Amazon Launches Kindle Cloud Reader

While the site mainly sells all types of books, such as Romance Books, they also sell other kinds of merchandise as well, such as electronics, cooking utensils, clothing, etc.If it exists, its probably sold on Amazon.However, their main business still is the sales of books.However, Amazon is not exactly behind on technology, since they have very well capitalized on the increasing popularity of online books by releasing the Kindle.This device is a piece of hardware which has been specially optimized for eBook reading.However, Amazon is also a company that listens to their customers.There are many news reports of instances where Amazon has made changes to their offerings or website due to consumer demand.One of them was releasing the Kindle Reader applications, which allow people to read Kindle eBooks on their computer.This is perhaps a response to consumers who wanted to buy books from the Kindle store and did not see the necessity of getting the hardware, as they already have a notebook or tablet PC they can read books with on the go.Or perhaps a measure to slow down piracy, as they knew full well that if a PC app was not released, piracy of Kindle books would simply increase as there would be no official way of getting them on a PC.Ebooks are getting hugely popular and there are now pirated releases of several books, such as Erotic Books floating around on file sharing services, so it is quite normal for Amazon to want to make it easier for people to use their Kindle bookstore without having the actual Kindle.However, up to now the Kindle Reader apps had one major drawback.They were platform dependent.There was a Windows version, a Mac version, etc.But a conflict with Apple has erupted, where Apple demanded that Amazon gives 30% of revenue on the sale of Kindle eBooks if they make a version that runs on the iOS, which is the Apple operating system for mobile devices.Amazon, apparently undeterred released an alternative.A cloud based app that uses HTML5 to deliver the Kindle Reader in a platform neutral manner.That means any computer or mobile device which has an HTML5 compliant browser (most already do have one installed, or one that is available for download) can access the Kindle Cloud Reader directly from the browser.No software to install, no worries about whether the software will work with a new operating system, etc.All the user needs to do is to go to the right web site and start using the reader there.The application, just like all other cloud based apps, runs on Amazons cloud servers (which are also leased to anyone who needs a cloud server) so all the user is doing is viewing and interacting with the application, without it actually running on their own device.It is yet too soon to say how Apple will respond to thisComputer Technology Articles, however there is nothing that they can do to stop someone from browsing to a website and accessing a cloud based app.