E-reader | featured news

Digital tools advance beyond screens that talk and play videos, connecting readers to authors and online fan communities. Emma Teitgen, 12, thought the chemistry book her teacher recommended would make perfect bedside reading.

B&N cut the price of its Nook e-reader to $199 and unveiled a new W-Fi only model that costs $149, as the competition over electronic-book readers turns to a new battle front: price.

Borders just announced that they're selling the Kobo eReader, an $149 ebook touted, by Wired, no less, as a Kindle killer. This device isn't formally Border's only ebook reader. Instead, they will sell multiple readers online and in stores and the real news is that they're creating an ebook store that will act as their default spot on the interwebs for ebooks and content.

Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle e-reader is getting access to Facebook and Twitter, along with several other enhancements, as part of a software update being sent wirelessly to the devices.

In a posting on Amazon's site, the company says the new software will let users share book passages on their Twitter and Facebook accounts. The update will also let people sort books and documents into collections and lock their Kindle with a password. There also will be larger font options and the ability to zoom in on PDF documents.

Two days ago I went to the O'Reilly Tools of Change Publishing conference at the Marriott in Times Square. It's a pretty well-attended conference, focused on e-books, e-book readers and embracing digital change. Twelve hundred people showed up to hear about what's next. The book industry has not grown much in the last six years, but neither has the U.S. economy. However bookselling will change more in the next six years than in the previous 200.

How to make digital book lending and sales open and competitive.

Dan Lyons emails from the iPad unveiling: "I haven't been this let down since Snooki hooked up with The Situation."

When most people think of electronic book readers, Amazon's thin, white Kindle probably springs to mind. But that could be about to change....

A lot more people have ordered the Barnes & Noble Nook, first announced on October 20, than the company expected (despite getting panned by the official reviewers). The company had Foxconn, their ODM, build far fewer of them than they should have.

Apple's alleged Kindle-killing tablet appears to be on the runway for a spring 2010 takeoff. And in what may or may not be related news, two top-drawer US publishers are holding back ebooks of dozens of their upcoming major titles until the same time ...