Regardless, simultaneous release dates with new hardbacks, availability (eventually) of the entire Penguin back catalog and the planned September launch date of the initiative are all promising for the snow-balling ebook movement. Now, where's my Apple ebook reader, dammit? [Telegraph]

In the fine print that you "agree" to, Amazon and Sony say you just get a license to the e-books—you're not paying to own 'em, in spite of the use of the term "buy." Digital retailers say that the first sale doctrine—which would let you hawk your old Harry Potter hardcovers on eBay—no longer applies. Your license to read the book is unlimited, though—so even if Amazon or Sony changed technologies, dropped the biz or just got mad at you, they legally couldn't take away your purchases. Still, it's a license you can't sell.

But is this claim legal? Our Columbia friends suggest that just because Sony or Amazon call it a license, that doesn't make it so. "That's a factual question determined by courts," say our legal brainiacs. "Even if a publisher calls it a license, if the transaction actually looks more like a sale, users will retain their right to resell the copy." Score one for the home team.

There's a kicker, though: If a court ruled with you on that front, you still can't sell reproductions of your copy, an illegal act tantamount to Xeroxing your Harry Potters. You'd have to sell the physical media where the "original" download is stored—a hard drive or the actual Kindle or Sony Reader. Our guess is that it only gets more complicated from here. What happens when the file itself resides only on some $20-per-month Google storage locker?

For more details, have a look at the original, surprisingly readable legal summary:

The (Potential) Legal Validity of E-book Reader Restrictions By Rajiv Batra, John Padro, Seung-Ju Paik and Sarah Calvert

Many users are unhappy that e-book readers, such as the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle, restrict the sharing, borrowing and transferring of e-books. While some argue that the "first sale" doctrine should allow users to transfer an e-book in the same manner as a hard-copy book, these contentious restrictions may be valid under current law.

The Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle

The Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle are portable media devices designed to carry and display e-books and other electronic documents. Kindle has a mobile broadband function that allows users to browse online content and download e-books while on the go. Alternatively, the Sony Reader requires users to download and manage their library of e-books via a home computer.

The contentious characteristic of both products is that they bar users from sharing their e-books with other users. For example, Kindle's license agreement grants a "non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy...solely for your personal, non-commercial use." Consequently, Kindle users may "not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to...any third party." The Sony Reader has similarly restrictive language in its license, but does allow users to copy e-books to several other Readers as long as they are registered to the same account.

The First Sale Doctrine

Some users have argued that these license restrictions violate the "first sale" doctrine. Under the Copyright Act, the first sale doctrine allows the owner of a particular copy of a work to sell, lease or rent that copy to anyone they want at any price they choose. These rights only apply, however, to the particular copy that was purchased; any unauthorized reproduction or copying of that work constitutes copyright infringement. For instance, you can't give away photocopies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but you can auction your paperback on eBay when you're finished with it.

When it comes to digital works, however, two complications arise: first, consumers might only hold a license to the content, rather than all of the rights that come from a sale; second, without a traditional physical container for each purchased work, consumers may not practically be able to sell their "particular copy" at all.

License vs. Sale

The first sale doctrine only applies to the "owner" of a copy of a work, so end users who acquire content by license do not enjoy the right to resell their copies. Whether a transaction is a license or a sale is a factual question determined by courts—even if a publisher calls it a license, if the transaction actually looks more like a sale, users will retain their right to resell the copy. However, as more commercial transactions involve the transfer of digital content—particularly commercial software—courts have struggled to consistently make the distinction between license and sale. Software is increasingly transferred with highly restrictive licensing terms, but federal case law has not clearly determined whether these types of transfers are licenses or true sales.

Kindle and the Sony Reader are following this licensing trend and creating restrictive licenses that users must agree to upon using the product. If these agreements are found to be enforceable licenses, they could serve as the legal authority to limit users from selling or otherwise transferring the e-books they download.

Amazon vs. Sony

Both license schemes are equally restrictive, but each product limits use in a slightly different manner. Amazon Kindle's use license expressly limits the extent and use of both the device and the digital media. The Sony Reader's restrictions operate in two steps: a license to use the device and a second license to use the e-book library software (created by Sony). In both devices, users are not allowed to circumvent or alter the pre-installed software on the device.

For digital media, Kindle's agreement allows users one permanent copy. The Reader, on the other hand, allows one user to posses multiple copies as long as they are all registered to that user. Both regimes are equally restrictive on the distribution, copying, and sharing of purchased e-books (to other users).

The reason for the differences in these restrictions is a result of their technical characteristics. Amazon's wireless store requires the terms to be agreed on initially, while the Sony Reader's reliance on iTunes-like software allows a separate use agreement. In effect, both agreements accomplish the same level of restriction, but you have a little more leeway with the number of copies with the Sony Reader.

Hard Copies vs. Digital Copies

Another possible complication stems from the inherent difference between transferring an e-book and transferring a hard-copy book. The transfer of a hard-copy book is just that; the physical transfer of one copy. The transfer of an e-book, however, requires the digital recreation or copying of that e-book. Because the first sale doctrine allows transfers of only your particular copy, and not reproductions or recreations, a digital transfer of an e-book is probably impermissible. Thus, users of Kindle and the Sony Reader can only legally transmit works by selling the physical media on which they are stored—be that the e-book readers themselves or the users' hard drives.

While the restrictions on e-books may initially seem inconsistent with the rights granted for hard-copy books, these differences are the consequence of new digital products outgrowing traditional copyright doctrines. Such issues are currently being examined by legal scholars and industry insiders, but only time will tell whether this degree of control over digital media is acceptable to society.

Other than that we have nothing to go on, the information is from iriver's Korean website, so the news is a little mangled due to our interpretation skills being as efficient as a combustion engine, but we have faith in iriver, not only because their CES booth kicked ass, but because they generally kick ass. Stay tuned; this looks promising. [iRiver (Korean link), via Engadget]

Accessing the goodies requires fiddling with the firmware, so you've got to at least sort of know what you're doing in that regard, but once you do, you get all sorts of fun shortcut options. It seems strange that some of this stuff would be hidden, such as the faux-GPS Google Maps functionality. There are commands built-in, such as "find nearest gas station," that makes it seem like at some point these features were planned but scrapped for some reason. Oh well, if you really want them you can have them, just follow the link below for the details. [Reversing Everything via Interface]

Oh, and now you can too since his scripts are available for download. Should you feel bad about reading your non-Amazon eBooks on the Kindle? For $399 I wouldn't feel bad loading it with the souls of Amazon's first born children. [reversingeverthing via gadgetlab]

Available in either grey or white, the NUUT costs $320 and has an optional soft cover available, at a cost of $25. Styling is very Jonathan Ives circa 2004, don't you think? [Nuutbook via AVING]

As a rightfully irritated commenter on BookofJoe noted, Amazon should have notified him of this when it bought it. That may be true, but you wouldn't expect your phone company to do that right? Besides, Amazon did mention all of this in the product page, but it could have been easily lost in the long list of information. Hit the link to check your coverage [Amazon and BookofJoe]

Oh, look, a dress with keyboards attached for some reason! I'm always like, "damn, I need a keyboard, if only I had a dozen of them stapled to my pants I would be able to get my work done on time, but alas! Perhaps in some sort of utopian future my problems will be addressed."

And then there's this vest, which awkwardly has what appears to be eBook readers attached on both the front and the back of it. Why? Why not, I say. That seems to be the prevailing logic presiding over all of these, which eschew any type of functionality or rationality for "well, I've never seen that before" reactions. Nice work, boneheads. [Aving]

I understand the Kindle. Book reading is always a one-on-one activity, and there is more or less only one way to experience a book—from a rectangular object in your hand. An e-book reader that's PC-free, connected directly to the book source, is even smarter than an MP3 player or phone that's connected to a music store, because music ends up all over the place, while books will always stay in your lap.

People bitch about a lack of Wi-Fi, but as a fan of wide-area wireless, I think Sprint's EV-DO was a good way to go, because it's available in more places. And as far as the lack of backlight, I am inclined to believe the messaging from both Amazon and Sony, that E-Ink is easier on the eyes than anything backlit, and that long battery life is more important. I used the Kindle regularly without charging for four days straight before it completely crapped out just this morning.

As for the criticism about document and e-book format compatibility, I suspect these problems will work themselves out over time, as the Kindle's Linux platform is surely easy to enhance through software. At any rate, you already know many of the issues, so there's no point rehashing them here, especially when much of it is a matter of personal preference.

No, none of these theoretical concerns were in my mind as I read using the Kindle this week, but that's not to say I didn't uncover some issues. Here's what I discovered this week while reading a book on Kindle—Heat by Bill Buford— that I was already halfway through in its old-world hardcover paper form:

In Bed:
• Next Page buttons on both sides mean tremendous comfort in bed. No matter which hand you are holding the Kindle in, you can easily turn the page, and if you have it sitting on the bed next to you, you can even tap the large button on the right with a finger or your elbow.

• Since it's much larger than a hardcover or even a trade paperback, you can hold it without tiring out your arm, or needing to use your leg to prop it up.

• Normally when reading in bed, you have to shift positions when you turn the page, especially when at the beginning or end of a large book. Since the Kindle only displays one page at a time, and doesn't have a shifting weight of pages from one side to the other, you can pick a position and stick to it.

• I have a lamp next to my bed for reading old-school printed books; it works just as well with Kindle.

In the Air:
• EV-DO isn't available everywhere, or even at all airports. The one I flew out of only provided a paltry 1X signal, and it took me about five minutes to download the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly.• Speaking of The Atlantic, text-heavy weeklies and monthlies really are the target. Newspapers are a problem, because the editions that appear on Kindle are already outdated by their own websites, so newshounds would get frustrated. The lineup of magazines needs to grow, though. I won't be happy until The Economist and The New Yorker appear on the menu. (I may come from the Great Red State of Indiana, but I prefer my current events smart and a little left-leaning. But while we're at it, Amazon, a Guns N' Ammo Kindle Edition might be nice too.)

• Once aboard, FAA regulation required that I not use the Kindle at takeoff and landing. Though obvious, this pissed me off because that's when I always read on planes, before iPod time kicks in and I have the option of a movie.

• There's a handy switch to shut off the cellular data modem, and prove to the flight attendants you're no rule-breaker.

• The onboard Oxford New American Dictionary is good but not great with proper nouns. It picked up "Romanesque" but did not get "Florentine," for instance. And Wikipedia, which would have more elaborate data on both, is of no use when you're airborne.• Private reading lights have been part of the airplane experience since time immemorial. No backlighting on e-book readers means this glorious tradition will continue.

On the Toilet:
• Friction rubber grip makes it okay to set down on the side of your sink or back of toilet without it slipping. We have a porcelain pedestal sink in one bathroom that anything without a grip would slide off of—and smash on the floor.• Buttons on both sides of the Kindle mean that it's sometimes hard to grip it securely and not press a button. I were to hypothetically make a mad dash to the toilet, Kindle in hand, I would risk flipping a bunch of pages on the way and losing my place.

Other usage discoveries:
• As I mentioned, the battery lasted four full days of regular use, mostly with the EV-DO switch turned on. (It probably would have run much longer if I had left it off.) When your battery gets low, you get the error message below, but shutting down EV-DO that late in the game does nothing to conserve battery life, which died 5 minutes after I saw this. Charging is quick though—juice it for 15 or 20 minutes and it's good to go for a while.• I never turned the thing off, either: when you leave it alone for a few minutes, it turns to a keylock screen with a pretty picture or a promotional tip (see gallery below—I've shot 8 so far, but there are tons of 'em). You click and hold the Alt and font-size buttons to release it.
• I will never understand the magical technology behind the shiny LCD bar on the right. It is sooo pretty I sometimes do stuff just to watch it jump around. Very unique in this copycat-heavy CE universe.• The leather case is good for protecting and carrying around without hitting buttons (see "On the Toilet"), but it is totally lame when you are trying to read. Slip it out and hide the case until you are ready to move again.

• The Highlight clipping tool is too primitive to be cool. You can only highlight a line at a time, so your clippings, particularly when viewed by themselves, look ugly and confusing. Anything you highlight is automatically saved in My Clippings, where all of your Clippings, from all publications, are lumped together.• In natural settings, I never used the web browser. I surf the web a-plenty in my daily life, and while I'm reading, I'm just not thinking about dot coms.

• The keyboard does have a bit of a lag, as we reported, but that's not too problematic. My biggest problem is the spacebar, hidden on the left side. Little known trivia: As it turns out, I SPACE with my right hand.• Footnotes are weird. I was reading a David Foster Wallace piece that, like most of his work, was riddled with footnotes, and each time I had to click it to see the note, which could get annoying. Same goes for Colbert's book I Am America.

• My wife likes it. OK, so you weren't curious about that, maybe, but she's a voracious reader and she generally turns her nose up at most of the gadgets that arrives at our doorstep. With the Kindle, though, she got excited. She picked it up and started reading the Atlantic Monthly, saying how "amazing" it was that Amazon got the magazine's formatting right, and how pleasant the E-Ink was to read.

• In the end, looks mattered least of all. Even though my wife thinks it looks like a "medical device," it was not a turn off. I think people underestimate its wedgey coolness, while overestimating the impact that would have. Bezos said you don't look at the thing, you look at the book within—maybe he was anticipating a hazing from the Style Police, but I think he's right. I just read my damn book.

My verdict is that a connected e-book reader was what the world needed, and as long as Amazon's library expands to encompass every book I want to read, I see no reason why I should be upset that I have to buy it from them. Yes, $399 is expensive, but that's likely to drop, and the more market-resistant $9.99 book price hits a Jobsian sweet spot.

Having lived with the Kindle, I can say that it serves most of my immediate reading needs. As a guy who enjoys amassing a vast library of books and displaying them in bookcases, I am a little frightened of the future, but inevitability is the name of the game, and fear of change isn't a good enough excuse. Will I continue to buy books or will I jump into Amazon book buying mode? That remains to be seen, but you, o early adopter, should not share my fears. The Kindle is a quality invention, and I can see why the first batch sold out so fast. [More Kindle Coverage from Giz; Amazon.com]

"When someone buys a book, they are also buying the right to resell that book, to loan it out, or to even give it away if they want. Everyone understands this."

You may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content. In addition, you may not, and you will not encourage, assist or authorize any other person to, bypass, modify, defeat or circumvent security features that protect the Digital Content.

Sony PRS-505 Reader: The Sony Reader is $100 less than the Kindle at $300, and it won't charge you to load PDFs on it (the Kindle will take a dime for every PDF you allow it to convert to its DRM'd format). It also won't charge you to read blogs or get your RSS feeds, something else the Kindle nickel and dimes you for. This is probably the Kindle's biggest opponent, and, to be honest, would be my choice if I actually wanted an eBook (which I don't).

Bookeen Cybook V3:The Cybook sits between the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle pricewise at $350. Like the other big two, you can load MP3s up on an SD card and rock out to your tunes while you read books on it. It also can handle RSS feeds for you, free of charge.

Fujitsu eBook Demo: This is only a demo so it isn't available for sale yet, but Fujitsu's eBook is notable for how light it is. Clocking in at a mere 177g, it's much lighter than the Sony Reader (255g without the soft cover) and the Amazon Kindle (292g), which makes a difference if you're gonna carry it around all day. If that's important to you, maybe it's worth waiting for this guy to appear.

Seiko eBook Reader: Oh, did I say the Fujitsu was light? Well, it is, but not compared with this beautiful Seiko Reader that comes in at a nearly-immune-from-the-effects-of-gravity 57g. It's also a mere 3mm thick, making it the thinnest, lightest, and slickest of the selection here today. In addition, it has a crazily-high 1200x1600 resolution on its 6.7-inch screen. This is clearly the sexiest of the bunch, but there are few details on it and my guess is we'll be waiting a while for it. Patience is a virtue.

LG Philips Flexible eBook: This conceptual eBook from LG Philips features one thing that no other eBook does: flexibility. Yep, that characteristic of paperback books that we're all so used to feels conspicuously missing from these technological updates to the medium, it's sure to make the transition from dead trees to synthetics a little easier. This is more an e-paper display than an eBook at the moment, what with its 14.1-inch form factor way bigger than you'd want an eBook, but it's an example of what we have to look forward to in the future.

So what conclusion can we draw from all these products? Well, it seems like there's a lot of research and work being done in the eBook, eInk, and ePaper fields at the moment, which should mean that newer, better, and cheaper products will be coming pretty frequently. That means you early adopters might feel stuck with the $400 Kindle in six months when another eBook comes out with a better screen, free RSS feeds and weighing half as much drops for the same price.

And if you're planning to use your eBook to import a bunch of your own documents and use it to read a lot of material downloaded from the web, the Kindle doesn't seem like a great option due to the charges for doing pretty much everything on it.

But if you just want something to read books on (presumably books you'll download from Amazon), the Kindle seems like a good, albeit an expensive, choice. Just know that your Kindle won't be the hottest eBook on the block for long.

Take a look at the screen shots:• How long was initial powerup? 4 seconds (but our demo unit may have been booted up before).

• How long does it take to turn pages? One second or less.

• How comfortable is it to hold? Very comfortable. It's nice and light. It feels right in the crease of your hand, between the thumb and forefinger. The downside is that it's very easy to hit the Next Page key accidentally.

• How easy is it to use the scroll wheel? Easy and intuitive.

• Can you change the font size everywhere? No. You can change the fonts of books, but when attempting to alter the size of text on the home screen, we got a message that said "Sorry, you can only change the size of text while reading content." It doesn't say you can change the font setting globally, either.

• How responsive is the keyboard? Turns out, not very responsive. It sometimes takes a second after you type the key for the letter to appear. (Good thing there's no text-messaging app?) Placement of the Delete key is awkward because it's directly above the Enter key, and it's easy to confuse the two.

• What does the connection cost monthly? Nothing. And in case you are curious, the EV-DO service is from Sprint, not Verizon Wireless.

• What happens when you connect your Kindle to a PC or Mac? It goes into USB Drive Mode and shows the contents of the Kindle. Here's what we saw when we plugged in:Can you transfer documents straight to the device? In our testing, we only got MP3s to show up when we transferred them via USB. PDFs, RTFs, and JPEGs did not appear when we copied them to the Documents folder on the Kindle. But according to the online manual, you should be able to transfer any Kindle-compatiable file via USB.

• How do you convert files? Once you have set up your approved e-mail addresses at www.amazon.com/manageyourkindle, you need to send JPEGs, Word docs and other files (but NOT PDFs!) to your Kindle e-mail address from your standard address. But guess what: a SMALL FEE of 10 cents will be applied per e-mail attachment, so careful with that. When we tested, our conversion of one JPEG and one Word doc took about 20 minutes all said and done.

• Can I backup and store the books on my PC? Yes. We downloaded a book, and then copied it to the Mac and deleted it from the Kindle. We checked and it was definitely gone from the Kindle. And when we copied it back over from the Mac, it appeared again. Of course, Amazon recommends deleting books to save room, but downloading them from the cloud when you need them, rather than storing them on your PC. But at an average of 300-400KB, you shouldn't really have a problem storing tons in your personal virtual warehouse.

• Can I read the books stored on my PC? So far, "no," but that could change. The files are in a .azw format and we don't have a .azw reader. Do you? Either way, it's probably an easy thing to cook up for Windows and Macs, so maybe it'll happen. But why would Bezos want you reading his $9.99 downloads on your shiny laptop? There are economic reasons why this might not happen.

• What is the SD card slot for? As far as we can tell, the SD is mainly for extended storage. It is easy to send stuff from the Kindle to SD, but it's not evident how you can move documents off of SD and onto the Kindle.

• What's the deal with the dictionary? Inside the Kindle is the Oxford American Dictionary, but you can only look up words that you run across while reading—you can't just type them in. Also, you can eventually download preferred dictionaries, and select which one you want to be primary.

• Can I browse the web on this thing? Since the EV-DO service is free, we suspected that the answer is "no." But it turns out, you CAN browse the web! Something called "Basic Web" browsing available in the "Experimental" section of the menu, along with "Play Music" and "Ask Kindle NowNow."

• How do graphics look on the web? There are two web modes. Default mode lets you see text but pictures come in tiny and hard to see. Advanced mode displays the web page the way you'd expect on a normal browser, but it cuts off text and is harder to manage.
Default browser mode:
Advanced browser mode:•How do you play music? The "Play Music" feature is in the Experimental page (Menu>Experimental). So far we can only play MP3s on it, and with no metadata on the screen. The songs just play. AAC was attempted and apparently doesn't work. (You can also click Alt-P to play music when you are in another part of the reader.)

• What file formats are supported? Kindle (.azw), text (.txt), unprotected Mobipocket (.mobi, .prc), Audible (.aa) and MP3 (.mp3).

• How long did it take to search for a particular book? In our test, it took 12 seconds.

• How long was the actual download? The download was nearly instantaneous—there's a bit of sleight-of-hand because when you click "buy," it takes you to the "OK" screen and then after that you go to the home screen to see the list of titles you own (in your Amazon.com Kindle account). By the time we checked the home screen, the book was downloaded. We believe the 60-second statement, but we'll see if we can clock this stuff on average (without going broke!!!).

• What's in the library, aka Kindle Book Store? There are already plenty of books, 90,000 in all, including 101 of the current NYT bestsellers. Don't believe us? See for yourself at the Amazon Kindle Store.

• Will it be available at brick and mortar? Probably not, at least not yet. Bezos only said available at Amazon, and we doubt Barnes & Noble is begging to sell.

• Is the screen really "easy on the eyes"? We say yes. It's definitely mellower than a laptop, though the screen's sharpness isn't as great, so that might bother some people.

• Can you underline text? Not exactly, but you can "highlight" which places a thin box around the text you want to call out, so in a sense, you are doing the same thing. You can also add margin notes to specific passages.

• How does it compare to the Sony Reader? We haven't done a comparison of our own yet, but Gadget Lab did one that you can read here.

[Giz Kindle Coverage]

10:23 - Bookmarks last page read automatically. If you want to clear memory space, you delete them off of your Kindle and in 60 seconds you can get them back again. (So, 60-second downloads.) "Disappears so you can enter the author's world." The End.

10:18 - Look at the store: your recommendations, national bestseller list. Buy something: scroll with your select wheel, select title, pull up detail page. What you would expect with Amazon.com - cover art, editorial reviews. Print list price $35, Kindle price is $9.99. Click on Buy. Says "thank you for your purchase...you can continue shopping while you are downloading." GREAT FEATURE: "Purchsed by accident? Cancel this order"

10:15 - Feature run through: font size change; "select" wheel; add highlight, annotation — all saved on server side so you never lose your annotations; dictionary - looks up every word in the line, then you can select each word.

10:05-10:13 - VIDEO: The publishing world rallies around Kindle. Toni Morrison, Neil Gaiman and other luminaries say that they love Amazon and the Kindle. Mostly promotional, but we have captured it in case there's anything exciting buried in there.

10:03 - There's a dictionary resident on every Kindle, the 8-lb. Oxford American Dictionary on the 10-oz. Kindle. "With Kindle it's so friction-free to look up a word, I find my deduction of what that word might mean hasn't been that accurate." Wikipedia is the "best encyclopedia in the world;" you can access Wikipedia from the device.

10:00 - Personal documents - Every Kindle has an e-mail address. Attach docs and e-mail them to your device. It's that simple.

9:57 - 90,000 books - 101 of 112 NYT bestsellers - 9.99 - if you want to do things taht physical books can't do, why not deliver newspapers. They are delivered while you sleep. WSJ, NYT, Washington Post, and local newspapers too. Local newspapers on Kindle become national newspapers. Time, Fortune, Atlantic Monthly, Slate. And over 300 of the most popular blogs. This is not RSS - it's pushed to you. Subscribe to the ones you want.

9:55 - "EV-DO, fastest wireless technology, it's broadband. Highly deployed. Use it while you move around. Everybody knows when you use wireless cell networks, there's gotta be a data plan, multiyear contract, monthly bill — we didn't like that either. We built Amazon Whispernet on top of Sprint's EV-DO network. No data plan, no multiyear contract, no monthly bill — we pay for all of that behind the scenes so you can just read."

9:52 - "With a PC - you are loading software, shopping from your PC - once you bought and downloaded a book, you use USB cable to sync to device. We didn't think that was a very good solution. There would be no PC, no software to install. Instead of shopping from your PC, you shop from your device. Store is on your device."

9:50 Soft rubber back, full-length page turning, comfortable to hold, paper-like display, electronic ink. Recharging is bad, so long battery life. No backlight. (like Sony, Bezos says this is a good thing.)

9:47 - "I have nerd credentials." (And a big crush on his elementary school teacher Mrs. McInerny.) But can you improve on something as well suited to its task as the book?
1. It has to fade away for the reader, like a book does, "so you can enter the author's world."
2. We can never outbook the book. We have to take modern technologies and do new things that the book can't do.

9:45 - Bezos says why books are the last remaining analog product: The format (glue and paper) fades away, "and what remains are the author's worlds, the author's words. I'm a reader."

9:40 - Bezos on the codex: "Gutenberg would still recognize a modern-day book."

Though we've already posted the rumors and the news, there's still a lot to know about this mystery disruptor. The dudes behind me think it might have the most impact on publishing since the internet, so stay tuned. [Amazon Kindle Store]

SEATTLE—November 19, 2007—Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) today introduced Amazon Kindle, a revolutionary portable reader that wirelessly downloads books, blogs, magazines and newspapers to a crisp, high-resolution electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper, even in bright sunlight. More than 90,000 books are now available in the Kindle Store, including 101 of 112 current New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases, which are $9.99, unless marked otherwise. Kindle is available starting today for $399 at http://cts.vresp.com/c/?OutCastCommunication/4d428ae66c/e900644d0d/ed0a6ed189.

"We've been working on Kindle for more than three years. Our top
design objective was for Kindle to disappear in your hands—to get out
of the way—so you can enjoy your reading," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com
Founder and CEO. "We also wanted to go beyond the physical book.
Kindle is wireless, so whether you're lying in bed or riding a train,
you can think of a book, and have it in less than 60 seconds. No
computer is needed—you do your shopping directly from the device.
We're excited to make Kindle available today."

Downloads Content Wirelessly, No PC Required, No Hunting for Wi-Fi Hot
Spots
The Kindle wireless delivery system, Amazon Whispernet, uses the same
nationwide high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones.
Kindle customers can wirelessly shop the Kindle Store, download or
receive new content—all without a PC, Wi-Fi hot spot, or syncing.

No Monthly Wireless Bills or Commitments
Books can be downloaded in less than a minute and magazines,
newspapers, and blogs are delivered to subscribers automatically.
Amazon pays for the wireless connectivity for Kindle so there are no
monthly wireless bills, data plans, or service commitments for
customers.

Reads Like Paper
Kindle uses a high-resolution display technology called electronic
paper that provides a sharp black and white screen that is as easy to
read as printed paper. The screen works using ink, just like books
and newspapers, but displays the ink particles electronically. It
reflects light like ordinary paper and uses no backlight, eliminating
the eyestrain and glare associated with other electronic displays such
as computer monitors or PDA screens.

Books, Blogs, Magazines and Newspapers
The Kindle Store currently offers more than 90,000 books, as well as
hundreds of newspapers, magazines and blogs. Customers can search,
browse, buy, and download from this wide selection wirelessly from
their Kindle. The same Amazon shopping experience customers are
accustomed to is offered in the Kindle Store, including customer
reviews, personalized recommendations, 1-Click purchasing, and
everyday low prices. Additionally, Kindle customers can download and
read the first chapter of most Kindle books for free.

Kindle customers can select from the most recognized U.S. newspapers,
as well as popular magazines and journals, such as The New York Times,
Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Atlantic Monthly, TIME and
Fortune. The Kindle Store also includes top international newspapers
from France, Germany, and Ireland, including Le Monde, Frankfurter
Allgemeine and The Irish Times. Subscriptions are auto-delivered
wirelessly to Kindle overnight so that the latest edition is waiting
for customers when they wake up. Monthly Kindle newspaper
subscriptions are $5.99 to $14.99 per month, and Kindle magazines are
$1.25 to $3.49 per month. All magazines and newspapers include a free
two-week trial.

The Kindle Store has over 300 blogs on topics ranging from Internet
and technology to culture, lifestyle, and humor, to politics and
opinion. Examples include Slashdot, TechCrunch, BoingBoing, The Onion,
The Huffington Post, and ESPN blogs. Blogs are updated and downloaded
wirelessly throughout the day so Kindle customers can read blogs
whenever and wherever they want. Wireless delivery of blogs costs as
little as $0.99 each per month and also includes a free two-week
trial.

Holds Hundreds of Books in 10.3 Ounces
At 10.3 ounces, Kindle is lighter and thinner than a typical paperback
and fits easily in one hand, yet its built-in memory stores more than
200 titles, and hundreds more with an optional SD memory card.
Additionally, a copy of every book purchased is backed up online on
Amazon.com so that customers have the option to make room for new
titles on their Kindle knowing that Amazon.com is storing their
personal library of purchased content.

Built-In Dictionary and Wikipedia
Kindle has built-in access to The New Oxford American Dictionary,
which contains over 250,000 entries and definitions, so readers can
easily look up the definitions of words within their reading. Kindle
customers also have seamless access to the world's most exhaustive and
up-to-date encyclopedia, Wikipedia.org, and its collection of over
2,000,000 articles.

Long Battery Life
Customers can leave the Kindle wireless connectivity on and recharge
approximately every other day, or turn wireless off and read for a
week or more before recharging. Kindle fully recharges in two hours.

Search
Kindle has a standard-layout keyboard that makes it possible for users
to search the Kindle Store, their entire library of purchased content,
and Wikipedia.org. Customers simply type in a word or phrase and
Kindle will find every instance.

Annotation and Bookmarks
The Kindle keyboard lets customers add annotations to text, just as
they would write in the margins of a book. Customers can edit, delete
and export these notes, highlight and clip key passages, and bookmark
pages for future use. Additionally, Kindle automatically bookmarks
the last page a customer reads of any content on their Kindle.

Ergonomic Design
Kindle is designed for long-form reading, so it is as easy to hold and
use as a book. Full-length, vertical page-turning buttons are located
on both sides of Kindle, allowing customers to read and turn pages
comfortably from any position. The page-turning buttons are located
on both the right and left sides of Kindle, which allows both left and
right-handed customers to hold, turn pages, and position Kindle with
one hand.

Adjustable Text Size
Kindle has six adjustable font sizes to suit customers' varying
reading preferences.

Personal Documents
Customers can take their personal documents with them on their Kindle.
Customers and their contacts can e-mail Word documents and pictures
directly to their unique and customizable Kindle e-mail address for
$0.10 each. Kindle supports wireless delivery of unprotected
Microsoft® Word, HTML, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP files.

Comes Ready To Use
When customers order a Kindle, it arrives from Amazon.com ready to
use. There is no software to load or set up. Customers are
immediately ready to shop, purchase, download and read from Kindle.

Amazon is adding new book, periodical, and blog titles to the Kindle
Store every day. Publishers and authors can submit their content and
make it available to Kindle customers by using Amazon's new Digital
Text Platform (DTP), a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets
anyone upload and sell their books in the Kindle Store. Sign up today
for DTP at
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?OutCastCommunication/4d428ae66c/e900644d0d/1640f1bc6d.

The Sony Reader is one of those quirky products that attracted reviewers originally because it was unique. The E-Ink screen was very easy to read, in spite of a lack of back lighting. And the idea of an iPod/iTunes system for books made sense. Or did it? Books from the Connect store were terribly expensive, and there was too much pressure to own digital titles, rather than rent them out, like a for-pay library model. How does doubling the book capacity help with that?

I'd hate to pronounce the new Reader DOA. (Heck, it might never arrive, since the listing and photos were pulled from the retailer's site after the post went up.) But while it's nice to know Sony is trying to tweak the formula, I'm just not sure the formula itself is worth the chalk. [Wowio via Gadget Lab]

If what the company is saying is true, expect to see ebook displays refreshing twice as quickly, with 20% better contrast, too. The company's also planning to roll out a wider variety of screen sizes other than the single 6-inch size it currently offers, from 1.9 inches aimed at cellphones and MP3 players, up to 9.7 inches for bigger ebooks. We might be seeing the results of this latest technology as early as this summer. – Charlie White

E Ink displays upgraded imaging film technology [EE Times]

Two years ago, Fujitsu announced that it had come up with the world's first film substrate-based bendable color electronic paper featuring image memory function (snappy name, fellas). Well, now they've made something to put it in: The FLEPia (that's a bit better, but I'm still not convinced). it comes in two sizes, A4 (480 grams) and A5 (320 grams) and both are just 12mm thick.

It's easy to operate—put a 4GB memory card in the SD slot, and the content downloads as quick as you like thanks to its high-speed wireless LAN connection. There are six function buttons and a scroll key and, once charged, the battery goes for 50 hours. As well as the silver and, *cough*, pink pearl—which looks suspiciously like Zune pink to us—the FLEPia comes in white pearl. There's a couple of shots of the handy bendy filmy paper after the jump, plus how much the things cost.

Hang onto your huevitos lads, the sharp intake of breath may just be to much for them. Little FLEPia is a drop in the ocean at $12,685, while big one will choke ya at $21,137. – Ad Dugdale

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Google's "animat[ing] the static information" in books, though. It's just dropping links in the middle of a book. I'm sure something more worthwhile will come out of this down the line, however. Like contextual advertising. – Matt Buchanan

Google meshes books and maps online [Yahoo!/AP]

There are, however, some roadblocks. Reaching agreements with the publishers themselves is naturally the most pressing issue in terms of acquiring content to sell, but we'll wager it's an issue not far from resolution, given Google's public disclosure of their plans. The book industry writ large, however, is obviously uneasy about the kind of access and distribution Google looks to bring to book content — the Authors Guild lawsuit against Google mentioned in the article makes this clear.

It's debatable, though whether relatively mediocre digital book sales are a content issue or a hardware issue — will more (and better) books that are more easily accessible fuel sales or do we have to wait for the "iPod device of the book"? It looks like time — and Google — will tell. – Matt Buchanan

Google Download: No iTunes for Books [Businessweek]
image via Sevens Heaven

Borders won't be selling eBooks, but they will sell prepaid cards for the Sony CONNECT service that allows users to download eBooks, online, for their Sony Reader. There is no set date for the Sony Reader release, but we will keep you posted as the information comes.

Borders to Sell Sony Reader [I4U]