Technologies

Need a Last-Minute Present? Gift a Kindle Book From Your Couch

We’ll show you how to send a Kindle ebook with a personalized message right now from your computer.

This story is part of 12 Days of Tips, helping you make the most of your tech, home and health during the holiday season.

Did you forget someone on your list and need to get a present immediately? Kindle books from Amazon make great last-minute gifts because they’re received and redeemed through email. You can even set up a Kindle ebook to arrive on a specific day, like Christmas, so your gift recipient will be surprised.

Kindle books work on all Amazon Fire and Kindle readers, and you can read them on phones, iPads and other non-Amazon devices through the Kindle app, which is available on both the Apple iOS and Google Android platforms. No matter what technology your friends and family use, chances are, they’ll be able to access and read their new Kindle book.

I’ll walk you through exactly how you can send a Kindle ebook as a gift on your computer through Amazon’s website.

Pick out the Kindle ebook you want to send

Amazon has a massive ebook library with millions of books to choose from, so chances are high that if you have a book in mind, Amazon sells it in Kindle format. If you don’t know what book to give, try looking in the regular «Books» section on Amazon where you’ll find curated lists including The Best Books of the Month, The Best Books of the Year and 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime.

Clicking on a book shows all the formats in which it’s available, such as hardcover and paperback. Choose the Kindle format. Often the Kindle edition is the cheapest way to buy the book.

The key step: Buy the book for others

Once you’ve clicked on Kindle under formats and editions, you should see a box with the price and the Buy Now with One Click button. Don’t click it!

Instead, choose the box directly below that says Buy for Others. This is where you pick how many copies of the book you want to give. If you want your whole family or reading group to get the same book, you can send each person an individual email with their own copy. Select how many copies you want to gift and click the yellow Buy for Others button.

Enter the recipient’s email and pick a date

If you’re not signed in to Amazon, you’ll be prompted to do so, then taken to a page where you can enter the email address of the recipient and write them a short message. You can also email the book to yourself and forward it to another person at a later time, if that’s more convenient.

Next you can pick out a specific delivery date, like Christmas, up to a year in advance. This feature is only available for those who give a single copy of a book. Those who are looking to send multiple copies to different people don’t get to pick out what time it’s sent.

It’s also important to note that due to copyright issues, Kindle books can only be sent to people who live in the US. If you accidentally send a book to someone in another country, they won’t be able to download the book, but will be able to exchange it for an Amazon gift card in the amount that you paid. US users who aren’t thrilled with the gift will also have the ability to exchange it for a gift card, so they can get something they like better.

Send your gift

Once you enter your recipient’s email, write out your message and set a delivery date, you’re ready to hit the Place your Order button.

On the appointed day, your recipient will receive an email from Amazon announcing that they have received a kindle book from you. The email contains an image of the book cover, the message you wrote, and a button that says Accept this Kindle Book. Pressing the button brings them to their Amazon account where they can see the full description of the book. Once they sign in, they’ll be able to hit the Accept Gift button and download it to their Kindle library to read.

You’ll be able to see if your recipient has downloaded their book by looking under your orders and heading to the Digital Orders tab. You’ll find the date the order was placed, the cost, and its status. If the recipient downloaded the book, the order will say Claimed.

Note that the instructions above cover Kindle, but other companies also sell ebooks. Generally you’ll need a specific e-reader or app from that company in order to read the ebooks that you’ve bought. For example, you won’t be able to read a book from Apple Books on an Amazon Kindle and vice versa. Instead, you’ll have to read the book that you bought from Apple on the Books app on your Apple device.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for May 18, #707

Hints and answers for Connections for May 18, #707.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections puzzle is a mix of difficult and easy. The purple category does what most purple categories do, and makes you really break down how you think about the words. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group, to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: School days.

Green group hint: About there!

Blue group hint: Sure, let’s go.

Purple group hint: The Scarlett Letter.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Tasks for a student.

Green group: Encouraging responses in a guessing game.

Blue group: Up for anything.

Purple group: What «A» might mean.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is tasks for a student. The four answers are assignment, drill, exercise and lesson.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is encouraging responses in a guessing game. The four answers are almost, close, not quite and warm.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is up for anything. The four answers are easy, flexible, game and open.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is what «A» might mean. The four answers are area, athletic, excellent and one.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for May 18, #441

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 441 for May 18.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands will probably be easier if you have some basic knowledge about a certain type of vessel. You don’t really need to have ever been on one, since the answers show up in books and movies all the time. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Riding the wind.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: famed song by Christopher Cross.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

DULL, TILE, TILER, SEER, GALE, GALES, HAIL, SAIL, LEEK, GLUE, HALL, TALL, HEAT

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you’ve got all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

HELM, HULL, KEEL, MAST, STERN, RIGGING, RUDDER, TILLER

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is SAILBOAT. To find it, start with the S that’s four letters down on the farthest row to the left, then wind across, up and down.

Technologies

Google I/O 2025: How to Watch and What to Expect

With Android 16 out of the way, Google I/O will certainly be all about AI.

Google I/O 2025 takes place on May 20 and 21 with Google’s big keynote happening on day 1. We expect Big G to talk about its myriad innovations across its ever-expanding portfolio of products — almost certainly with a huge focus on AI every step of the way. If we collectively cross our fingers, promise to be good and eat all our vegetables then we may even be treated to a sneak peek at upcoming hardware.

Read more: Android 16: Everything Google Announced at the Android Show

Google also hosted a totally separate event that focused solely on Android. The Android Show: I/O Edition saw the wrappers come off Android 16, with insights into the new Material 3 Expressive interface, updates to security and a focus on Gemini and how it’ll work on a variety of other devices.

By breaking out Android news into its own virtual event, Google frees itself to spend more time during the I/O keynote to talk about Gemini, Deep Mind, Android XR and Project Astra. It’s going to be a jam-packed event, so here’s how you can watch I/O 2025 as it happens and what you can look forward to.

Google I/O: Where to watch

Google I/O proper kicks off with a keynote taking place on May 20, 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT, 6 p.m. BST). It’ll almost certainly be available to stream online on Google’s own YouTube channel, although a holding video is yet to be available. There’s no live link on the I/O website yet, either, though you can use the handy links to add the event to your calendar of choice. Expect links to a livestream to be available closer to the day.

What to expect from Google I/O 2025

Little chat about Android 16: As Google gave Android 16 its own outing already, it’s likely that it won’t be mentioned all that much during I/O. In fact at last year’s event, Android was barely mentioned, while uses of the term «AI» went well over a hundred.

Android XR: Google didn’t talk much about Android XR during the Android show, focusing instead on the purely phone-based updates to the platform. We expected to hear more about the company’s latest foray into mixed-reality headsets in partnership with Samsung and its Project Moohan headset, so it’s possible that this is being saved for I/O proper.

Gemini: With Android being spun out into its own separate event, Google is evidently clearing the way for I/O to focus on everything else the company does. AI will continue to dominate the conversation at I/O, just as it did last year (though hopefully Google can make it more understandable) with updates to many of its AI platforms expected to be announced.

Gemini is expected to receive a variety of update announcements, including more information on its latest 2.5 Pro update which boasts various improvements to its reasoning abilities, and in particular to its helpfulness for coding applications. Expect lots of mentions of Google’s other AI-based products, too, including DeepMind, LearnLM and Project Astra. Let’s just hope Google has figured out how to make this information make any kind of sense.

Beyond AI, Google may talk about updates to its other products including GMail, Chrome and the Play Store, although whether these updates are big enough to be discussed during the keynote rather than as part of the developer-focused sessions following I/O’s opening remains to be seen.