by Elizabeth Montalbano

Amazon to Release Kindle for Newspapers

Tip
May 26, 20091 min
MobileSmall and Medium Business

Amazon.com, the New York Times and the Washington Post announce Kindle for online news subscribers.

The media companies plan to offer Amazon’s Kindle DX at a reduced price to readers of the Post, the Times and the Boston Globe who live in areas where home-delivery is not available and who sign up for a long-term subscription to the Kindle edition.

At a press conference to introduce the device last month, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said that traditional computer displays are a “worse device than paper” for reading print, and that Kindle’s display solves that problem.

In addition to the newspaper deals, Amazon has enlisted colleges and universities, including Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, Reed College and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business to distribute the Kindle DX this fall to students across a range of academic disciplines.

The device includes a built-in PDF reader using Adobe Reader Mobile technology. People can e-mail PDF documents to their Kindle or use a USB connection to move them from another storage device, the company said.