Interesting article in The Sunday Times:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...cle5987343.ece
Google has joined forces with Sony to take on the staid world of book publishing. The internet giant aims to make up to 7m books that it has scanned from the world’s libraries available for customers to download onto an electronic reading device, known as an e-reader.
The move has not only shaken traditional book publishers, but is a body- blow to Amazon, the online book retailer, which had hoped to corner the market for electronic books with its state-of-the-art e-reader, the Kindle 2.
...
The British Booksellers Association also sees the writing on the wall. In a world where the likes of the Sony ebook reader has eventually replaced print, and Google has inevitably stretched its American rights register to encompass the rest of the world, the company would provide virtually the only route for authors to publish their work. “If this one-stop-shop direct-to-consumer approach of Google comes to Europe, it will surely result in a world that is culturally poorer for the consumer,” the association said.
But just as Google has shrugged off privacy concerns over Street View, its photographic city-mapping service, the juggernaut could again be unstoppable.
We may all soon be reading g-books.