• Newsweek, Tuesday, November 20, 2007 12:15 PM

Amazon has released The Kindle, an electronic reading device that it hopes will leapfrog over previous attempts at e-readers and become the turning point in a transformation toward Book 2.0. That's shorthand for a revolution--already in progress--that will change the way readers read, writers write and publishers publish, according to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

"If you're going to do something like this, you have to be as good as the book in a lot of respects," says Bezos.

The Kindle--named to evoke the crackling ignition of knowledge--has the dimensions of a paperback. With the use of E Ink, a technology that mimes the clarity of a printed book, the Kindle's six-inch screen posts readable pages. It gets as many as 30 hours of reading on a charge, and recharges in two hours. In addition, the $399 Kindle can venture out on the Web to look up things, search or follow links from blogs and other Web pages.

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