereo speakers.

Content Formats Supported: Kindle (AZW), TXT, Audible (formats 4, Audible Enhanced (AAX)), MP3, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion.

Accessories: Power adapter, USB 2.0 cable, rechargeable battery. Book cover sold separately.

Documentation: Quick Start Guide

Kindle 2 User’s Guide

Warranty and Service: 1 year limited warranty and service included.