Amazon Com Inc

Amazon.com Inc. on Monday unveiled its second-generation electronic reader, a slimmer and faster version of the Kindle device it introduced 14 months ago with promises to revolutionize the way people read books. The average American hasn't come close to abandoning the printed page yet. Electronic books generate less than 1% of the $25-billion U.S. book publishing market. But they're a fast-growing segment of an otherwise stagnant industry.

Three powerful technology companies have banded together to oppose Google Inc.'s proposed settlement with the Authors Guild and the Assn. of American Publishers over the Internet search giant's book scanning project. Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have signed on to a coalition being assembled by the Internet Archive and Gary Reback, a Silicon Valley antitrust lawyer, said Peter Brantley, director of the Internet Archive, a San Francisco nonprofit that is trying to build a free digital library of Internet content.

Amazon.com Inc. switched to Microsoft Corp. from Google Inc. for Internet search results on some of its sites.

Amazon.com Inc. makes its money as an online retailer. So why would it want a company that rents DVDs? Officially, it doesn't -- or at least it isn't talking about it. But an Amazon purchase of DVD rental king Netflix Inc. has been the subject of on-again, off-again rumors on Wall Street, and that speculation Monday sent Netflix shares up 7%. Although neither company would comment on the speculation, some analysts think it isn't that far-fetched.

* Amazon.com Inc. said it acquired a stake in closely held Basis Technology for undisclosed terms. Basis Technology's flagship product, Rosette software, helps Web sites operate in multiple languages.

Amazon.com Inc., Borders Group Inc. and other retailers were accused in a lawsuit of illegally using patented technology that uses shoppers' information to customize visits to their Web sites. Pinpoint Inc. sued the retailers in U.S. District Court in Illinois, alleging they have infringed four patents that cover personalization technology.

Amazon.com Inc. has opened its payment system to other websites in a move that would pit it against EBay Inc.'s PayPal. The program, called Amazon Flexible Payment Service, is in an initial testing period, Seattle-based Amazon said.

Imagine this: You go to a bookstore, browse, choose a couple of volumes. But you don't want to carry the books around. So you ask the clerk to hold the tomes until Saturday, when you'll come back to buy them. When you return, the bookseller hands you the items but advises you that he's raised the prices. "I knew you were hot to buy them," the clerk says, "so I figured I could make a few extra bucks." That's what it feels like online bookseller Amazon.com Inc. has been doing to me. On Nov.

As revenue-hungry states eye Internet retailers as possible sources of new taxes, Amazon.com Inc. is firing back. Already, the nation's largest Internet retailer has cut ties with its affiliate websites in two states to avoid legislation that would require the company to collect sales taxes from its customers there. And it is fighting similar tax proposals in several other states, including California.

It's not even 10 inches tall, it's just one-third of an inch thick, and it costs nearly $500. But Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle DX, unveiled Wednesday, has already been assigned a huge job: reversing the fortunes of the struggling newspaper industry. After announcing the features of the new device, which include a bigger-than-ever screen and a PDF reader, the Seattle company also revealed a partnership with Washington Post Co. and New York Times Co.

Amazon.com Inc. said first-quarter earnings climbed 24% to $177 million, or 41 cents a share, a surprise to analysts. Revenue rose 18% to $4.89 billion, the Seattle-based online retailer said. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were expecting 31 cents a share on revenue of $4.75 billion. Amazon shares rose $2.17 in after-hours trading after finishing regular trading up $1.41, or 1.8%, at $80.61.

Amazon.com Inc. on Monday blamed a "cataloging error" for the removal of more than 57,000 titles from its main search function. The disappearance of books such as "Ellen DeGeneres: A Biography," "Milk: A Pictorial History of Harvey Milk" and "Greek Homosexuality" this weekend created an uproar among consumers who wondered why works that dealt with sexual orientation were being marginalized.

Trying to expand its book sales, Amazon.com Inc. released a free application Wednesday that lets iPhone and iPod Touch users read electronic books purchased at the e-commerce giant's Kindle online bookstore. The software performs many of the same functions featured on Amazon's $359 Kindle 2 reading device released last month, including bookmarking, noting, highlighting and adjusting the font size, the company said.

Publishers and authors now have the power to silence the Kindle 2 e-book reader. Amazon.com Inc. reversed course Friday on the device's controversial text-to-speech feature, which reads digital books aloud in a robotic voice. The company gave rights holders the ability to disable the feature for individual titles. The Kindle 2, which shipped this week, is a faster and smaller version of Amazon's gadget. It can hold more than 1,500 books and has 25% more battery life than its predecessor.

Amazon.com Inc. said it cut technology costs by nearly 25%, or $17 million, last quarter as it reaped the benefits of falling telecommunications prices and a shift to the cheaper Linux operating system. Amazon's adoption of Linux mirrors experiences among other companies that are increasingly using the open-source system as an alternative to costlier software from companies such as Sun Microsystems Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Amazon.com Inc. has launched Askville, an information-sharing website where users can ask questions and answer queries from others. The site, opened Thursday to all Amazon customers, has been in beta testing since December 2006. Similar services are offered by Yahoo Inc.'s Answers and other websites such as AnswerBank. Google Inc. also had an "Answers" section, which has been discontinued.

Amazon.com Inc. on Monday unveiled its second-generation electronic reader, a slimmer and faster version of the Kindle device it introduced 14 months ago with promises to revolutionize the way people read books. The average American hasn't come close to abandoning the printed page yet. Electronic books generate less than 1% of the $25-billion U.S. book publishing market. But they're a fast-growing segment of an otherwise stagnant industry.