Amazon announced the new, larger, Kindle DX yesterday, and every mainstream media report included the fact that newspapers like the New York Times were part of the New York announcement. Detailed reports like the Huffington Post's revealed that the Times will be selling the gizmo for cheap if you sign up for a long-term subscription to the online NYT.
It all makes sense, but I have to admit to a pang of annoyance that old, dead-tree media gets insider treatment, when information you can only get online--the Huffington Post, say, or this humble blog--didn't get invited to the big press conference. But then I read the Amazon Kindle DX page.
This newest Kindle, which will be out June or later of this year, will read PDF files without translation, and Amazon specifically mentions that this feature allows you to read your "neighborhood newsletter." Why, yes, of course it does.
So the future of newspapers--neighborhood-specific localcasting--is included in Amazon's thinking after all. Amazon also announced a "WhisperNet" service that will let you--that is, everyone--push a PDF to your Kindle. Presumably (but never presume), this will allow small local news publishers to charge for pushing PDFs to your Kindle just like the New York Times.
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