You May Already Own The Next Tablet Computer – Kindle KDK Announced

Tablet computers were the buzz at CES. Nearly every tech fan is waiting to see if Apple does release their iPad tablet computer next Wednesday. But was anyone thinking of Amazon?

At midnight Amazon announced that they are opening up the Kindle for developers to build applications to run on the Kindle platform. The Kindle Development Kit page is now up and allowing sign-ups for the early beta testing that will begin at in February.

The sales of Kindle has been estimated at 1.5 million units. This would make the Kindle the largest tablet computer user base and an attractive market to developers.

“We’ve heard from lots of developers over the past two years who are excited to build on top of Kindle,” said Ian Freed, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “The Kindle Development Kit opens many possibilities–we look forward to being surprised by what developers invent.”

The SDK will include sample code, documentation, and the Kindle Simulator, which helps developers build and test their content by simulating the 6-inch Kindle and 9.7-inch Kindle DX on Mac, PC, and Linux desktops.

In another Kindle related story TechCrunch has spotted banners on Amazon’s website stating they will refund the purchase of Kindle to selected customers and they can still keep the popular e-book reader. In essence giving away the Kindle.