According to a Tuesday announcement by Amazon, it has released a new firmware update for its Kindle e-reader, bringing forth two improvements - a notable extension to the battery life of the device, and the addition of the capability to facilitate the reading of the documents in the well-liked PDF format.

The update will lead to an 85 percent improvement in the international Kindle's battery life, allowing the device's battery charge to last for almost a week when wireless communications are switched on, and nearly two weeks with the wireless communications turned off.

Meanwhile, the addition of Kindles' PDF support is a significant move by Amazon, largely because the format is extremely popular among businesses, and also because Kindle competitors - Sony's Reader and the Barnes & Noble's Nook - boast the PDF support feature. With the latest addition, the Kindle will now support the ability for directly displaying Adobe Acrobat files.

Till now, Kindle owners had to convert PC-downloaded PDF documents into the e-reader's proprietary format. Though built-in support for the format would reduce the readers' inconvenience in reading PDF documents, these documents will still have to be downloaded to the device via its USB connection.

As per Amazon, the latest firmware update is an automatic download which will take effect when the Kindle users next activate their device's wireless networking and the device goes into sleep mode.