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Amazon unveils mobile library in book size

London: Amazon.com has 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 U.S. store, it costs $399.

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.

It is by no means the first so-called e-book. Companies including Microsoft and Sony have tried for years to persuade book buyers to abandon the printed page, but with only modest success.

Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, seemed to admit the sheer scale of the task, saying: “Books have stubbornly resisted digitisation. I think there’s a very good reason for that, and that is the book is so highly evolved and so suited to its task that it’s very hard to displace.”

Amazon believes its device has one big advantage. It has wireless capability, allowing books to be downloaded “on the go” without plugging the reader into a computer. Amazon has tied up with the American mobile phone company Sprint, though all the wireless charges are rolled into the price of books and subscriptions.

Users can subscribe to newspapers and magazines, and have the latest edition beamed directly to the device. Subscriptions range from $14.99 a month for the only German-language paper available — Frankfurter Allgemeine — to $5.99 for the San Francisco Chronicle. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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