Amazon yesterday launched its first electronic book reader as the online retailer looks to drag one of the last bastions of the analogue world into the digital age.Amazon’s device, called Kindle, can hold more than 200 titles from best-selling books to the latest edition of The Washington Post. Only available through Amazon’s US store, it costs $399 (£195).The hand-held device, roughly the size of a paperback novel but lighter, uses “electronic ink” to mimic the experience of reading a book printed on paper. It has no backlight, making it more comfortable to read than traditional computer or mobile phone screens.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/nov/20/amazon.newsAlso see:Amazon Reading Device Doesn’t Need Computer [AP]
Jeff Bezos knows that the world is not exactly clamoring for another way to read electronic books.”If you go back in time, the landscape is littered with the bodies of dead e-book readers,” Mr. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon.com, said yesterday.Mr. Bezos is hoping that Kindle, an ambitious $399 e-book device that he introduced in New York, will avoid that fate. Kindle, which Amazon spent three years developing, lets users wirelessly download best sellers for $9.99 each, and it is designed to be simpler to use and more comfortable to hold than similar devices.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/business/20bookxx.html