Sounds like those of in the United States may have the opportunity to buy e-books from Google in the next few weeks.

The nature of the Internet doesn’t exactly make for an exciting bedtime story, but that’s how Google is presenting “20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web.”

Google’s Chrome team wrote the e-book in HTML5, presented as interactive pages that you can fold and flip by clicking and dragging the mouse. The book is fun to read, at least for a little while, and educational if you’re not a know-it-all. It advocates for updating to a modern Web browser (i.e., not IE6) and argues that plug-ins are relics (unless they’re integrated into the browser itself, as Chrome does with Adobe Flash).

But above all, it got me wondering, what’s up with Google Editions, the cloud e-book service that was supposed to launch over the summer?

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When Amazon shipped its first Kindle three years ago, among the most common gripes from reviewers (including me) was that there was no way to give a Kindle e-book to a Kindle e-reader as a gift. Now there is, just in time for the holidays. You don’t need to own a Kindle to give Kindle books, and they can be read on Amazon’s hardware or any of its apps. And if your recipient is an unappreciative jerk (or already owns the book in question) he or she can “return” your thoughtful present to Amazon in exchange for a gift card.

E-Ink has announced its first color electronic-display technology. I love color as much as the next human being, but when I’ve used the Kindle and other E-Ink devices, I’ve only missed two colors: a really white white for the “paper,” and a really black black for the “ink.” It’s unclear to me whether the new Triton technology will help with either of these.

Whenever people ask me how long articles should be on the Web, my answer is always the same: “as long or as short as the idea warrants.” Looks like Amazon has decided that the same thing is true for Kindle books.

Another day, another piece of Kindle news: Amazon has introduced Kindle for the Web. When I heard the name, I thought it would let me read all the Kindle digital books I’ve bought in my browser. It doesn’t do that. But it does something else that’s cool: It lets bloggers embed sample chapters of Kindle books, YouTube-style, so visitors can check them out then and there. (Here’s an example.) Pretty handy when a book is the topic of discussion–and it should come as no surprise that it’s easy to buy the entire book from Amazon if you like what you read.

I still want to read Kindle books I already own on any PC with a browser and an Internet connection, though, without having to download them. Now that Amazon’s built Kindle for the Web, it would presumably be pretty simple to introduce such a feature. I wonder if it’s on its way?

The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg prefers to do his e-reading on an iPad. (So do I, most of the time.) And he’s reviewed iPad e-readers: Apples iBooks, Amazon’s Kindle, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

Back in 2006, before the world knew what a Kindle was, Sony released the first modern e-reader with a power-efficient, glare-free E-Ink screen. It’s upgraded them and added new models ever since–and it’s announcing improved versions of all its models today, a week after Amazon started shipping its newest Kindle. The company gave me a sneak peek last week.

As before, Sony is the only major e-reader maker that offers devices in three sizes: the 7″ Daily Edition, the 6″ Touch Edition (with a screen the same size as the one on the standard Kindle and on the Nook), and the 5″ Pocket Edition. Last year’s Touch and Daily Editions had touch-screen interfaces that worked with a fingertip (for general navigation) or a stylus (for note-taking and other precision work). The big news is that the whole line now sports touch, including the Pocket Edition–and Sony has come up with a way to implement technology without adding a layer to the screen. (Last year’s touch Sonys had murkier screens than the non-touch competition.)

In my brief hands-on time with the readers, the displays looked good. (I wasn’t able to compare them side-by-side with other e-readers, but they were noticeably more legible than last year’s Sonys.) The touch input worked reasonably well, too. But flipping pages didn’t have quite the effortless feel of e-reading apps on an iPad, an iPhone, or an Android phone, and I think the Kindle’s less fancy input system–physical buttons and a keyboard–works at least as well for the basics of exploring books.

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The New York Times’ David Pogue reviews (and likes) the new improved Kindle.

I may have declared e-readers dead prematurely.  The Literati is coming to October to Best Buy, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, and other mass-market merchants in October. It’s a Sharper Image product–although “The Sharper Image,” like “Polaroid,” is now a floating brand name that available to be licensed for just about anything.

Sounds like the device’s most distinctive feature is its screen: It’s 7″ (an inch bigger than the Kindle and the Nook) and is color (LCD, presumably). No word on what sort of battery life it delivers. There’s Wi-Fi onboard and a wireless bookstore powered by Kobo, the Canadian company behind Borders’ e-reader.

As you can see in the photo below, the Literati looks a bit like a taller, skinnier Kindle. It’ll go for $159–which is a little less than the 3G Kindle and a little more than the Wi-Fi one–or less.

Amazon has announced that it’s started shipping its third-generation Kindle e-reader to customers.The new version is thinner and lighter, with a better screen and longer battery life, and it now starts at $139 (for a Wi-Fi version). Basically, it’s the most Kindle-like Kindle yet, rather than an iPad wannabee. I’m looking forward to seeing one in person.

In Apple-like fashion, Amazon likes to crow about how well the Kindle is selling. But unlike Apple, which frequently quotes sales stats in millions or billions, Amazon has never said how many Kindles it’s sold.

So the company always brags in a vague, self-referential way, which it’s doing today:

Amazon.com today announced that more new generation Kindles were ordered in the first four weeks of availability than in the same timeframe following any other Kindle launch, making the new Kindles the fastest-selling ever.  In addition, in the four weeks since the introduction of the new Kindle and Kindle 3G, customers ordered more Kindles  on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk combined than any other product, continuing Kindle’s over two-year run as the bestselling product across all the products sold on Amazon.com.

Amazon long ago dedicated the best real estate on its site–the top of its homepage–exclusively to Kindle hype. So it would be astonishing if it wasn’t the best settling product on the site. And with the repeated price cuts the e-reader gotten, it’s not surprising that sales continue to increase.

There’s no doubt that the Kindle is an important product and a hit for Amazon, but unless the company discloses actual figures someday, you’ve got to wonder: Does it choose not to get specific because it worries that hard numbers would provoke a spate of “E-readers are still a tiny market compared to the iPod and other landmark gizmos” stories?

Over at Ars Technica, Jon Stokes is noting that the explosion of new e-readers that seemed to be coming this year has turned out to be more of a whimper than a bang. Plastic Logic’s Que ProReader is dead, Hearst’s Skiff reader shows no signs of life, Samsung’s E-Ink reader is apparently skipping the US market, and none of the umpteen readers from lesser-known companies has become a breakout hit.

Still in the game: Amazon’s Kindle (the e-reader that’s synonymous with e-readers), Barnes & Noble’s Nook (which B&N is about to double down on), and Sony’s Reader (the first modern e-reader). Oh, and there’s Kobo, the Canadian e-reader backed by Borders. I don’t see any of these going away anytime soon–actually, as Slate’s Farhad Manjoo points out, the likely scenario is that they’ll get even cheaper and sell even better.

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Amazon.com’s Kindle may have the highest profile of any e-reader, but Barnes & Noble seems to be pretty darn serious about its Nook. The New York Times reports that the company is planning to make space for Nook boutiques in its superstores, dedicating a thousand feet of floor space near their cafés to Nooks, Nook accessories, and in-person and video demonstrations.

B&N plans to free up room for Nooks in part by shrinking space devoted to CDs; in this era, you gotta think that it probably would be deemphasizing sales of music on shiny discs no matter what. It says it’s not going to carry fewer dead-tree books.

The move presumably means that B&N is in the hardware business for the long haul and already has future generations of Nooks in the works. The first-generation Nook got off to a somewhat bumpy start–its software was slow and buggy, and some promised features weren’t immediately available–but the company has improved it through multiple software updates. It’s also knocked the price down to $199 and introduced a $149 model with Wi-Fi but no 3G connection.

Barnes & Noble also offers e-reader software for the iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, PC, and Mac, and it powers the e-book stores for devices from Nook competitors such as Pandigital. The Times doesn’t say whether the new boutiques will spotlight any of these other ways to read digital books.

What should the next-generation Kindle be like? Like the current Kindle, only more so. That’s clearly Amazon.com’s strategy, judging from the news about the new Kindle which first broke tonight on Engadget.
In the wake of the iPad, Amazon could choose from several obvious potential strategies for the future of its e-reader. The one it’s chosen, at least for now, is to focus on reading–and to move away from the iPad rather than towards it, by making the Kindle smaller, lighter, and more affordable.

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Say what you will about the tactile pleasure of a hardcover book, but Amazon customers are choosing to read on their Kindles.

For every 100 hardcover books Amazon sold over the last three months, the retailer sold 143 Kindle books. In the last month, the pace has jumped to 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardcovers. Kindle book sales have tripled in the first half of 2010, compared to the same period last year.

Keep in mind that Amazon isn’t talking about paperbacks, so I’m assuming those still outsell e-books. But Amazon also counts hardcovers even if there isn’t a Kindle edition, and doesn’t count free, out-of-copyright Kindle books.

Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos says the rise in Kindle books over hardcovers is “astonishing when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months.” I say it’s more astounding given that anyone can purchase a hardcover from Amazon, but only Kindle owners or Kindle software users have use for an e-book.

I hope book publishers are encouraged, not frightened, by the news. They should be converting books into electronic form faster than ever to capitalize on the e-reader craze. But they might also liken e-books to paperbacks — both are less profitable than hardcovers — by delaying the digital versions to drum up hardcover sales.

Delaying the digital version of books is a bad move because there’s nothing comparable to hardcovers available in digital form. If publishers want to charge more for new releases — and they can with the agency model, which allows several major publishers to set their own e-book prices — that’s fine. But as Amazon’s latest numbers show, Kindle owners are determined to build their e-book libraries, and publishers should do everything they can not to hold those readers back.

A little over a year ago, Amazon.com released the Kindle DX–an e-reader with a big 9.7″ display and a big $489 pricetag. The DX hasn’t changed since then, but the world around it sure has. For one thing, the price premium over the smaller Kindle keeps growing–it started out costing $130 more, but last month’s Kindle price cut left the DX costing $300 more than the little guy. Oh, and the DX cost only $10 less than the cheapest version of the similarly-sized, far more colorful and versatile iPad.

Now the Kindle DX is evolving to reflect the e-book landscape as of mid-2010. Amazon plans to start shipping a new version on July 7th with a graphite-colored-case and an improved E-Ink screen with 50 percent better contrast. I’ve always had issues with the E-Ink displays on Kindles and other devices: For all their power-efficient, non-reflective virtues, they’ve always looked like dark gray ink on light gray paper…sort of like a poorly-printed paperback on cheapo newsprint. So I’m curious to see how much better the new DX screen is at doing the thing that Amazon has always claimed Kindle displays do: read like real paper.

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