If Amazon allowed third-party developers to make applications for the Kindle, it could turn a device with a single purpose into something much more flexible.
Owners of new Amazon Kindles are about to get two improvements to their e-readers. They won't have to do anything; indeed, they might not even notice the upgrade.
With ad revenue and audience on the decline, newspapers look to e-readers as a possible new revenue path. But early signs show that "win-win" deals between publishers and e-reader developers are both elusive and nonprofitable.