Dear Commons Community,

Being in San Jose right now, the “capital of Silicon Valley”, and as the proud owner of a Kindle, it is most appropriate that I post about a new ebook. The competition has just gotten keener with the announcement of iriver’s Story HD. The iriver Story HD, the first ereader featuring full integration with Google eBooks, will be available in the United States exclusively at Target Stores on July 17. (NOTE: iriver, inc. is the name of the manufacturer and does not use a capital as the first letter of its name).

The Story HD features a 7.3-ounce bodyweight, a six-inch high-definition (768×1024 pixels) E-ink display, a QWERTY keyboard and a $139.99 price tag. Customers can pick them up at Target’s website, or at retail locations nationwide. What is most important is that the new reader lets customers download content via WiFi from Google’s cloud-based library of over 3 million free works. Thousands more eBooks are also available for purchase on Google’s platform. Google eBooks are available for download by PCs and other compatible devices, however, the Story HD skips the step of having to download titles to a PC and then sync up the reader to access the books.

Tony