I actually don’t think there’s much they can do on the hardware/features front that will wow the market, and beat the Nexus 7 in that regard. That said, I think they will announce two KF-like devices (high probability) — both of these will have 7″ish screens. One will be a slightly improved KF with a reduced price; the other (KF2) will be a new device with a better screen (I’m hoping it’s OLED). There may be other H/W features of note on the KF2, but nothing that IMO will wow the market.

I think there will be a realignment of the kindle e-ink line with some modest H/W improvements (medium priority). There may be a larger screened Kindle Fire (8.9 or 10.1″ screen — low probability); and there may be a smartphone announcement (very low probability).

So “Where’s the Beef” ? In a word: price. I would not be surprised to see a repriced/rebranded KF at $129; and the KF2 will have to undercut the Nexus in order to be minimally competitive (I’m guessing $179 or $189). The big bet I’m making is that there will be an entry level e-ink kindle at $49 (ad supported).

As to what I hope/wish for: other than an OLED display everything I’m hoping for falls into the S/W realm, and most of that on the Amazon Kindle web site side of things. I’d like quite a bit of improvement in the management of single account/ multiple kindle devices — including some kind of universal collections facility, and a “sub-account” notion where differing collection and parental control patterns could be applied. I’d also like some unification of their 3 cloud storage facilities: archive, Amazon Cloud Drive, and Personal Documents Service. I especially would like an easy way to get media (books, movies, music) stored on Amazon Cloud DRive onto a kindle (currently only music can easily do this via the Amazon Cloud Player).

Lastly, I’d like them to do something in the personal library management area. At a minimum I’d like to see them unify the “manage my kindle”, “your media library”, “kindle.amazon.com”, and Shelfari sites into one “useful” Amazon/Non-Amazon media library management system.

Not physically or technically impossible, but it wouldn’t be standard compliant and very likely to be glitchy (plus create a number of licensing and warranty headaches).

Does that ruling affect hardware?

What I’ve written about

http://ilmk.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/round-up-86-closed-captioning-aztec-mummies-japan/

is the

Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (CVAA)

which, starting July 15th of this year, required some significant streaming video to be closed captioned.

However, my understanding is that it doesn’t require devices to carry the decoding software.

In other words, Prime Instant Video (that was previously broadcast in the USA) is required to have closed captioning, but the now sold out Kindle Fire wasn’t required to be able to display it.

Does that match up with what you know?

Amazon has led on some accessibility issues, and I’d love to see them lead on this on Thursday.

I guess I’m unexcited by “deals” involving Prime, because I don’t care about speedy delivery and I don’t order enough to make it worthwhile for me–plus I don’t watch movies much. However, if this release is mostly about deals, it would be appropriate if Amazon re-branded their gadget as the Kindeal, the name I suggested when the first ad-supported version came out. (The name is free, as are all my Kindle-Improvement Suggestions.)

If this version is sufficiently ad-heavy, maybe it’ll be free with a 2-year (say) commitment to Prime–as others have suggested.

My experience with Ultraviolet leaves alot to be desired. In my short experience, I have 8 UV movies. But setting up accounts and access is crazy confusing. I have accounts on WarnerBros, Universal, Paramount, Flixter and Ultraviolet.

And the studios are not of one mind.

If Amazon could improve on this, it would be huge.
Thats what was so amazing about what Apple did. However,
- Apple movies are not coming to Kindle.
- Studios don’t want to give Apple their cut.

I’ve always felt Amazon should leverage the “bundling” aspect more. Am I the only person in the world that would buy a book bundled with the Audible version at a discount? Even better if they could sync – at least – chapter placing – between the two. How about listening while reading (like Text-To-Speech is currently)

Audible is a great service, yet still sort of the step-child of the services umbrella. There is still no native iPad app (iPhone enlarged). But its awesome on Kindles including Kindle Fire.

Recently, I’ve purchased a BluRay disc and received an Amazon instant video credit for a rental?!? Worse, the rental is typically not HD.

I’ve always felt Amazon could bundle Instant Video with DVD/BluRay purchases for a bundle price. Would they even need studio approval to add Instant Video access at a discounted price?

Your analysis is dead on. They are not a hardware innovation company. But they bring innovation to their services, that really shine on their hardware.

P.S. – I would love device specific controls/pseudo sub-accounts/collections. WOW!