Sony Set to Launch Generation-3 Reader

An unforeseen application of Sony's E-Reader is as an editorial tool. To save printing costs and spare editors spine-strain as they shlepped five or ten pounds of manuscipts in their backpacks, book publishers recently began issuing Sonys to editors. They now simply upload book submissions and read them that way. The problem is, they haven't been able to highlight text, write notes, and otherwise do the thing that editors do best.

The next version of the Reader, to be released for the holidays, addresses those issues and more, though we're still far from full editorial markup capabilities.

For civilians who just like to annotate books, the new version of the Reader offers a touch screen, popup virtual keyboard, and (attention sleeping spouses!) built-in LED reading light. You can also turn pages by brushing the screen with your finger. Expanded memory provides capacity of about 350 books, far more with an optional memory stick.

Want wireless access? Go buy a Kindle; the Sony has forsaken it, at least for this latest round of improvements. And has the price come down? No, it's gone up. To $400, in the hope that consumers will like the tradeoff for the new features.

Mac lovers will have to go on holding their breath. Sony Gen-3 is still PC.

For a full description, click here.

- Richard Curtis

While There's No New Kindle Until Next Year, Sony Goes To Europe

The excitement for the next generation Kindle, fueled by lots of speculation at Wired.com, was quickly doused with some cold, wet reality from Amazon spokesman Craig Berman. Even though he didn't deny Frog Design were up to something special for the Kindle 2.0, he's quoted as saying "a new version will come out sometime next year at the earliest," in a recent interview with Dow Jones.

So, that leaves another key player in the ebook device market, Sony, some nice wiggle room in the months leading up to the holiday season. Sony has yet to make any announcements about what might be coming down the pipe, but they have just started expanding into Europe, most notably by partnering with Waterstone's, one of the UK's biggest book retailers.

From September 2008 onwards Waterstone’s will be selling the Reader itself in over 200 of their High Street bookshops. And the product is available to pre-order for September delivery now via their online store. - From Sony's Website, here.

It's very likely that this is just the tip of the iceberg for Sony's competitive march against the Kindle. Of course, E-Reads wishes them both the best of success, so we're currently prepping many more titles to be released in both Kindle format through Amazon and as Sony ebooks (and Reader compatible ePub) this fall, supplementing the over 450+ titles we have currently available at the Sony Connect eBook Store and Amazon.

- Michael