From the Sony Blog: Hey book lovers! In our mission to continue to offer the best reading experience, the Reader™ Store is happy to announce a new web-based Reader Store and Android™ Reader App, giving you more freedom to read the content you love, anytime and anywhere. Our new web-based Reader Store now allows you to access your Reader Store account from any web browser, and sign in and purchase content without having to install any software to your computer.¹  The web store officially supports the latest browsers on Windows® and Mac®, including Internet Explorer®, Safari®, Chrome™ and Firefox®.   Now you can discover your next story...

French book news site ActuaLitté reports (in French) that Sony’s PRS T1 149-Euro touchscreen e-reader has sold over 500,000 units in Europe—reportedly not far behind the sales of Amazon’s Kindle. It’s a little tricky to make sense of the Google-translated text, but ActuaLitté seems to report that the Sony’s biggest problem is the lack of a library integrated into the device. The existing store is slow, but Sony says it is seeking a partner who can meet Sony’s performance demands. Meanwhile, competitor Kobo is invading Europe, and a possible Barnes & Noble European expansion could be on the...

Sony is still in the game.  From an article about the London Book Fair in Publishing Perspectives: [talking about the Kindle] the overriding message from the presentation by Tadamasa Kitsukawa, MD of the Sony Digital Reading Platform, was that the Sony Reader Store is different. He’s right, too. “We don’t believe in walled gardens. We believe in an open format, the EPUB format, so that all our content can be read on future devices. It’s very important for our customers. We believe in giving people open access to our Reader store with different hardware from different manufacturers.” The Sony Reader store has now gone...

Here’s another story of a developer railing against used video games. Although it may not seem to have relevance to e-books at first, I think this story demonstrates the way the gaming industry and the publishing industry are struggling with some similar issues in the digital age. In an interview with GamesIndustry International, Silicon Knights head Denis Dyack states that used games are clobbering the game industry, cutting off the “tail” of sales that used to support game studios well after games’ original release. Without that “tail”, Dyack says, game companies can expect to receive almost all their sales...

You don't hear too much about the Sony Readers, but they are great units.  For anyone considering one, Chip Chick has a review: In the e-reader world it seems like the Kindle and Nook have taken center stage, so it’s easy to forget that Sony was one of the first companies to jump on the e-reader bandwagon. One of their latest e-readers is the Sony Reader Wi-Fi PRS-T1WC. This 6″ e-reader sports a touchscreen display and Wi-Fi, and also claims to be the world’s lightest. Read on for our full review of the PRS-T1WC. ... Overall, the Sony Reader Wi-Fi is an excellent top-of-the-line...

From Good E-Reader.  I notice that the same model is selling on Amazon for $132: Is Sony getting out of the e-reader game and going exclusively with tablets? That seems to be whats happening with the company with their only e-reader to be marketed for the last six months now on clearance at Best Buy. You can now walk into most Best Buy retail stores in the USA and get the Sony PRS-T1 for as low as $99.99. A few store managers have told us that the stores have no intentions of ordering anymore. This is the only time in Sony’s history...

  Writing is a solitary craft, and many writers seem to be less outgoing than the norm. For such people, self-promotion is a nightmare. They see it as little more than boasting, which I suppose it is. Sometimes, in desperation, the writer crosses the line from boasting to begging, and then it’s even more painful to behold.In theory, especially in the past, the publisher relieved the writer of this unpleasant chore. The writer might have been expected to do the odd reading, or bookshop signing, or – if he or she were at least semi-famous already – make an appearance on...

Got a not from Sony PR sayingthat the price of the Sony Reader Wi-Fi has permanently dropped to $129 today. You can also get an additional $50 off  by trading in any brand eReader for a new Sony Reader WiFi through Dec. 31, bringing the price down to $79. More info here....

According to Ebook Applications the firmware includes: All features of alternative firmware: Quick start (less than 5 seconds) Simple and convenient interface Fully functional file manager with support of all types of file operations. Flexible user settings, such as fonts, page settings, supported languages, custom fonts etc. Convenient in-book navigation Bookmark, page and page layout settings Flexible settings for  PDF/DjVu,CBR/CBZ and images scaling (zoom). Bilt-in dictionary, support for custom dictionaries. Screen capture Current version has six applicaitons: Chess, Sudoku, Calculator, Schultse table and Dictionary in addition to the built–in dictionary. ...

GoodEReader is reporting this: Sony has slashed the price of their latest generation e-reader by twenty dollars. You can now buy the device from Best Buy and Sony for $129! Considering the device has only been on the market for a few months, the discount comes at the right time for the holiday season. ... The device runs the Android OS, which means people are rooting their e-reader right now and installing 3rd party apps like Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. The deal is available at Sony online, but you have to add the device to your...

That's what Goodereader is reporting. Sony is offering the PRS-350 Pocket Edition e-reader for $69.99 until November 5th, for customers in the USA! The Sony PRS 350 is a 5 inch e-reader which offers 16 shades of gray scale e-ink and has a resolution of 800×600 pixels. It weighs around 155 G and feels very light in the hands. It has around 2 GB of internal memory which is enough for over one thousand ebooks. It also comes with a Stylus to take advantage of the touch screen. Here's the link.  According to Goodereader, the discounted price comes up when you are about to...

Sony sent me a PRS-T1 for review - and at the outset let me say what a nice unit it is.  Let's start with a comparison to my new Kindle.  (Of course the best comparison is to the new Kindle Touch, but that isn't out yet.) Here are two screens side-by-side.  I used the third largest font for both pictues as well as the same passage from the same book.  The Kindle is on the right:   As you can see there isn't much difference between them, which is to be expected since they are both using the Pearl screen.  The addition of...