As expected, Amazon on Tuesday announced that it has started selling its Kindle device for R$299 ($143) in Brazil. Yet the device is not available at Amazonom.br , but rather through Pontofrioom.br and Livraria da Vila .
The launch has been a long time coming but in the end arrived a bit earlier than Amazon hinted at, following the opening of the Kindle Store in Brazil on December 6, which offers over 1.4 million books priced in Brazilian Reais (R$), including more than 13,000 Portuguese-language books. At the time, Amazon announced the Kindle would be available in the “coming weeks.”
“Amazon is thrilled to bring the R$299 Kindle to Brazilian customers through Livraria da Vila and Pontofrioom.br, making it easier and more affordable than ever for Brazilian readers to own a Kindle,” Alexandre Szapiro, Vice President of Kindle, said in a statement. “Now customers in Brazil can enjoy all the benefits of reading on Kindle with the option to buy in installments.”
Amazon recently hired Apple’s former director for Brazil Alexandre Szapiro to head its local operations, suggesting the Kindle is an important part of its growth strategy in the country. The company is also reportedly considering the opportunity to manufacture Kindles in one of Foxconn’s Brazilian factories .
With a population of over 190 million, many of whom are making their first online purchases, Brazil is turning into a fast-growing e-commerce market , which is increasingly attracting attention from foreign players. The Kobo Touch recently launched in Brazil in partnership with Livraria Cultura, likely prompting Amazon to accelerate its own plans for the Kindle launch.
Where can we expect the Kindle to hit next? Our bets are on China and Canada .
See also – Walmart will stop selling all Amazon Kindle devices as it attempts to become a real online competitor and Amazon goes on the offensive. Mocks Apple and compares Kindle Fire HD to iPad Mini on its homepage.
Image credit: Andrea Fregnani
Cisco confirms Linksys router remote root vulnerability for just one model, promises to patch soon
Researchers at security consultancy firm DefenseCode announced on Friday they had discovered a remote root access vulnerability affecting the default installation of a Linksys router. Since they said it likely affected multiple models, and pointed out Linksys has sold more than 70 million routers today, we contacted Cisco on Monday and were given the following statement:
The story started to gather steam on Wednesday, however, so we got in touch with Cisco again, which told us it is still investigating the reported issue. Since Cisco has nothing more to share, we can only go off on what DefenseCode has said thus far.
Update on December 17 : Cisco has confirmed the vulnerability, but only in one router model (the WRT54GL). See the bottom of this article for more.
The security firm says it contacted the networking company “months ago” and shared a detailed vulnerability description along with a proof of concept exploit. Cisco allegedly told DefenseCode that the vulnerability had already been fixed in the latest firmware release, which turned out to be incorrect: the researchers say the latest official Linksys firmware (4.30.14) and all previous versions are still vulnerable.
Here’s a demo video of the exploit, tested on a Linksys WRT54GL:
DefenseCode’s vulnerability disclosure policy says it will publicly post details in two weeks on its site, BugTraq , and Full Disclosure . This means Cisco has until next Friday, January 25 to react.
“Due to the severity of this vulnerability, once again we would like to urge Cisco to fix this vulnerability,” DefenseCode said. We agree that Cisco needs to hurry up, but DefenseCode also should wait until the issue is fixed before posting the exploit code publicly.
Update on January 17 : Below is Cisco’s updated statement.
Image credit: Daniel McCoy
NPD: 37% of PC users have switched to a smartphone or tablet to browse the Internet and check Facebook
It’s a widely accepted trend: as more and more consumers adopt more and more mobile devices, certain activities on the PC end up transitioning over. In fact, 37 percent of consumers who used to access content on their PCs have already switched to doing said activities on their tablets and smartphones.
The latest finding comes from NPD, which says the top two activities that consumers are shifting from their PCs to their tablets and smartphones are Web browsing and Facebook. Rounding out the top three on tablets is playing games and reading books, while on smartphones it’s uploading photos:
The difference in the number three spot makes sense: a bigger screen makes the tablet activities easier while a better camera means smartphone users take more photos. This is not to mention that anyone taking a photo with their tablet looks like a total idiot, but I digress.
If you’ll notice, however, there is no content creation in the chart above. One could argue that photo uploading is not consumption, but the other activities certainly are. That’s the PC’s role, and it likely won’t be changing anytime soon.
Let’s break down the 37 percent number further. 27 percent of tablet owners say they are using their PC less frequently for accessing the Internet while 20 percent say they are using their PC less frequently for accessing Facebook. On the smartphone side, it’s more equal: 27 percent have decreased both their Internet and Facebook usage on their PCs because they now use their mobile device for these activities.
All that being said, the PC isn’t dead. Internet browsing is still highest among PC owners at 75 percent, smartphones at 61 percent, and tablets at 53 percent, while Facebook interaction follows the same rank with PC owners at 63 percent, 55 percent for smartphone owners, and 39 percent among tablet owners.
This year, we think, that standing is going to get flipped upside down.
See also – Facebook’s mobile ad revenue made up 23% of its total ad revenue in Q4, worth $305 million and Facebook passes 1.06 billion monthly active users, 680 million mobile users, and 618 million daily users
Image credit: Toshifumi Kitamura /Getty