At a press event hosted by the New York Public Library, Sony put their recently announced Reader hardware on display and provided an overview of its recent announcements. But the event was more than simply a recap of past announcements. The library location provided context for a program, run through Sony’s e-book store, which will allow users to identify their local public library borrow books through its site. There is also new hardware: by the holidays, Sony plans on having a 3G-enabled Reader with a tall seven-inch screen.
The upcoming hardware is called the Reader Daily Edition, which implies partnerships with news outlets. However, aside from the price and 3G capabilities, almost nothing was mentioned about the device.
The best time to kick a rival is when he’s down, and with everyone piling on Amazon, including anti-DRM group Defective by Design, Sony could not have picked a better time to roll out new, lower-priced e-readers, the PRS-300 and PRS-600, and lower-priced ebooks too. Per WSJ: