If CEO Jeff Bezos has any say, bookstores could eventually be a thing of the past. Just turn on your Kindle and get the new Stephen KingAmazon (AMZN) Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos considers the book a stubborn relic of the predigital universe. While other media, including music, are readily available over digital delivery devices such as Apple's (AAPL) iPod, the book has stuck with its hardbound and softbound covers and dog-eared pages for hundreds of years. "Why are books the last bastion of analog?" Bezos asked during a Nov. 19 press conference. "Can you improve upon something as highly evolved and well-suited to its task as the book and, if so, how?"
Bezos thinks he has the answer: Kindle, a handheld book reader he's hoping will help usher books into the digital age. On Nov. 19, Bezos unveiled the long-awaited device at the W Union Square hotel in New York. Kindle, available on Amazon for $399, holds about 200 books in a paperback-sized package and displays pages on a screen that appears more akin to paper than a backlit LCD screen.
Part portable library, part bookstore, Kindle is wirelessly hooked up to the Internet via Sprint Nextel's (S) high-speed cellular network, letting users download books at a moment's notice. Users can purchase books—some 90,000 titles are currently available—for about $10 apiece, and there are no connection-subscription fees.
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