There's a
WallStreet Journal Article that confirms Google's Goofy approach to ebooks.
Quote:
Google could prove to be a significant challenger for Amazon, which sells e-books specifically formatted to work with its proprietary Kindle. A key difference would be that the search giant aims to let Google Book Search users "buy access" to copyrighted books with any Web-enabled computer, e-reader or mobile phone.
Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said consumers would not be able to download books in the same way Amazon's customers can buy copies of specific titles and store them on their Kindle. Instead, people who access books through Google would be able to read titles online and temporarily cache them in their Internet browsers so they could also read them offline.
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So let's get this straight. You can only buy "access" to the book. You can't store the book on an eReader. Current devices that use eInk can't even view the books (unless you count Amazon's browser access). And these books will likely cost more than Amazon's books.
What on earth are they thinking? This is going to fail miserably.