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August 31, 2009 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today. For other up-to-the-minute news, check out ITI’s Twitter account: @ITINewsBreaks. CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.

Sony Announces Wireless Ebook Reader and Library Finder

Sony Electronics, Inc. announced the third member of its new ebook Reader family, the Reader Daily Edition, a wireless model with 3G connectivity (www.sony.com/reader). The Daily Edition, priced at about $399, joins the Reader Pocket Edition for $199 and the Reader Touch Edition for $299 that were announced earlier in August, along with the company's adoption of support for the EPUB open ebook standard. (For details, see the NewsBreak: http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/Sony-Announces-New-Ebook-Readers-and-EPUB-Standard-Support-55729.asp.) Sony also announced the Library Finder, an application to enable users to access their local library's collection of ebooks via the Sony eBook Store.

The Reader Pocket Edition and the Reader Touch Edition are available immediately, and the Reader Daily Edition will be available this December in time for the holidays at Sony Style stores and SonyStyle.com.

The Reader Daily Edition gives consumers wireless access via AT&T's 3G mobile broadband network to Sony's eBook Store from just about anywhere in the U.S. Book lovers will be able to browse, purchase, and download books as well as select newspapers and magazines when and where they want. There are no monthly fees or transaction charges for the basic wireless connectivity, and users still have the option to side load personal documents or content from other compatible sites via USB.

All three models feature E Ink Vizplex electronic paper display that emulates the look of ink on paper. Sony's eBook Library software 3.0, which now includes support for many Macs as well as PCs, makes it easy to transfer and read any Adobe PDF (with reflow capability), EPUB, Microsoft Word, BBeB (BroadBand eBook) files, or other text file formats on the Reader.

Sony, working with OverDrive (www.overdrive.com), a 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 with the new Library Finder application. 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 them to their Reader. At the end of the library's lending period, ebooks simply expire.

Source: Sony