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CNET goes out on a limb and pre-announces Amazon's announcement of a Kindle launch, but did they take along a saw?

MobileReader Studio717 has pointed out that CNET is reporting that they have word from "an industry source" that Amazon will announce their long awaited Kindle Reader on Monday, November 19th, at the W Hotel in New York.

Attached to this report are a few details, mostly not new to us, but still interesting:

The Kindle is equipped with a Wi-Fi connection that taps into an Amazon e-book store, which users can access to purchase new electronic books--and Amazon has reportedly signed onto a deal with Sprint for EVDO access. Additionally, the device comes with a headphone jack for audiobooks, as well as an e-mail address.
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The Kindle may also lack a backlight. Instead, it comes with a small reading light attached to an adjustable arm.

There's also some word on the presumed delays in the launch, as well as some all too scanty comments about the hot topics of offerings and delivery:

The industry source said Amazon experienced setbacks in the process, but attributed them in part to natural difficulties that a retailer would experience when expanding into the hardware business. One of the foremost challenges, the source added, was battery power.

But an even bigger problem was reportedly getting publishers onboard. Amazon wanted to have the biggest e-book catalog of any reader available, the source explained, to give it an advantage over other e-book readers and services that are already on the market.

The company is also said to have forged agreements with somewhere between 50 and 100 newspaper publishers, in addition to the daily New York Times and Wall Street Journal features. Kindle owners are expected to be able to select from a long list of publications for automatic download.

"The hardware isn't necessarily what's important," said Richard Shim, an analyst with IDC. "It's the delivery mechanism for the content. That's where Amazon has a major advantage. They have a huge repository and huge track record of selling content. They also have customers who keep coming back to them. One of the things that companies have neglected in the past is developing an e-book store where you can get the content and use the leverage to get the publishers to get content into a digital format."

I'm hoping they're more right about what little they're saying about the Kindle than they are on their "filling-out" comments toward the end of the article about the Sony Reader:

Sony unveiled the second edition of its Sony Reader device in October. The original Reader, released in September 2006, proved to be a bust [links to their own story about how the Sony device was a bust in their opinion]. For the Reader's Version 2.0, Sony maintained the Reader's $300 price tag [dropped it $50, actually), the storage capacity (160 "typical" books [that's double the PRS-500's capacity, in fact]), and the battery life (7,500 "page turns" [one out of three ain't ... totally bogus]), but improved the device's speed and navigation features and slimmed the hardware down [okay, two out of four].

Unfortunately, there's still no answer in sight to the most burning question: Is it still fugly? Maybe will know the answer to that in four more days.

So what do y'all think? Genuine inside info, or just more rumors and speculation?



Full source.