ebook

Amazon's Kindle vs. Sony's Reader

Amazon has released Kindle, its new e-book reader.

[Later update: my Kindle review is online now.]

Newsweek has published a lengthy article about it. CNET's coverage includes a review, a photo gallery, a Crave blog, and a News.com blog. That's plenty of factual coverage.

I won't rehash the basic features of Kindle, but I will try to compare it with the Sony Reader--now in its second generation and Kindle's primary competition. I will also talk about what I see as the strong and weak points of the Kindle design.

Disclaimer: This is all based on … Read more

Amazon Kindle: Wait for the sequel?

Amazon has announced its entry into the eBook reader category with Kindle.

It's not in many people's hands yet or mine (CNET's reviewers have some first impressions), so these will have to be preliminary remarks. But I can say that I find it a schizophrenic device and hard to understand what it is trying to accomplish in its current form. It's easy enough to see where it's going, but ambition seems to have got ahead of what Amazon could actually deliver in the near term, and the ambition was not updated for reality. As a … Read more

Amazon Kindle: Hands-on first impressions

The slow drip of rumors and leaks about the Amazon Kindle e-book reader exploded into a full-blown flood over the weekend, once it was revealed as this week's Newsweek cover story. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos filled in all of the remaining blanks (or most of them, anyway) at this morning's New York press conference that officially introduced the product to the world. Some relevant details, finally confirmed:

Measurements: The Kindle weighs 10.3 ounces and is about the size of a trade paperback book. It's both taller and thicker than the Sony Reader.

Connectivity: The … Read more

Amazon debuts Kindle e-book reader

NEW YORK--"Why are books the last bastion of analog?" Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos asked an audience at New York's W Hotel in Union Square as he unveiled Amazon Kindle, the online-retail giant's new electronic book reader.

"Books have stubbornly resisted digitization," he elaborated. "I think there's a very good reason for that, and that is, the book is so highly evolved and so suited to its task that it's very hard to displace."

Indeed, with the launch of Kindle, Amazon is hoping to succeed where hardware companies like Sony … Read more

Amazon to debut Kindle e-book reader Monday

Amazon is betting that e-books aren't a total e-bust.

On Monday, the online retail giant will unveil its Kindle e-book reader at a high-profile event in New York, an industry source told CNET News.com Thursday. Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos is expected to be present for the announcement, to be held at the chic W Hotel in Union Square.

The Kindle is equipped with a Wi-Fi connection that taps into an Amazon e-book store, which users can access to purchase new electronic books--and Amazon has reportedly signed onto a deal with Sprint for EVDO access. Additionally, the device … Read more

Amazon to introduce Kindle e-book reader on November 19?

Amazon's long-awaited--and somewhat anticipated--Kindle electronic book reader may finally get its official introduction on Monday, November 19. At least that's the strong sense I got from a conversation I had earlier today with a PR rep inviting me to an Amazon event here in New York on the 19th. When I asked whether the product was the e-book reader, he wouldn't say (he gave me the usual "you'll have to show up to find out"). But since the Kindle was due to be announced back in October, it seems safe to assume, this is … Read more

How DRM can help education

DRM and electronic books could help lower college educational expenses while at the same time improving the health of students.

Here's why: the economics of textbook publishing are broken. There's a reason that an introductory biology textbook costs $125 new, and it's not because it's printed on high-quality paper using a special 12-color press. It's because when the student is done with the book, he or she sells it back to the campus bookstore, or to another student. The publisher is thus deprived of recurring revenue on the title. So it raises book prices, heaping … Read more

eBook evolution marches on

The publisher Hachette Book Group USA, a member of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), has decided to go with the digital publishing organization's recommended standard for distributing books in digital format.

Starting with its December 2007 launch titles, HBG plans to release its bestsellers in the .epub eBook format, the company announced Friday.

The .epub is an XML file format for reflowable digital books that includes Open Publication Structure (OPS), Open Packaging Format (OPF) and Open Container Format (OCF).

Hachette claims to be the first book publisher in the U.S. to adopt the .epub format. It also … Read more

The Gizmo Report: Sony's PRS-505 Portable Reader System (part 2, software)

Before I finish my review of the new Sony PRS-505 Reader (you should probably read part 1 first, here), I wanted to mention that Sony itself has a corporate blog, hosted by corporate-communications manager Rick Clancy.

Clancy apparently has permission to stray slightly off-message, and a recent result of this permissive policy was a funny blog entry about an ill-conceived marketing slogan for the Reader: "Sexier than a librarian." Explaining the slogan, Clancy said:

Please be assured that this was a tongue and cheek effort on our part, playing off a certain stereotype or a fantasy, depending on … Read more