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New Sony Reader PRS-700 with touchscreen E-Ink display

From their press-release:

Svelte and stylish, the newest Reader still sports the dimensions of a slimmed down paperback book. The textured black casing and soft black cover contribute to its envy-inspiring design. And, at about 10 ounces, it’s the perfect way to carry all of your favorite books with you wherever you go.

A sizeable six-inch display with touch screen capability allows booklovers to flip pages with the slide of a finger. In addition, readers can easily search terms within a document or book, create notes using the virtual keyboard and highlight text with the included stylus pen.

Five pre-set text sizes are available so readers can find the one most comfortable for them and for those who need an even closer look, zooming in is as easy as tapping the screen.

The device still features high-resolution, high contrast electronic paper display technology which provides a reading experience very much akin to ink-on-paper. The result is crisp text and graphics that are highly readable, even in bright sunlight. For times when ambient light is not available, Sony is the first to offer a built-in LED reading light.

Expanded memory offers enough capacity to store about 350 average digital books. Using optional removable Memory Stick Duo media or SD memory cards, this Reader can hold literally thousands of books and documents.

View more PRS-700 specifications

Amazon Kindle 2 photos leaked

After rumors surfaced on the Web a few months back that a new Kindle might be on the way, Amazon.com did its best to shoot them down, saying a new Kindle was not coming this year. Well, Boy Genius Report has gotten ahold of some photos that appear to be the Kindle 2, so we're curious what Amazon has to say now.

Read full story View photos

Limited offer: $100 Off Amazon Kindle

Until September 8, 2008 you could buy a new Amazon Kindle e-book reader for $259.00. Oh, and free shipping, too.

You'll get $100 off Kindle when you get the new Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card. Here are the simple instructions:

1. Use this link to go to the order page.
2. Apply online. Get a response in as little as 30 seconds. If you’re approved, your new card will be added to your Amazon.com account and you’ll get $30 back on your credit card statement after your purchase.
3. Add a Kindle to your cart.
4. Place your order using the Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card and enter this promo code: VISACARD to get the additional $70 savings at checkout.

Click here to get the discount!

240,000 Kindles have been shipped since November

TechCrunch pointed out how many Kindles Amazon has sold. Just a little excerpt:

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The Kindle is such a small part of Amazon’s overall business that the company does not break out how many it’s sold. But we found out anyway: 240,000 Kindles have been shipped since November, according to a source close to Amazon with direct knowledge of the numbers.

Wow, this is pretty impressive number. It seems Amazon successfully changed the overall ebook market.

Amazon Kindle price dropped!

Amazon reduced the price of their famous Kindle e-book reader from $399 to $359 + free shipping. They also expanded their selection to include over 130,000 books, blogs, newspapers, and magazines. Plus, declared that all New York Times bestsellers now are $9.99 or less.

Check it out

Regular Books vs. E-books: which are more eco-friendly?

Are e-books like the Kindle and Sony Reader more eco-friendly than paper books? The short answer is that we don't know — yet. We have a pretty good idea of the carbon footprint of paper books, thanks to a newish study, Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the U.S. Book Industry, released earlier this year by the Book Industry Study Group and the Green Press Initiative. That report concludes each paper U.S. book releases 8.85 pounds of carbon dioxide.

Unfortunately, the study doesn't cover e-books. "In order to address e-books effectively, I’d need to look at a lifecycle comparison that analyzes the impacts of e-readers vs. paper as a medium," said Tyson Miller, founder and director of the Green Press Initiative, in an interview published on Sustainablog. "I do hope that we can explore much more in-depth in future iterations."

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Astak Mentor: an E-Book Reader Priced Below $200

These days, it is very cool to have an e-book reader in your pocket, almost as cool as an iPod or an MP3 player. Astak Mentor has recently announced a new e-book reader on the market. This gadget will have an unusual design and it will be available in three sizes: 5-, 6- and 9.7-inch. This entire concept is based on "save the planet" ideas.

The Astak Mentor e-book runs Windows CE or Linux and includes touchscreens, Bluetooth, and WiFi. All these features are standard for the 9.7-inches and optional on the other two. Prices vary from below $200 to $350 and should be available from October. Until we hear of a better reader, this may sound like a good deal.

via Crave

Sony Reader or Kindle?

Sony Reader has many followers. And yet one blogger preferred Sony Reader over the Amazon Kindle. Here are the reasons (excerpted from this small Sony Reader review):

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...There are a few reasons I chose it [Sony Reader] over the others. It uses the e-ink technology that the Kindle has, but isn't as expensive. The font can change to three different sizes. I can read word documents on it. I can listen to music on it too. I can load about 160 books on it w/out an SD card (though I'm looking into getting one) I was worried about not being able to read my already purchased PDF books, but I found a way around that (I'll email you personally if you want). There's not a glare on the screen (that I've seen)...

One more Kindle owner's review

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When the Kindle was released late last year, I was skeptical. I like the idea of an e-book reader, but it's so expensive...

...So at the end of March, I placed my order and started the backorder wait. It arrived a couple of weeks ago and, since then, it looks like Amazon's manufacturers are caught up...

...Overall, I'm pretty happy with the device. I'm not yet 100% convinced that I'll always be a paperless reader (when content's available), but if I have a choice between paper version and Kindle version, I think paper will be a rare exception rather than the norm...

Read the rest of Kindle review at Jeff Donnici's blog.

Kindle is in stock!

Amazon frontpage states that Kindle is now "in stock and ready for immidiate shipment". Here is the full text:

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Dear Customers, Ever since we launched our wireless reading device Kindle last November, we've been unable to keep it in stock, and we've had to work hard to increase manufacturing capacity. Today, we're excited to announce that Kindle is in stock and ready for immediate shipment. We've also been adding selection. Since launch, we've added 25,000 additional books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers that you can download wirelessly to your Kindle, bringing the total to more than 115,000. To learn more about the device and what you can read on it, visit Kindle's product page. You'll see that more than 2,000 customers have reviewed Kindle - I encourage you to take a look at what customers have to say. For those of you who are interested, I invite you to read Amazon's just-released annual letter to shareholders. I don't normally link to a shareholder letter from the Amazon home page, but this letter is all about Kindle. If you're curious, it will give you some insight into how we think about the business and our long-term vision for Kindle. It's a short letter, and I hope you find it worthwhile.
Happy reading, Jeff Bezos Founder & CEO

Amazon Kindle helps e-book market

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More than four months after Amazon.com released the Kindle, no one is sure whether the latest e-book reader is really hot — or not. But publishers believe that the Kindle has helped, if not revolutionized, the tiny electronic market...

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..."The Kindle has increased awareness. Publishers have told me that in some cases the Sony numbers were double or triple to what they had been," says Michael Smith, head of the International Digital Publishing Forum, which tracks e-book sales...

Read the full AP article here.

Amazon Kindle vs. Sony Reader: Cage Match Comparison

Comprehensive comparison from owners of both Kindle and Sony Reader. Pros and cons of every device. Read it here: Amazon Kindle vs. Sony Reader: Cage Match Comparison.

Opinion: New shiny Amazon Kindle doesn't replace my old book

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...Still, for now, the product doesn't really have the specifications for prime time. It lacks a color display, which limits the capacity for newspaper and blog reading, supposedly major features that seem as though they can be nothing but underutilized. If there's going to be a digital book-reading device, why exclude almost anything that has illustrations? A "Kindle 2" is probably pretty much inevitable, so why release the lesser version to begin with?

Plus, it costs $400 and each book costs $10. I doubt there's really anyone that needs to have 200 books on call at any given time, so the whole thing doesn't really make a lot of economic sense to begin with, especially since used books are generally far cheaper than $10 anyway. It makes sense for an iPod to be able to store zillions of songs because who knows what they're going to want to listen to moment to moment? But it's a pretty slim demographic that gets halfway through a Toni Morrison novel and suddenly gets the craving to switch over to William Burroughs. And, well, if there are people who belong to that elusive group, they can probably manage to have two books on hand as opposed to an unrealistically expensive electronic device...

(Damon Beres, columnist of Washington Square News.) Read the full article here.

Amazon Kindle vs. Sony Reader: the Forbes comparison

Forbes published a comparison of two most popular ebook reader devices on the market - Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader. They created a visual diagram (Disrupt-O-Meter), which illustrates the devices' "disruptiveness" on the digital book market:

And the conclusion:

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More Disruptive: Kindle. The device itself is nothing new, but the Kindle publishing platform, harnessing Amazon's distribution power, has the potential to disrupt the way digital content is distributed and produced. Always-on, high-speed wireless, subsidized by subscription fees, allows ease of use for customers buying books or subscribing to magazines, newspapers or blogs. Also, Kindle's easy-to-use publishing platform is open to any content provider who wants to offer something for sale.

Read the full article on Forbes.com

First Kindle e-Impressions

Yet another Kindle review:

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This week, I read my first book on Amazon's remarkable new e-book reader, Kindle. It's not perfect, but it beats many of the other e-book delivery system I've ever tried. Full disclosure: I work for , which owns NetLibrary, one of the world's largest distributors of e-content...

• The Kindle is lighter than most paperbacks.
• Another great feature is the variety of type sizes from which you can choose. At night, when I'm tired, it is tow clicks to make the type size is bigger. During the day, when I'm more alert, I can go to the smaller size and page forward less often.
• The proprietary format and the charges to access blogs and other content that are freely available elsewhere are real problems now, although I would expect to see these addressed in the not too distant future.

Read the full review

Kindle undocumented features

Igor Skochinsky has found plenty of interesting undocumented features of Amazon Kindle. Here are some of them:

Global keyboard shortcuts

• Alt-Shift-R reboot Kindle
• Alt-Shift-. restart GUI
• Alt-Shift-G make screenshot due to an implementation bug, screenshots can only be stored on SD card, not the main storage. A gif file is saved in the card root.

Home

• Alt-Shift-M Minesweeper
• Alt-Z rescan picture directories
• Alt-T show time

Reader

• Alt-B toggle bookmark
• Alt-T spell out time
• Alt-0 enable/disable slideshow
• Alt-1 start slideshow (if enabled)
• Alt-2 stop slidehow
• Alt-PageForward/PageBackward go to next/prev annotation or one "chunk" (1/20th of a book) forward or backward

Browser

It seems there is a location capability in the CDMA module.

• Alt-1 show current location in google maps
• Alt-2 find gas station nearby
• Alt-3 find restaurants nearby
• Alt-5 find custom keyword nearby
• Alt-D dump debug info to the log and toggle highlight default item
• Alt-Z toggle zone drawing and show log

Check out this post for more.