The world’s largest online retailer is now offering to rent out technical textbooks in various fields of study for a fraction of the costs of buying books. This is especially important for students with limited budgets that need a textbook only for a semester.

Anika Anand of MSNBC shows just how much of a difference renting e-books versus buying print or digitized books can be:

Book: Psychology in Action by John Wiley & Sons

• Full price listing – $154
• Used hardcopy via Amazon – $62
• 30-day Kindle edition – $29
• 60-day Kindle edition – $36
• 90-day Kindle edition – $43
• 120-day (standard semester) Kindle edition – $46

These values do not include shipping costs for print books, which will further widen the margin of difference between purchased and rented books.

Amazon is not the first player to offer e-book rentals. Chegg, Kno, Inkling and Bookrenter offer similar services, but Amazon is the biggest brand name by date to do so. Only time will tell if Amazon will deem the Textbook Rental service financially sound enough to maintain or even expand it.

Google’s new reader has a built-in QWERTY keyboard, is less than a centimeter thick, weighs in at 207 grams and sports a 6-inch, high-resolution XGA screen. The company claims that the XGA screen gives the iRiver “63 percent more pixels” than its competitors and that the Story HD can last for six weeks on a single charge.

It would appear that Google is attempting to expand its core business beyond search, especially since it is already competing with rival Facebook in the social networking arena.

What really gives the Story HD an advantage over existing e-readers, however, is full integration with Google’s ebookstore.

Google product manager Pratip Banerji explains, “You can also store your personal ebooks library in the cloud—picking up where you left off in any ebook you’re reading as you move from laptop to smartphone to e-reader to tablet.”

The iRiver itself is to be released at an initial price of $139.99. The Google ebookstore will offer somewhere around 15 million books, with three million ebooks free to download.

Show your style with Diane von Furstenberg's Ikat Original Berry print. The sturdy cotton canvas will keep your Kindle safe and secure while in transport, and the beet pink, twill blend interior adds extra pop and protection.

All of the Diane von Furstenberg Kindle covers have added touches, including a signature shiny gold DVF toggle on the clasp, and convenient business card slots on the inside of the cover.

The Kaley Canvas Clutch offers users an incredibly sophisticated and convenient way of keeping their Kindle with them even in the most sought-after A-list gatherings. Designed by DVF, the clutch features a vividly beautiful Ikat Original Berry print cover that’s guaranteed to go well with any couture wear.

Established in 1972, Diane von Furstenberg (DVF) became one of the most respected American fashion houses when it launched its iconic designs for wrap dresses and timeless signature prints.

Now a global brand that offers a wide range of clothing and accessories, DVF offers a Kindle-exclusive line of fabulously chic yet effortlessly functional covers and casings. With the Kaley Canvas Clutch, DVF also went out of its way to add a few small touches that are breathtaking in its practicality and beauty.

These include seamlessly integrated slots for business cards, twill blend interior that provides greater security and visual appeal, and a gold DVF signature toggle for the slip-in clasp. The clutch’s exterior comes with a stain-free finish that provides additional protection for your Kindle while maintaining the casing’s aesthetic perfection.

Flipped open, the clutch also boasts of a vibrant pink interior that easily draws attention to the wonderfully polished stitching and construction of your designer Kindle case.

And with this hand-woven leather kindle cover, you have the unique opportunity of experiencing the glamour that comes from a product’s that resulted from over an eight-decade old legacy to producing the most luxurious and stylish items for the market.

Designed to provide a snug fit for the latest Kindle edition with its 6-inch display, the Cole Haan Leather Kindle Cover with Hinge also provides protection for your Kindle with a stunning combination of professional polish, casual good looks, and heavy-duty durability and security.

With its hand-woven and hand-stained leather exterior, this handsome cover can be your most efficient and attractive companion for all occasions and settings. Its smooth goat suede interior also boasts of a nicely incorporated business card holder.

Also available in Ruby Sugar, this Kindle cover also uses a unique hinge system that’s designed to provide easy button access while clasping your Kindle into position for smooth and trouble-free reading.

Freed from the bulk of leather covers and hard-case portfolios, your Kindle can now easily fit in your clutch or handbag. Its satiny matte finish is also incredibly soft to touch while offering complete protection at the same time against fingerprint marks. Not only that, but the satiny coating of your Dark Burlwood Kindle skin comes with an added advantage of glare reduction for improved reading.

Installation is quite easy and does not require any professional assistance at all. The skin is made of durable and high-quality cast vinyl with long-lasting adhesive backing.

Removal will be just as easy, with users able to peel the skin off anytime with absolute ease and without having to worry about leftover adhesive that could mar your Kindle’s smooth surface.

Delaware-based DecalGirl’s designs have always been a sensation because of its unique and vibrant artwork. With its new Dark Burlwood Kindle skin, you can now enjoy a fashionable and bulk-free option to protect your device from ugly scratches and dents.

E-readers like the Kindle have prevented that from happening, or at least this is what Park Slope playwright and eminent New Yorker Lisa Lewis believes.

“I can no longer hit on a handsome man on a long commute by asking about his book, because I can’t see it.” She continues to bemoan the rising use of e-readers and urges readers to switch to hard copies.

“Ladies and gentlemen, take out your books! In New York they are more important than your Facebook photo. As our cyber personalities grow more detailed, we see less of one another in person.”
So how exactly can someone pick-up a guy or gal that’s reading a book that uses e-ink in place of ordinary ink?

When Ryan Tate of Gawker.com shared Lewis’ views on his Gawker column, one pretty straightforward commenter had this to say:

“What’s wrong with ‘Pardon me, may I ask what book you’re reading? I’ve just finished reading my last book and am looking for a new one to start’. Seriously, it’s not that hard to start a conversation.”

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Honestly, the ads are not as intrusive as one may think. In fact, they even seem to liven up the otherwise stale presentation of the home screen. Amazon has put considerable effort in ensuring that the ads are attractive enough to avoid annoying a user when using the Kindle. Amazon also assures that users get a say in what ads appear by way of a voting system to crowd-source appropriate ad content.

Interestingly, the sponsored ads will never appear in the text you are reading. The only times they do appear is on the home screen and when browsing book titles. When the Kindle goes to sleep, you will get a sponsored screensaver. Like all Kindle screensavers, you can ignore or skip through it easily. The bottom line is that the ads are not bothersome and you’ll get to save $25.

People sitting on the fence on whether to buy this Kindle version over the pricier $139 version should rest assured that the ad content in this $114 bundle is unobtrusive. The Amazon has done a great job in making sure that the ads are visible yet subtle. At this price, we can safely say the latest-edition $114 Kindle is a solid value for readers looking to make the jump to e-books.

Michelle S. from Williamsburg, VA gave it a 5-star and wrote,
“Folks, don’t pay full price for your Kindle. The only difference between the full price and Special Offers Kindles are the screen savers (pictures of authors vs. advertisements), the bottom of the home page (nothing vs. a small strip of advertisement), and the price ($139 vs. $114). For the savings of $25, you also get extra savings, like this gift card – $20 Amazon Gift Card for $10. To me, it’s well worth the advertisements. BTW, you do NOT see any ads when you are reading your books. Best of luck making your decisions.”

The ingenious flap design allows the skin to cover the Kindle completely, including the skin, when it is not in use. One needs simply to pull the flap back and hook it to the back cover when one wishes to read. The cover allows full, unobstructed access to the Kindle’s buttons, keypad and ports at any time. Though the M-Skin fully covers the Kindle’s keypad and navigation buttons, the skin design has them printed on itself eliminating any inconvenience.

The M-Skin is made with M-Edge’s other products in mind. It is fully compatible with M-Edge’s e-Luminator booklight and fits snugly into M-Edge’s carrying cases like the Journey, Destination, and Hip.

Overall, M-Edge’s M-Skin is a sound investment for your Kindle, adding a full layer of protection to go along with other Kindle accessories. By itself, it offers superb protection for the Kindle and its sleek ergonomic design provides a lightweight alternative to the more bulky Kindle covers out there.

Component makers connected to the tablet, however, have given a heads-up on when the tablet might be released. The news was first reported by Digitimes, the Taiwan-based companies claim that Amazon would release the tablet anywhere around August to September.

Amazon hopes to capitalize on the strong sales period prior to Thanksgiving; hoping to sell about 700,000 to 800,000 units a month and to make about four million sales of the tablet in 2011.

All these conclusions are based on the parts Amazon has ordered from Texas Instruments, Wintek, ILI Technology and Quanta Computer.

The Taiwanese sources do not, unfortunately, have anything to share about the specifications of the Amazon tablet. Jeff Bezos of Amazon’s advice to ‘stay tuned’ seems like the only solid lead right about now.

Amazon’s Kindle has always been a dedicated e-book reader, and it is this focus that made the device so popular among book-lovers around the world even as other hardware providers compete ferociously with each other.

One feature the sources have confirmed is the ability to view streaming movies on Amazon’s tablet PC – something which gives clues about Amazon’s willingness to go head-to-head with other providers.

Spammers, however, are exploiting the ebook store’s lenient and easily accessible platform. These spammers exploit Private Label Rights (PLR) to easily submit sub-par content to the Kindle ebook store. PLR allows for content on the Internet to be repackaged as a digital book and then sold on the store for less than a dollar each, wherein Amazon would pay them out anywhere between 30 to 70 percent.

The system is also susceptible to blatant plagiarism.

One New Zealand author found her debut novel being sold on the Kindle ebook store – except it had a different author’s name on it. Amazon resolved this one issue, but this is a clear sign of an increasingly widespread problem with repercussions on Amazon’s good name.

Any action to curb the ease by which an individual could submit content to the store could have wider implications for would-be authors.

Jeff Hughes of DigitalTrends.com sums this up by saying “Amazon needs to wake up and either manage it’s [sic] submission more aggressively, require a fee or set up some sort of social networking weeding process in order to keep this platform untarnished.”