e-readers

The battle over e-readers is heating up rapidly, thanks to new hardware entries from the world's two leading e-book manufacturers and the surprising popularity of e-book software on Apple's iPhone and iPod touch. Although the total number of e-books is still well short of a single Steven King press run, the next-generation devices point to a steadily maturing market for digital literature.

On Friday, Sony announced the latest version of its e-reader, the Sony PRS-700 Reader. The device will be released next month and will cost approximately $400.