Free eBooks from your library for your eReader.

In its press release touting its new eReader, Sony Corporation also announced a new service that will allow owners of the new device to access eBooks owned by their public library..... sometimes.

The eBook store will now have a Library Finder page. Sony, working with OverDrive (www.overdrive.com), the leading global digital distributor of eBooks and to libraries, will now offer visitors to the eBook Store by Sony easy access to their local library's collection of eBooks. Thousands of libraries in the OverDrive network offer eBooks optimized for the Sony Reader, and visitors can now find these libraries by typing their zip code into the Library Finder. Through the selected library's download website, visitors can check out eBooks with a valid library card, download them to a PC and transfer to their Reader. At the end of the library's lending period, eBooks simply expire, so there are never any late fees.

The process is much more complicated than the Kindles 60 second wireless downloads and we need to wait and see what the selection and availability is like before getting too excited about this, but it could have promise.

CourseSmart offers e-textbooks for iPhone

CourseSmart has confirmed plans to offer 7,000 e-textbooks for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The academic textbooks - free for CourseSmart subscribers - will allow students to access digital notes and search for specific words or phrases.

Frank Lyman, CourseSmart's executive VP told the Wall Street Journal,

"Nobody is going to use their iPhone to do their homework, but this does provide real mobile learning. If you're in a study group and you have a question, you can immediately access your text."

According to Lyman, the digital books will be priced approximately 50 percent less than their physical counterparts.

Although CourseSmart texts are not available on Amazon's Kindle or Kindle DX, Lyman noted that he would like to see the books available "wherever college students want them."

Barnes & Noble launches eBook store

With what the company claims is the world’s largest eBook store, holding more than 700,000 titles, Barnes and Noble has entered the downloadable e-Book market in a big way. Furthermore, Barnes & Noble said that it will have exclusive rights to distribute Plastic Logic’s fantastic reader device, which may be the Kindle’s biggest threat today.

More than 700,000 titles are available, which, according to Barnes & Noble, include “hundreds of new releases and bestsellers at only $9.99.” More than one million titles will be available by next year, “inclusive of every available eBook from every book publisher and every available eBook original,” the company said. The current stock also offers more than a 500,000 public domain books from Google, which can be downloaded for free.

Barnes & Noble uses and upgraded version of its eReader application, which was part of the company's Fictionwise acquisition earlier this year and is available for the iPhone and Blackberry smartphones, as well as regular Mac and Windows computers.

Bill Gates (1994): "It's a long ways before you have a flat screen as small and light as that book"

From an interview with Tom Brokow in 1994 captioned "It's something called the internet".

Hearst to launch a wireless e-reader

The Hearst Corporation, which publishes magazines ranging from Cosmopolitan to Esquire and several financially troubled newspapers, has apparently developed a wireless e-reader with a large-format screen suited to the reading and advertising requirements of newspapers and magazines. The device and underlying technology, which other publishers will be allowed to adapt, is likely to debut this year. "I can't tell you the details of what we are doing, but I can say we are keenly interested in this, and expect these devices will be a big part of our future," Hearst Exec Kenneth Bronfin told Fortune Magazine in a recent interview.

With print revenue in decline and online revenue unable to fill the gap, the $300 billion global publishing industry is increasingly looking to devices like e-readers to lower costs while preserving the business model that has sustained newspapers and magazines. Downloading content from participating newspapers and magazines will occur wirelessly. For durability, the device is likely to have a flexible core, perhaps even foldable, rather than the brittle glass substrates used in readers on the market today.

Does this mean that Hearst is getting into the retail device business? Money Magazine says no following with: "What Hearst and its partners plan to do is sell the e-readers to publishers and to take a cut of the revenue derived from selling magazines and newspapers on these devices. The company will, however, leave it to the publishers to develop their own branding and payment models."