February 28, 2009, 1:11 PM — File this one with a big fat "rumor" tag stuck to it. Fast Company has posted an article speculating about the Kindle 3! No, that's not a typo, we're talking the next generation of Amazon's ebook reader. If you believe the rumors, the third iteration of the hardware will have a larger, touch sensitive screen (allowing you to 'flip' pages naturally — similar to the popular feature in Sony's PRS-700 reader).
The most surprising part of this rumor is that Kindle 3 will ship by the end of this year! I can't imagine what the reaction of Kindle 2 owners would be if this happened, unless Amazon put into place some kind of 'trade-up' offer. Or perhaps Kindles 2 & 3 would be offered concurrently, with the third iteration being more expensive than the Kindle 2?
Yesterday I posted about Hearst Corporation introducing a larger screen device meant for periodical reading, and Plastic Logic is also preparing a large format e-reader for limited release in the second half of 2009. In this upcoming ecosystem a Kindle with a larger screen would be better suited to keep up with the competition.
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