As Amazon continues to expand as the “Wal-Mart of the Web,” one of its more recent strategies has been to offer private-label brands that you can’t buy anywhere else… Tweet This Post

Despite the stagnation of book, music and DVD sales, Amazon.com is gaining momentum as a retailer of almost every other kind of product, as I report in an article in Sunday’s Business section… Tweet This Post

What’s the point of Google’s new FastFlip reader? Not to change the way you read news on the Web — it’s too ugly and simplistic for that. But because it loads pages very fast — and requires minimal effort to navigate — it could be useful for portable devices. Specifically, tablet-like gadgets with 3G modems [...]

Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, discussed his health and Apple’s new product line in an interview Wednesday with David Pogue, the personal technology columnist for The New York Times. Context has been added to the original quotes posted here… Tweet This Post

Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, discussed his health and Apple’s new product line in an interview Wednesday with David Pogue, the personal technology columnist for The New York Times. Context has been added to the original quotes posted here… Tweet This Post

There’s been a big brouhaha over comments Steve Jobs made to NYT’s David Pogue in an interview following Apple’s event on Wednesday. Basically, most people are interpreting what Jobs said about eBook readers to mean that Apple plans to completely stay away from the market. But that’s not actually what Jobs said at all… Tweet [...]

Add another name to the list of opponents of the Google Book Search Settlement: Marybeth Peters, U.S. Register of Copyrights. In testimony before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Thursday, Peters tarred the deal as “fundamentally at odds with the law” and villainized Google, saying the company is making a “mockery” of the copyright protections [...]

Time Inc. said earlier this year it wasn’t planning to join the rush of old-media companies like News Corp. and Hearst who are developing their own e-readers. But now, according to documents obtained by NBC Bay Area, the company has plans to rush out a prototype by the end of this year, possibly in cooperation [...]

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has now agreed to let any book retailer resell access to the out-of-print books it is putting online via its Google Books search engine. But the offer does not seem to have appeased the company’s critics, who contend that Google will still wield too much control over the book industry—and particularly over [...]

SAN FRANCISCO — After a flurry of last-minute filings on Tuesday, a federal judge must now begin untangling the mountain of competing claims about how a legal settlement granting Google the right to create the world’s largest digital library and bookstore would affect competition, authors’ rights and readers’ privacy… Tweet This Post

Throw another entry into the e-reader market: Asus, the company from Taiwan that basically invented the “netbook,” plans to get into e-readers, too, the U.K. Times reports. One proposed model has two color screens, which more closely resembles a paper book. A “budget” reader could make it to market at $200, or about $100 less [...]

As time runs short for comments on the proposed Google book settlement to be filed, Amazon has filed its objections: it’s Congress’ job to sort out copyright issues, the deal will create an illegal entity, and (worst of all) it’s bad for Amazon’s business model… Tweet This Post