Amazon Reveals New Kindle Aimed at Periodicals, Textbooks By Mike Musgrove Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 11:30 AM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/06/AR2009050600813_pf.html Amazon.com unveiled a new version of its Kindle reading device this morning geared toward magazines, newspapers and textbooks. The new version, called the Kindle DX, has a 9.7 inch screen, much larger than the current generation of the wireless book reader, and is priced at $489. The company has generally been mum about sales figures of the smaller Kindle 2 device, which was released last year and costs $360. Amazon and a few of the company's partners -- including The Washington Post -- are hoping that the device will appeal to students who will be able to download textbooks, and newspaper readers craving a larger screen on which to read articles. Amazon's other partners in the new Kindle include The New York Times and The Boston Globe. Each newspaper will offer the device at a discount to readers who live in areas where home-delivery is not available, in exchange for long-term subscription commitments. Five universities will be trying out the device on their campuses: Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Pace University, Princeton and the University of Virginia. The schools will hand out hundreds of Kindle DX devices to students across the campuses. Users will be able to take notes and highlight information, look up words in a built-in dictionary, and store all their books in the device. At a news conference in New York City held at Pace this morning, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos said that book sales for the Kindle device account for 35 percent of sales, for the 275,000 titles available for the device. -- ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 Mail: antunes at uh dot edu *********************************** * POST TO [email protected] * *********************************** Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
