Kindle News Roundup – March 22, 2009

Here are some recent Kindle-related news stories:

• PC World – “Sony EBook Store to Offer Classic Books Digitized by Google” – Sony and Google have developed a deal that would allow users of the Sony E-reader device to download public domain titles for free through the Sony Ebook Store.
• Time – “Kindle 2 Will Woo You, Despite its Price” – Time magazine calls the Kindle 2 the “Model T of e-readers” but also discusses the shortcomings of the device, including the high price ($16.99!) of some Kindle editions (which I’ve also discussed before).
• MediaBistro.com – “Nine Disability Groups Write Publishers About Kindle 2″ – After some publishers and the American Publishers Association called the Kindle 2′s Text To Speech feature a breach of authors’ rights, Amazon caved and allowed publishers to choose whether or not to allow their books to be accessible by the feature. Random House books disallowed their titles from the feature shortly afterwards, prompting disability groups, including the International Dyslexia Association and the National Federation of the Blind, to write letters to publishers urging them to allow their titles to be accessed by the Text to Speech feature.
• Engadget – “Kindle 2 Gets Its First Firmware Update” – Last, but definitely not least, on this week’s Kindle news list is the update to the Kindle’s firmware released by Amazon. Engadget reports that the update doesn’t appear to do anything in particular, but is probably the change needed to allow publishers to control their text to speech options. You might see an update option in your menu sometime soon or your Kindle might update on its own (some users are reporting getting the new version without seeing an “update” option, including myself).