Amazon.com Inc. on Wednesday plans to unveil a new version of its Kindle e-book reader with a larger screen and other features designed to appeal to periodical and academic textbook publishers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Beginning this fall, some students at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland will be given large-screen Kindles with textbooks for chemistry, computer science and a freshman seminar already installed, said Lev Gonick, the school’s chief information officer. The university plans to compare the experiences of students who get the Kindles and those who use traditional textbooks, he said. [via wsj]

So what do we already know about what people are calling the “Kindle DX”? The following information has pretty much been confirmed:

• The 6-inch display has been increased to 9.7-inches
• There is an included PDF reader
• Added ability for note-taking and annotation
• The price of newspaper subscriptions might be dropped. Specifically mentioned was the NY Times, which makes sense because Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is said to be making an appearance tomorrow.
• The web browser will have improved functionality, though it’s not clear if this will be over the 3G Whispernet service
• Amazon has made deals to have the new Kindle in the hands of college students for the fall semester. Specifically Pace, Princeton, Reed, University of Virginia, and Arizona State were mentioned.

A bigger-screen version of the Kindle may be coming to market as soon as this week. The new e-ink device would arrive just three months after Amazon introduced the Kindle 2 and is expected to be optimized for newspapers, magazines and possibly even textbooks. The idea is that the current Kindle is fine for reading novels and the like, but a bigger screen device could help with newspaper and magazine layouts while giving these old-media companies a means to save millions on the cost of printing and distributing their publications. 

The big hope is to somehow reverse the fortunes of the tumbling print news industry, allowing publishers to charge subscription fees and load their pages with advertising. Of course, they’ll have to compete with free online versions of the same publications that are quite readable on today’s portables and handheld devices like the iPhone. There’s also the issue of having to buy and carry around yet another device, which is likely to be just as expensive (if not more) as the Kindle 2 – unless Amazon and its partners offer some kind of subsidy [via techspot]

Korea-based LG Display (LGD) will reportedly offer lower-than-average prices for electrophoretic displays (EPDs) in order to land orders from China electronic reading device (e-book) makers, according to market sources.

According to LGD, the company has been mass producing EPDs since the first half of 2008, but it declined to comment on other related information.

LGD’s EPD technology is licensed from Philips, the same source for Taiwan-based Prime View International (PVI), the sources said. LGD’s electrophoresis materials are also supplied by E-Ink, the sources added. [via digitimes]

According to  iSuppli, the device costs $185.49 to manufacture–or about 52-percent of its manufacture suggested retail price.The most expensive piece of the Kindle, unsurprisingly, is the E Ink display at roughly 42-percent of the total material cost. According to iSuppli, the main application chip in the device, manufactured by Freescale Semiconductor–which also powers Microsoft’s Zune and the Ford Sync’s media controls–runs $8.64. Qualcom’s wireless module chip, meanwhile, runs $13.18. Also inside is Novatel Wireless $39.50 wireless data module. Amazon hasn’t commented on iSuppli’s assessment. [via gearlog]

Polymer Vision’s Readius was promised for fall of 2008, but months later there’s no sign of the innovative folding e-paper device.  According to CEO Karl McGoldrick, that’s because the companyneeds more money; he’s currently in talks with investors to refinance both the first Readius device and the in-development Readius 2.  According to McGoldrick, the next-gen Readius will include an ebook reader and cellphone.  That could be used as a cellphone with a hands-free kit, either wired or Bluetooth, as well as used to access internet pages. [via slashgear]

Many of us already know that the Amazon Kindle isn’t the only e-book game in town and there are other offerings that boast the whole e-ink phenomenon. That said, the Kindle is certainly getting a lot more mainstream attention than something like the Sony Reader, largely because of its “free” wireless broadband connection and its deep integration with Amazon.com. But that’s not enough. That’s just the beginning.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, the guy behind Fox and other media outlets, says that he is investing in a Kindle competitor. And it’s going to be even more powerful than Amazon’s offering. Murdoch was decidedly cryptic in the interview, not providing very much in terms of details, but the message was there.

More specifically, Rupert Murdoch was quoted as saying:

“We need new models. The first inkling of it is the Kindle. You can get the whole paper there. And you can get the whole of The Wall Street Journal on your BlackBerry. We’re investing in a new device that has a bigger screen, four-color, and you can get everything there.”

Murdoch did not say that News Corp. was creating a device of its own. Instead, they are in “exploratory” talks to invest in another company that can then develop new e-reader and e-ink technologies. This was later confirmed by a News Corp. spokesperson.

The bigger screen may take a little away from the convenience factor, but adding a splash of color can be a huge selling point over the grayscale Kindle. Remember when the first color cell phones hit the scene? Interestingly, Fujitsu already has an e-reader with 260k colors, but that thing costs $1,000. [via mobilemag]

Tony Lewis, who heads an initiative within Verizon Wireless to provide access to non-phone devices, said Wednesday that five companies have approached Verizon about wireless connections for e-readers.

“You’re going to see a lot of e-readers out there,” Lewis said. “The interest level is tremendous.”

Lewis said, refusing to confirm if the company had been in touch

AT&T Inc., the second largest wireless carrier after Verizon Wireless, has also been talking to e-reader manufacturers, said Ralph de la Vega, the company’s head of consumer services. Since AT&T’s network is more similar to ones used overseas, it could support international e-book readers, he noted. The Kindle can download books only in the U.S.

Just like Verizon Wireless, AT&T is looking for ways to expand the uses of its wireless network beyond cell phones to generate additional revenue. [via The Associated Press]

Here is a Readius concept designed by Polymer Vision with Telecom Italia logo on it. Now we can imagine how will look the future Verizon and AT&T reader device.

Readius specifications:

The Foxit eSlick reader, manufactured by the same folks that build the Kindle for Amazon, has finally made its way to market. It looks pretty good, considering that it’s probably the cheapest e-ink reader available.

Release was originally slate for January, but preorders are just finding their way to customers now. Furthermore, anyone whoorders a reader now will probably have to wait a few more weeks to get their hands on one of these $260 no-frills units. [via gizmodo]

Samsung’s announcement that it plans to release an e-book reader called Papyrus means it is at least the seventh company to hop on the digital-book bandwagon.With touchscreen capability and an e-ink screen, the Papyrus will cost just $300, Samsung says, making it even cheaper than the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle.

Papyrus appears to be a full fledged PDA, with all sorts of little applications that reminded us of the original Palm Pilots back in the day. The screen is about five inches, with a touch screen display. Writing on the screen and selecting icons have a slight lag, but no worse than most first generation Palm Pilots. It’s a ton faster than the Sony PRS-707 and the iRex Iliad when it comes to touch screen technology.

The real selling point for the Papyrus will be combining the long battery life of e-paper with the power of a PDA. A lot of people are speculating that Samsung will eventually add wireless connectivity to the Papyrus, but so far it uses USB cables for bringing information to and from a computer. [via epapercentral, wired]

PocketBook is a Ukraine based Netronix distributor similar to Bookeen. The reader software they ported is FBReader, and they just announced that they will support an open source project called PocketBook Free. [via mobileread]

Google will provide Sony with some 500,000 copyright-expired titles for its e-book Reader, giving both companies the chance to take jabs at Amazon and Kindle. Sony can claim that it has a much-larger library and is more open; Google gets prime placement at the Sony eBook store and a boost in positive (it hopes) publicity for Google Book Search. Each is emphasizing open platform, a dig at Amazon and its proprietary Kindle format. Take this statement from Steve Haber, president of the Digital Reading Business Division at Sony Electronics: “We have focused our efforts on offering an open platform and making it easy to find as much content as possible - from our store or others - whether that content is purchased, borrowed or free.” And this from Google’s Adam Smith: “We believe in an open platform for accessing and reading books, and we’re excited to partner with Sony to help bring these public domain books to more people.” 

Amazon has been building its sale catalog steadily since Kindle’s launch—to more than 245,000 as of today, compared with Sony’s 100,000 or so. Sony now can boast that it offers more than 600,000. With the electronic readers priced in a similar range (Sony’s PRS-505 is about $300 and a price cut today puts its PRS-700 model slightly less then Kindle at $350), including the free books might sound like an advantage to Sony—especially in these frugal days. But the Kindle as a device isn’t a walled garden. [via paidcontent]

Fujitsu are ready to ship their e-reader, and promises 40 hours of continuos use. The unit can be operated by its touchscreen or the assortment of function buttons. Naturally you can do the regular e-book thing, but the Japanese version of the device also includes full-on Windows CE 5.0, which would probably be a bit of a chore to use with the relatively slow screen refresh times of e-ink (1.8 seconds for a single wipe), but undeniably retrofuturistic. FLEPia ships on April 20th in Japan for 99,750 Yen (about $1,010 US).

 [via fujitsu]

Brother Japan have announced a “document reader”, the SV-100B, intended for displaying ebooks and technical documentation.  The Brother SV-100B, unlike other ebook readers like the Amazon Kindle 2 or Pixelar E-Reader, has an LCD rather than e-ink display, measuring 9.7-inches and running at 1,200 x 825 150dpi resolution.

Despite not using the power-frugal e-ink, the SV-100B still manages 83hrs of battery life from a single charge.  You can also swap out the battery for a second one, should you really need extended runtime.  While there’s no internal storage, you can fit 10,000 A4 pages on the included 2GB microSD card. [via slashgear]

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much innovation going on. It looks like a rebadged version of the Netronix reader. [via engadget]

Hearst Corp. is getting set to launch an electronic reader that it hopes can do for periodicals what Amazon’s Kindle is doing for books.

According to industry insiders, Hearst, which publishes magazines ranging from Cosmopolitan to Esquire and newspapers including the financially imperiled San Francisco Chronicle, has 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.

So-called e-readers like Kindle and the Sony Reader are hand-held gadgets that use electronic “ink” displayed on a crisp, low-power screen to deliver an experience that approximates reading on paper - without the cost of paper, printing and delivery, which can account for as much as 50% of the cost of putting out a periodical.

Hearst executives declined to provide specifics about the forthcoming e-reader, but Kenneth Bronfin, who heads up the interactive media group for Hearst, told Fortune in an interview for a forthcoming magazine story that the publishing company has a deep expertise in the technology. “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,” Bronfin told Fortune. [via cnn]

Kindle 2 users complained about their new device: