Sony and Google’s tag-team tactics might not hurt Amazon and its Kindle reader, but this is certainly a step in the right direction. For who, exactly, we’re not so sure. Sony announced a bit ago that Google has opened up more than half-a-million of its books to Sony’s eReader. The catch? All of Google’s archived books are about as old as your granddad, if your granddad were 80-years-old.
The addition of Google’s archive of books brings the number of available titles to Sony’s eReader at around 600,000. Amazon offers roughly 240,000 titles at the moment, but these include recent works and almost all of the New York Times bestsellers. Both Sony eReader models are cheaper than the Kindle at $300 (PRS-505) and $350 (PRS-700), respectively, but they lack WhisperNet for instant downloads among other notable features. On the flip side, Google announced that they plan to make the over 1.5 million public domain books available for mobile phones, which includes the iPhone and G1.
via AP