Google and Amazon make e-book news

The e-book market is taking off

Google has announced plans to enter the electronic book sales market later this year, allowing publishers to sell e-books online for use on what the company termed "web-enabled devices".

The search giant has not yet launched a marketplace for e-books, but already maintains a catalogue of 500,000 public-domain titles. Google settled a long-running legal battle last year with publishers over its digitisation project.

The company inked a deal with Sony in March to offer the collection on the Sony Reader device.

Amazon, meanwhile, has officially set a release date for the newest version of its Kindle reader device. The company will begin shipping the $489 Kindle DX tablet to pre-order customers in the US on 10 June.

The Kindle DX was announced in March, and is aimed at readers of larger-format publications, such as magazines, newspapers and PDF text files. The company has yet to announce a UK release date.