E Ink

Amazon released a software update for the Kindle Touch (V5.0.3). Amazon says it includes "general software improvements" - no new features, and probably some bug fixes. You can just wait for it to download over Wi-Fi over the next few weeks, or you can do it yourself via USB (here's how).

Barnes & Noble says that Nook sales increased 70% compared to the holiday season of 2010 (they are referring to the last nine weeks of the year). The Simple Touch e-reader sales were actually below expectations, but the Tablets sold very well.

B&N are now considering the option of spinning the Nook line off. They say that Nook sales (e-readers and e-books, probably) were worth around $1.5 billion in 2011, and they project a continued growth in the US and internationally in the next 12 months.

Kobo says that it had very good holiday sales. In fact the Kobo user base nearly doubled in the last 6 weeks, with "hundreds of thousands of activations" occurred every day from Christmas to the new year. Kobo is offering both an e-reader and a tablet, but they wouldn't say how many sales they got for each.

E-book gifting also increased - 200% from last year. The most popular ebooks gifted during the holidays were Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and The Song of Ice and Fire (four-book bundle) by George R. R. Martin.

Amazon announced that the 2011 holiday period was a big success for the Kindle family. Customers bought "well over" 1 million Kindle devices per week, and the top three spots on Amazon.com's best seller charts are held by the Kindle Fire, the Kindle Touch and the Kindle 2011. The Kindle Fire is also the most gifted and most wished for product for 13 weeks in a row.

Kindle is also the best selling product on Amazon's UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy stores. Christmas day was the best day ever for Kindle book downloads.

Amazon announced that in the past three weeks they have sold over 1 million Kindle devices each week. This includes the complete range of Kindles - the Kindle Fire, the Kindle Touch, the Kindle 2011 and the Kindle Keyboard and Keyboard DX that are still selling.

We know that the Fire is the best selling of all, but unfortunately we do not know the exact breakdown between the various models...

Flex Lighting developed a new thin front-light LED film. The new film uses a single LED and is only 50 micron thick, and can be easily integrated (at least according to the company) inside the e-reader, and will not interfere with the touch layer. Here's a short video showing it in action:

Ectaco says that the Jetbook color is set to launch in the US for $499 on January 15, 2012. This is a 9.7" color E Ink (Triton) e-reader that features a Wacon touchscreen, Wi-Fi and a microSD slot. It's running on a 800Mhz processor and weights about 550 grams. It is already shipping in Eastern Europe.