I have to say that these TARDIS skin covers look pretty awesome and will make your device stand out from the crowd. In addition to the Kindle and Kindle Fire, and Nook can also make your iPhone4/4S or iPad 2 look like the familiar blue police call box.

These skin covers were created by Etsy seller stickitskins and they’ve got a number of other cool designs as well. I like how colorful most of their options are. Stickitskins’ designs are available in a variety of different sizes for all sorts of devices. Prices vary from $7.95 to $19.95 (USD).

[via Digitalyn]

Each of the Kindle Fire tablets is sold at an estimated $3 loss. This is just one reason why some analysts are not smiling when they look at the end of Q4 for Amazon. In fact, one Goldman Sachs analyst is saying even with the brisk Kindle sales, Amazon won’t hit its revenue estimate for the quarter. And with each one eating into the bottom line, market fears are enough that Amazon’s stock price is seeing some volatility.

Amazon stock dropped 4% yesterday before recovering most of that loss by the close of the trading day. Overall sales for the quarter are still expected to have grown 38% over 2010, which is still pretty impressive. Amazon hopes that taking a loss on the tablet will spur sales of digital content to make up the hardware losses, which isn’t an uncommon business model for gadgets. Hopefully, this strategy will pay off in 2012 and beyond.

[via AllThingsD]

On Best Buy’s website, the $199 Fire now ranks higher than the 16GB iPad as the top selling tablet. Look out Apple. It is a smashing success for Amazon as the tablet has been garnering praise from both buyers and (some) reviewers. After all the price is great and you get a lot for your money.

The question is: Will it stay in the lead at these and maybe other retailers and for how long? At least Amazon has some time before the iPad 3 arrives.

[via Techcrunch]

The list of the 100 Kindle Fire exclusives includes titles like Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Sandman, Fables, Blackest Night, All Star Superman, Y The Last Man, and V For Vendetta to name a few. Customers can still order them from B&N’s website and over the counter. They just have to be delivered to your home.

[via Bleedingcool]

If you bought one of those ad-subsidized Kindles – and now regret it – there is hope for you. Amazon is offering a way that you can ditch those ads and it’s as easy as coughing up that extra fee you saved buying this tablet in the first place. You simply go into the Manage Your Kindle page and unsubscribe from the ads there.

You can kill the ads right now if you want. I would not have been surprised if Amazon had asked for a premium to remove the ads as a punishment, so it’s good to see that all you have to do is pay the difference between the subsidized and the price of the normal reader at any time.

The phone has only been out for a few weeks now and when it landed, the price was about $180. As of today, Amazon has discounted the smartphone significantly. The phone sells for $149.99 and then you get a $50 gift card as well. That makes the total cost under $100 for one of the coolest Android smartphones around. Of course, you’ll need to activate a service contract with Verizon to get the deal.

If you aren’t familiar the Droid Bionic runs Android 2.3, has 4G connectivity, a 4.3-inch qHD screen, GPS, WiFi and a lot more. The phone rocks a 1GHz dual-core processor and can be used as a hotspot on the go. Internal storage is 16GB and the phone has a 16GB microSD card too.

Their latest innovation has to do with you receiving your packages. Amazon hasn’t confirmed this yet, mind you. You know how you sometimes aren’t home to receive packages? Maybe the package is too big for them to leave or you just miss delivery because you had to leave. Amazon has a solution.

They want to deliver your goods to a 7-11. For real. I can’t decide if this is crazy or cool. Your package will be waiting for you and you can get yourself a Slurpee while you are there.

Amazon hasn’t confirmed this, but according to The Daily, a 7-11 store in Seattle has an Amazon locker system installed already. When your package arrives at 7-11 you will get an e-mail with a bar code attached. Just go to the store, use the bar code on your smartphone and let the machine scan it. Your locker will unlock and you can get your package. What do you think?

[via geek]

The device runs a customized Android OS and will be reportedly be released in either October or November for about $250 (USD).  Siegler reports that the tablet looks a lot like the BlackBerry PlayBook. It has the same form factor and has a 7-inch capacitive (backlit LCD) screen, which handles up to 2 touch inputs, not 10 like the iPad 2. The OS has been tweaked to have a lot of blue and orange on the interface, and the main welcome screen will resemble a sort of cover flow to access your books, apps, movies, and music. You can also dock your favorite items at the bottom of the screen. There will be no Android Market (and no Google apps). Instead, Amazon will include its Appstore.

It’s supposedly running on a single-core processor, though there are rumors that the 10-inch tablet which will be released next year will use a dual-core processor. The initial version will have only 6GB of internal storage and it will be released as a Wi-Fi-only model, at least for now – with 3G on the horizon.

[via TechCrunch]

I would not want the job of taking the street view photos down the Amazon and Rio Negro Rivers for anything. The Amazon is notoriously packed with piranha and all sorts of other animals that would like to eat you. In order to get the pics they need, Google will strap the trikes to a boat and then take the boat down about 31 miles of the Rio Negro to start. The trip down the jungle trails and the Amazon will apparently come later. The photos taken by the trikes will be turned into the usual 360-degree panoramas.

The project is a joint operation between the Brazil and US Street View teams, Google Earth Outreach, and the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation.

[via PopSci and BBC via PC World]

Amazon has now announced that the Kindle can now stream Audible audio books (with human, not robot voices) over WiFi. You can also connect the Kindle to your computer and download the audio books to the eReader for listening on the go away from WiFi. It appears that the books will not stream over the free 3G connectivity that the 3G models have at this point.

It’s also not clear from the official post if this requires a firmware update to the Kindle. I would assume that it does since this is a new feature. You can sign up for a free Audible account for 30 days to try the service out.

Kevin Kelly even mentioned this extrapolation to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. His reaction? “He merely smiled and said, “Oh, you noticed that!” And then smiled again.” But it would be stupid to expect Amazon to just give away the product to anyone right? Michael Arrington has a possible answer to that: give the Kindle for free to the people who have already proven themselves to be spenders. And not just spenders, but Amazon spenders –  Amazon Prime members.

That way the Kindle would be like razors or printers – the profit would come from the content. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens this year, but if all this turns out to be true, then Amazon has quite an attractive proposition here. For $79 (USD) a year, Prime members already get free 2-day shipping (no minimum amount required), reduced rates on 1-day shipping, and free streaming of videos via Amazon Instant Video. By next year, Amazon will probably be paying Prime members to take a Kindle. At least that’s what the graph says. Or not.

[via J-Walk Blog & TechCrunch via The Technium via Kottke ]

In this video, the Kindle plays Super Mario Bros and it’s got no sound, it’s slow, and it’s only available in black and white. On top of that, it’s also buggy and you can’t control Mario all that well, but it’s a start, I suppose.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

This emulation was made possible by KLab, a Tokyo-based company. Tetris and Load Runner are also available.

[via Asiajin via Crunchgear]

This knock-off – from a company called “Wefound” – is a dead ringer for the Kindle 2. From the slim white case to the 6-inch screen, to its nubby little keyboard, the Wefound E-Book reader is sure to raise the hackles of Amazon’s legal team. Other than the fact that the default character set is Chinese, and the square navigation joystick has been replaced with a round one, it looks nearly identical to the Kindle 2. (Although I’m sure under the hood, it’s not).

Just like the Kindle 2, the Wefound claims it will be able to download books over a cellular connection (you need to provide your own SIM card). They plan on releasing their E-Book reader by the end of the year in Japan for about $210 (USD). Me I’d rather plunk down an extra $90 bucks and get the real deal.

[via E-Ink Info]

World of Goo, widely praised as one of the best Wii experiences so far, is an excellent launch title for Amazon’s service, though unlike XBLA titles, the conversion of Nintendo Points to dollars is much simpler than that with Microsoft points: one hundred Nintendo Points equals one dollar. That doesn’t mean it isn’t convenient to see a price in dollars, or to do your shopping through Amazon. And while the Wii has a gift-purchase feature for direct Virtual Console and WiiWare downloads, this way, non-Wii owners can buy games as gifts. Everybody wins.

World of Goo is $14.99 at Amazon, and is worth every little cent. Can’t wait to see what’s available next!

[via NeoGAF]

These handmade Kindle bags from the Borsa Bella marketplace at Etsy are simple, stunning wristlets designed to cradle the e-reader–and to look damn good while doing it. I love the convenience of a wristlet, and these bags have a wide, sturdy strap so you can attach it to anything from another bag to, well, your wrist.

The Kindle bags are available in a variety of fabrics and sizes from Borsa Bella at Etsy for $25.

The DP1 is a compact digital camera that features a 14-megapixel optical sensor powered by Foveon CMOS technology, a pop-up flash and a 2.5-in LCD viewing screen. Go to Sigma’s DP1 website or Digital Photography Review’s article on the DP1 and see if it’s the right camera for you. But be quick about it if you want to save $500 – these surely won’t last long.

The service isn’t just limited to games, either; you can buy points or subscriptions to the Microsoft service, too, and since you’re dealing with codes, if you want to give the items as gifts, just hand over the number.

The service, which just launched, is nice if only for one reason: I’d much rather see a price tag in dollars than in Microsoft points!

[Amazon Xbox Live Store via Ars Technica]

Look at that cute little Amazon exclusive. But the iPig isn’t just endearing: his little 6″x 5″x 6″ piggy body contains 5 speakers – a 4-inch subwoofer, two tweeters, and two 1.5-inch mid-range drivers – with 25 watts of total output.

Then there’s its dock, which is compatible with most current iPod models: iPod mini; iPod nano 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G; iPod classic 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, 5.5G, 6G; iPod touch 1G, 2G; iPhone 1G, 3G. That creepy smile lights up when iPig is turned on and blinks whenever iPig is given a command.

As you can see, even if you don’t own an iPod the iPig can still play your music via its 3.5 mm auxiliary input. The rest of the switches on iPig’s butt are self-explanatory, but what do you make of this?

That’s one of iPig’s ears, specifically its right ear. Touch it to raise the volume, and touch its left ear to lower the volume. This is what Speakal calls a gimmick “Humanized Touch Volume Control”.

The iPig is available in all known colors in the universe, as long as it’s white, yellow, pink and limited edition black. Black iPig can be yours for $130 USD, while the other versions are slightly cheaper at $120 USD. And frankly, iPig really needs your support right now, because according to Amazon 89% of people who view iPig actually end up buying iPanda.

True story.

Of course, you’re probably wondering whether or not there’s a catch, and the answer is yes, of course there’s a catch. There’s always a catch. Instead of cash, they put Amazon Gift Cards into your account. You can’t even turn around and use ‘em as a gift for someone else (though you could use them to buy a gift).

However, sending in the games? Free. If you’re a frequent Amazon shopper, that makes the process pretty painless. The service is still new, though, and there are sure to be a few kinks.

[Amazon via Obsessable]

Let’s hold our poses for now, because game developers like Popcap – makers of the neo-Tetris Bejeweled – and iWin are actually mad at Amazon because of this move. The developers are saying that while they’re okay with the idea of selling previously available games at lower prices, new releases should be worth much more than $10. But if for instance Mr. A. Mazon starts selling games at the lower price, before long customers will refuse to pay for similar games at a higher price. Mr. P. Opcap can’t raise prices for new games anymore and their profits will go down. Sadface.

To wit: on one hand, developers are demanding to have more control over pricing, which is understandable because they worked hard for their games. But on the other hand, wouldn’t having your games sold at a popular store result in more buyers? Since I’m no economist and I’m not a fan of non-free casual games, I’ll let others decide as to who’s got it right. What do you think? Oh you don’t care? Neither do I, but your mom might care, so go ask her.

[via VentureBeat]