May 6 Amazon Press Conference Announces Kindle DX

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Extracted from USA Today blog: http://blogs.usatoday.com/technologylive/2009/05/liveblogging-amazon-kindle-press-conference.html

It's only been about two months since Amazon's Kindle 2 came out at a similar press conference at the Morgan Library. Here we are again, this time at Pace University near the Brooklyn Bridge.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is on stage. He says the Kindle launched 18 months ago with 90,000 books available. Today they're up to 275,000.

Kindle editions account for about 35% of Amazon's sales, for books that have the electronic edition available, Bezos says.

The Kindle is great because it eliminates paper, and allows you to easily carry 1,500 books, Bezos says. But personal documents remain a problem.

Now there's a new Kindle for that -- the Kindle DX. Its screen is 2.5 times the size of a regular Kindle display. That makes it better for reading 8 1/2 x 11 documents, cookbooks, and other formatted material.

Textbooks are another good application for a wide-screen Kindle. Amazon has partnerships with the three leading text book publishers -- Pearson, Cengage Learning and Wiley. The new Kindle will allow students to carry smaller backpacks, Bezos says.

Five universities will test the Kindle DX this fall: Arizona State, Case Western, Princeton, Reed College, and the University of Virginia.

Another application: newspapers. The Boston Globe, New York Times, and Washington Post will run Kindle pilot projects this summer. They will offer subscribers a reduced-price Kindle DX along with a reduced-price subscription. The Globe and Times will also offer the DX in areas where regular newspaper delivery is not available.

New York Times Chairman Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. has joined Bezos on stage, to talk about his company's "commitment to reinvention."

The Kindle DX can also be used to view PDFs and other documents, such as business reports, sheet music, and newsletters....

Bezos says there are multiple ways to read newspapers on the DX. You can jump from article to article, or browse sections with a five-way controller. There are also article summaries.

Like other Kindles, the DX features dictionary summaries for difficult words. That will be handy for textbooks.

You can change the font size on the DX, as on other Kindles. But there's a new feature on this model: the ability to change the line length. Bezos says he can read faster with shorter lines, but other readers prefer longer ones.