Amazon has entered the textbook market swinging with their new large format Kindle DX. They’ve partnered with three of the biggest textbook publishers (Pearson, Cengage, and Wiley) and with several universities (Arizona State, Case Western, Princeton, Virginia) for early implementation. No specifics on pricing, but if this is handled well, it could seriously mean the end of traditional textbook publishing.

http://tinyurl.com/newkindledx
http://live.gizmodo.com/

So as much of a gearhead as I find myself becoming over the years, I have not yet become fully sold on the iPod Touch. The new OS is totally sweet, and some of the new apps are mindblowing, but I just can’t seem to fall in like with the text entry methods. I type quite well, so the decrease in speed and accuracy is just totally frustrating. Sometimes the auto-correct feature works great, but it isn’t consistent enough to work it’s way into a working pattern. I’ve used a Blackberry and a Treo for several years now, and the little chiclet buttons provide just enough tactile context to allow me to get going at a pretty good clip. I am getting faster with the iTouch, but I am not there yet. We’ll see.

Amazon To Target $5.5 Billion Textbook Market With New Kindle?

I was just telling a colleague yesterday that this would seem to be a match made in heaven. Someone must have been listening…