Wired: Amazon strikes back. Bezos interview with Charlie Rose.

SEE THE MAIN NEW KINDLE INFO SECTION for details.

WIRED STORY AND IMAGE
Steven Levy of Wired's Gadget Lab writes that "Jeff Bezos has survived the iPad" and then some.

His opener is that the iPad has not, despite the many dire predictions, been a "Kindle Killer" for all the reasons we've seen and describes the new Kindle 3 models as "a canny evolution that enhances the device’s raison d’etre: reading."
...

  "The new size and lightness "makes Kindle lighter than a paperback, while the iPad is heavier than Infinite Jest.
...
  "What’s more, the revelation that Amazon sells more Kindle books than hardcovers is only the beginning of what now looks like an inevitable mass migration to e-books.

  " 'Our best estimate is that Kindle books will outsell paperbacks at Amazon sometime in the next nine to twelve months,' Bezos says. 'And then at some point after that they’ll overtake the combination.' "

LINK TO MELISSA PERENSON'S HANDS-ON REPORT FOR WASHINGTON POST/PCWORLD
I neglected to include that link in last night's blog article on this detailed hands-on lookover, so here it is.

CHARLIE ROSE INTERVIEW WITH JEFF BEZOS
I watched this in a repeat last night and the first thing I noticed is they both interrupt each other a lot.  Jeff Bezos relaxed into easier conversation when talking about Japan and non-Kindle-specific matters.

Viewable online at Charlie Rose.com.  (Another link given didn't work.)

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Check often:  Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.

NYT: A talk w/ Jeff Bezos - and Sharing Kindle books

The New York Times interviews Jeff Bezos briefly, who is mum about the competition (when asked about his thoughts on the Nook) as usual.

 When Deborah Solomon, the interviewer, asks about Barnes and Noble's point that a Nook book can be lent, Bezos responds:

' The current thing being talked about is extremely limited. You can lend to one friend. One time. You can’t pick two friends, not even serially, so once you’ve loaned one book to one friend, that’s it.

  [Not mentioned is that the publisher must allow the feature and many publishers are said to be resisting.]

You have to pick just one person? What are you saying? It’s like “Sophie’s Choice”?

It is “Sophie’s Choice.” Very nicely done. ' [More on this below]

  On reading a Kindle in the bathtub, Bezos uses a one-gallon Ziploc bag, as do many Kindle owners, judging from water-protection-bag review boards and notes at the various Kindle forums.  Seems to work well for most.  You can move the buttons inside the bag.

  On Kindle book sales, he reiterates that "For every 100 copies of a physical book we sell, where we have the Kindle edition, we will sell 48 copies of the Kindle edition."

See the rest of the Q&A at the NYT site.

* Sharing Kindle books on an account
  A hot subject for a few months on the Amazon Kindle forums now has its own forum thread and describes how some Kindlers are sharing their books by using existing features and guidelines for their Kindle accounts.

  Essentially, while you can have as many Kindle devices (these include iPhones, iPods, PC with Kindle for PC, etc.) on your account as wanted, most books can be shared with only up to 5 other Kindle devices on your account simultaneously.

  You can register a friend's Kindle under your account (a good amount of trust is involved in this with the friend's ability to buy and download books using your account and having access to your entire library.

  There is no physical household restriction.   If friends buy books you don't want, they can use Paypal or something more traditional to cover it.  At any time, friends can choose to register their Kindles for themselves again; any downloaded shared books stay with them and each of those copies also will go against your licensed count for that book.

Read the thread for more details and answers to people's questions about that.  I'm not making a recommendation here but describing how people are using the guidelines to share books.