Competition heats up e-book market

Amazon has announced that they are set to release the Kindle DX internationally later this month. The news came just before the Consumer Electronics Show held an exhibition in Las Vegas showcasing the latest in e-reading technology.

Exciting new models of e-reader were shown which could offer alternatives to Amazon’s Kindle (which currently dominates the UK and US markets). Plastic Logic’s “Que” is one product to which people paid particular attention at the show. It has taken 10 years in development and is based on Cambridge University research, but is unfortunately not set to be available in the UK immediately.

Other products on show included e-reader devices that were colourful, small and flexible – one particular model folded together like a book. Eric Slavins of financial magazine Barrons.com said, “some of these e-books are going to flame out before they get off the ground. And in any case, all of the rules in this market could be rewritten when Apple unveils the tablet (computer) later this month.”  Despite this, the Consumer Electronic Association has predicted that there will be a doubling of sales in e-readers over the next two years, in the same week Amazon reported that it now provides over 400,000 books and 100 newspapers on the Kindle.

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