Kindle patch brings Facebook integration

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 29 Apr 2010 at 11:14

The latest firmware update for the Kindle eBook reader will allow users to share their favourite passages from books with their Facebook and Twitter contacts.

While Facebook and Twitter integration is undoubtedly the headline feature of the update, it also brings a number of smaller, but useful tweaks to the eBook reader.

The perennial problem of the Kindle's menus is being addressed with the ability for users to organise their books and documents into collections. The Kindle's PDF handling will also receive a boost, with the ability to zoom and pan around PDFs.

Native PDF support was only introduced to the Kindle in November, and the format remains something of a second-class citizen on the device, with annotations and text-to-speech still unsupported.

Kindle owners will now also be able to password protect their device, and are being given the choice of an additional two fonts.

The 2.5 update is currently being trialled with "a limited number of Kindle users", but Amazon plans to roll it out to all Kindle owners in late May 2010.

The update follows Spotify's recent revamp, which also brought Facebook integration to the streaming-music service.