The read-aloud feature of Amazon.com's newer Kindles has generated a fair amount of controversy over copyright issues. Now the New York Times reports that the robotic voice of Kindle mispronounces a fairly important name: Barack Obama. That could be a problem for the new large screen Kindle DX, which Amazon is targeting at newspaper readers. Amazon is reportedly fixing the problem.

Will Amazon ever open a Kindle App Store in the style of Apple, opening the platform to third-party developers? Don't hold your breath, says Silicon Alley Insider. The blog spoke to a product manager at the Kindle DX launch this week, who indicated an app store is not a priority. Ian Freed, the Amazon exec in charge of Kindle, expressed a similar view in an interview with TechFlash last November.

Bsquare Corp. reported a two percent drop in revenue and a net loss of $90,000 for the first quarter, with CEO Brian Crowley saying that he was pleased that the Bellevue provider of mobile software solutions generated cash and increased service and software revenue on a sequential basis. The company's revenue was $16.7 million for the quarter, down from $17.1 million.

Bellevue's nGenera Customer Interaction Management, the company formerly known as Talisma, has named Nikhil Govindaraj to the position of vice president of products. 

Amazon has a new distribution channel for its MP3 digital music business. The online retailer is working with ABC's new "Music Lounge," which streams and sells songs from the network's popular TV shows like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Gossip Girl." Amazon will handle sales of music tracks.

Bellevue medical device incubator Aspen Medtech -- which had raised $1 million in funding from Three Arch Partners and Prospect Venture Partners -- has shut down, according to a report from the Venture Capital Dispatch Blog. The firm was led by Seattle Medical Technologies executives Daniel Hawkins, John Adams and Clif Alferness. Adams and Alferness -- well known Seattle area medical device entrepreneurs -- also were involved in the medical device incubator Scout Medical Technologies.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke in Silicon Valley about entrepreneurship and venture capital this week. Here's some of what he said: "The opportunity and need to invent ... remains strong. There's going to be less venture capital this year than last year. There's still probably in my opinion more venture capital than there are really good ideas to absorb the venture capital," said Ballmer, according to a report from the Stanford News Service.

Targeted Genetics reported only $3.9 million in cash on the books at the close of the first quarter, with the Seattle biotech company saying that it would consider shutting down or filing for bankruptcy at the end of June if it couldn't raise more money.

Despite posting a first quarter loss of $12 million, shares of RealNetworks surged nearly 10 percent today. It was also disclosed that Real has spent $6 million in legal fees battling the movie studios over its RealDVD copying software. So why the stock jump?