Amazon is rolling out its Fire OS 3.1 update for the new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX tablets starting this morning, adding several capabilities that were labeled as “coming soon” when the company’s new generation of tablets debuted in recent weeks.
Chief among them: integration with Goodreads, the social network acquired by the Seattle company earlier this year.
That integration takes place directly inside the Kindle reading experience, vs. a separate app. Features include the ability to rate and review books, import past book purchases into Goodreads, share quotes from books, and see what friends are reading and add those titles to a “want to read” shelf.
Other new features include the ability to use the Kindle Fire as a second screen in conjunction with (for now) a Samsung Smart TV or PlayStation 3. Users can “fling” movies and TV shows from the tablet to a large screen and then use the tablet to get background information about the show via Amazon’s X-Ray feature.
This second-screen capability was one of the features that excited Jeff Bezos enough that he saved it to demonstrate personally when the company briefed reporters on the Kindle Fire HDX prior to its release.
Amazon also is adding the ability to print from the Kindle Fire HD, and remote VPN capabilities for corporate users, among other new features.
Users of the new Kindle Fire tablets and the recently released Kindle Fire HDX will get the update automatically in the coming weeks, according to the company, or they can download manually starting today. The update only works on the newly released tablets, and isn’t compatible with the first generation Kindle Fire HD.
