It hasn’t been exactly a well-guarded secret, but now it’s official: Google is launching an e-book store to compete with Amazon’s Kindle store and its rivals. The company isn’t selling an e-reading device of its own–instead, it’s focusing on selling digital books and making them widely available for existing hardware. I haven’t tried its new offerings yet, but it gave me a sneak peek at the news last week.

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Hey, how come Kindle e-books don’t have page numbers?

If you want an e-reader but don’t want to spend much dough, a Kindle 2 (previous-generation model, but still good) for $89 sounds like a deal.

Sony built a modern e-reader before Amazon and Barnes & Noble did. But it’s been slow to bring its e-book store to devices other than its own hardware. That should change next month: The company says it’s going to release iPhone and Android e-reading programs.

For a long time, I’ve hoped that someone would build an e-reader in a Kindle-like form factor, but with a color LCD display–not because I was positive it’s a better way to go than E-Ink, but because I thought it was worth a try. Barnes & Noble’s Nookcolor is pretty much the e-reader I was thinking about–and I took it for a test drive for my latest Technologizer column on TIME.com.

The Nookcolor isn’t a Kindle killer: I think a lot of E-Ink fans aren’t going to be swayed by the idea of swapping a month of battery life and a glare-free screen for eight hours on a charge, color, and touch. But the Nookcolor has a lot to recommend it (along with a few glitches which I hope B&N will fix shortly–it’s been conscientious about releasing regular updates for the original Nook).

If the Nookcolor is a hit, will Amazon respond with a color-LCD Kindle? You never know, but the most obvious answer is: no, probably not. Last year, Jeff Bezos said a color Kindle was years off; the fact that the Kindle uses E-Ink is a defining aspect of its personality. It’s what makes a Kindle a Kindle, and my guess is that from this point out, e-reader buyers will get to pick from two very different approaches to e-readers. (On the other hand, it wouldn’t be a stunner if other players such as Sony tried LCD.)

While I was mulling over the subject of e-readers I also blogged at Techland on the fact that I do most of my e-reading on devices that aren’t actually e-readers–my iPhone, especially. I called that post “The Best E-Reader May Be No E-Reader at All.”

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.

Engadget’s Josh Topolsky has a Barnes & Noble Nookcolor. He doesn’t absolutely love it, but he does give it a generally upbeat review.

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.

Barnes & Noble has been intimating that Android applications for the upcoming color version of its Nook e-reader will be different from those already downloadable from Google’s Android Market. But exactly how?  For one thing, people accessing Android apps on the Nookcolor tablet won’t necessarily even need to know–or care–anything about Android, explained Claudia Romanini, the head of Nook developer arm Nookdeveloper, in an interview this week.

Instead, developers creating apps for the Nook e-reader will be urged to build “reader-center apps that will blend in seamlessly with our reader’s tablet environment,” she told me.

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Looks like Amazon has some confidence that Windows Phone 7 stands a chance: It says it’ll release a Kindle app for it this year.

Well beyond its seven-inch–yet iPad-like–color screen, Barnes & Noble’s new Android-based Nookcolor is packed with new features that include a video-capable magazine library, ArticleView, e-book “borrowing,” and much more, as demo’d at a New York City launch event on Monday night. B&N is in it for the long haul with the color e-reader, with an upgrade to Android 2.2 planned for early next year–and don’t expect the price to budge soon from $249.

Along with Nookcolor, B&N also unveiled a new library of children’s books called Nook Kids, plus the bookseller’s first application development program for Android.

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Barnes & Noble just announced its new Nook e-reader–and as rumored, the big news is that it has a color screen. No, it’s not some bleeding-edge color electronic ink: The $249 Nookcolor uses an IPS LCD, the same type of screen used by the iPad, but in a 7″ size. Like the original Nook, it runs Android, and B&N says it will run for eight hours on a charge.

Barnes & Noble is calling the Nookcolor a “reader’s tablet,” cleverly splitting the difference between Kindle-style e-readers and  iPad-esque tablets. It’ll only succeed if it’s good, but its positioning seems distinct and comprehensible–unlike a Kindle, it has a color touchscreen, and it’s much more portable and affordable than an iPad.

That doesn’t make it the ideal device, of course–it can’t compete with the Kindle’s battery life or the iPad’s third-party app riches. (I can’t tell from B&N’s site if the device can run stock Android apps, but I’d tend to doubt it.)

The Nookcolor is supposed to start shipping around November 19th; more thoughts to come.

One of the key advantages that Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader has over Amazon’s Kindle is a lending feature that lets you temporarily transfer a digital book you’ve bought to another Nook owner. But Amazon says it’s readying something similar for Kindle users.

Barnes & Noble is holding a press event in New York next Tuesday. (Jacqueline Emigh will be covering it for us.) Here’s an intriguing rumor: Supposedly, the news involves a $249 color Nook.

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?

Okay, the BlackBerry PlayBook will have at least one third-party app: Amazon’s already announced Kindle for it.