I’ve heard the Microsoft Store pays well and all, but seriously, what a dick move for making employees do this. That’s what Disney World and Cruise Lines are for. [YouTube via Engadget]

This isn’t another 1984 scenario (at least, not to my knowledge). Purchased books aren’t being remotely deleted from devices at the behest of evil publishers everywhere. But there seems to be something happening with publishers pulling out of the Kindle Store – or at least the Australian store.

The first book I purchased for the Kindle was Raymond Feist’s Krondor: The Betrayal. It’s the first book in a collection of three, all of which were available on the Kindle Store when I first received the device. Instead of buying all three at once though, I opted to pick up the first book, and use the “Save for Later” feature to mark the other two for future purchase.

The problem though, is that when I went back to buy those books after completing the first, they were no longer available. They still sit in my “Save for Later” basket, but searching for them, or the author, on the Kindle Store brings up no results. While the original book still sits on my device, I don’t have any access to purchasing its sequels on the Kindle.

But the situation is even bigger than just my single experience. Yesterday while searching for the books, ensuring it wasn’t my imagination playing tricks on me, I noticed that the Kindle Store boasted it had 285,000 odd books available to purchase. This morning, that number is sitting at 283, 292. Amazon rep Laura Porco said the other day that the number was around 288,000. So what’s going on? Why has the Store stopped selling almost 5000 books in the past week (or 2000 overnight)?

I’ve put the question to Amazon, but they have an Apple-like “no comment” response mechanism, so don’t expect too much in the way of details. Still, in the future it’s worth noting that you should probably buy all the books in a series from the outset to avoid any disappointment that might arise…

[Kindle on Giz]

Gruber recounts the entire three-month odyssey, which began with developer Phil Crosby submitting his app in May. Ninjawords’ dictionary was rejected for objectionable content, with a screenshots of the words “fuck” and “shit” in the search results. The thing is, Ninjawords is designed so you have to explicitly search for them—typing “shi” won’t bring up shit, even though other dictionaries in the store will do just that. A third submission, with the bad words like “screw” and “snatch” filtered, had them rejected again—”cunt” slipped past their filter—with Apple telling the developer it would have to rated 17+ no matter what.

Adding insult to injury, when the developer decided to give in, censoring their dictionary and taking the 17+ rating, Apple wouldn’t let them simply change the metadata to have a rating, they had to resubmit the entire app code, sending them to the back of the queue for approval. Apple didn’t just gut a dictionary, they stomped on the developers throughout the entire contradictory approval process that had let through other dictionaries which even more “objectionable.”

Gruber sums it up best: “Apple requires you to be 17 years or older to purchase a censored dictionary that omits half the words Steve Jobs uses every day.”

I think it can be said that the App Store is actually making us dumber now. [Daring Fireball]

The presentation is from Lippicott, a “design and brand strategy” consultant firm with extensive retail experience that it appears Microsoft has hired to help develop the store’s concept, principles, and design. It looks pretty legit to us—if it’s a fake, it’s fairly elaborate, with detailed graphics, researched and even rough store layouts.

Essentially, Microsoft is taking the best elements from the Apple Store, Sony Style and other “flagship” stores. The main focuses are going to be Windows 7, Xbox, PCTV (Windows Media centre) Surface and Windows Mobile, revolving around this concept customer they call “Emily,” who’s basically a younger version of your mum, since they make all the buying decisions.

Here are the highlights of the slides:

• There’s going to be a Digital Media Wall—a massive screen—that wraps around the entire store, which you can see in some of the slides
• Lots of Surface demos
• Stage areas for Windows 7, Windows Media centre (PCTV), Windows Mobile and netbooks and more
• Their take on the Genius Bar is the Answers Bar
• They’re already planning out huge demos and events around Project Natal and their secret mobile project Pink

In short, if it’s anything like what Lippincott is planning, it sounds absolutely amazing, and we’ll be lining up the first day it opens.

If you were wondering about Nintendo’s DSiWare download store in the US, it will be available when the DSi hits retail on April 5, with games available for either free, 200, 500 or 800+ points.

Much like Wii points, 100 DSiWare points will equal one US dollar. The downloadable apps will include titles such as WarioWare Snapped, which uses the camera to carry out the mini-games, and Code 10, a Sudoku-like number game. Prices have yet to be revealed for these games specifically, but they will fall within the $0-$8+ range. [Nintendo DSi]

AU: Well, he’ll be one of the first three people in the world – Vodafone NZ are opening three stores at 12:01 on Friday morning: Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. We’ll be at the Auckland launch, so we’ll try and have a chat with Jonny here and find out all his hopes and dreams on Thursday.

Unlike Apple, there were no people camping out overnight; there’s no gigantic glass panels or Italian sandstone; instead there’s two levels of Telstra, crowned by a giant 22 x 2.5 metre LCD screen.

As with other T[life] stores, you can tell the obvious Apple Store influence, from the free daily training sessions and demonstrations, areas dedicated to getting your hands on the products and other areas dedicated to business users and home networking. Considering that this is their fifth T[life] store, they must be doing something right as well.

Telstra also used the launch to show off their new QR codes yesterday, and for everybody keeping notes, they refused to discuss the iPhone (although Uncle Sol did pull out the new HTC Touch Diamond for a bit). Uncle Sol did, however, go on to say that Telstra was bigger than Apple.

“It would be a great benefit to the Android community to provide a place where people can go to safely and securely download content and where a billing system would allow developers to get paid for their effort…We wouldn’t have done our job if we didn’t provide something that helps developers get distribution.”

An Android app store would sure fit the bill.

Unlike the iTunes app store fiefdom though, apparently Android’s Apache licence means a phone could be released with its built-in “store” stocked only with, say, Yahoo! apps—or no store at all—since third parties can do whatever they want to the code. Still, having a centralised distribution point bodes well for Android development, which was looking a little haphazard for a while. It’ll be interesting to compare third party development for Android and the iPhone come this time next year, that’s for sure. [The Register]