Barnes & Noble, which just jumped into the electronic book market, is quickly ramping up its mobile e-book strategy. The bookseller, which acquired e-book retailer Fictionwise a few weeks ago, announced that Fictionwise’s free eReader application is now available for BlackBerry users. The eReader is already a popular app on the iPhone. Barnes & Noble’s move sets up a new competition with Amazon, which recently launched its own Kindle app for the iPhone and is targeting other mobile devices.

Here’s more from the Fictionwise announcement:

With over one million downloads, the eReader application has become one of the most popular ways to read books on mobile devices and smartphones. The new BlackBerry version of eReader features flexible controls that allow the user to adjust the application as they wish to ensure a heightened reading experience. The ability to change font sizes improves readability in any lighting condition, while navigation features such as bookmarks, linked Table of Contents, and text search simplify locating specific pages and chapters.

The eReader app will work with any BlackBerry device "released within the past few years," according to the announcement. In addition to the iPhone, the eReader works with Palm, Windows Mobile, PocketPC and Symbian smartphones, and Windows and Mac laptops or full-sized computers.

Amazon launched its Kindle 2 electronic reader last month and quickly followed up with a Kindle app for the iPhone. The company has indicated it’s developing applications for other mobile devices.

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and Seattle getting Sprint 4G this year  Sprint Nextel will bring its 4G wireless mobile broadband service to Seattle and at least nine additional markets this year, according to a news release this morning. The Sprint 4G offering is based on the WiMAX network from Kirkland-based Clearwire, following the combination of the two companies’ wireless broadband businesses last year.

The announcement reflects Sprint’s plans to continue offering 4G service under its own brand, even though it’s based on the Clearwire network, said Stephanie Vinge-Walsh, a Sprint spokeswoman.

A specific date for the Seattle rollout of Sprint 4G isn’t known, Vinge-Walsh said. Other cities expected to get the Sprint 4G service this year are Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Fort Worth, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Philadelphia and Portland.

That plan closely matches Clearwire’s own rollout schedule for mobile WiMax. Clearwire currently provides mobile WiMax in Baltimore and Portland, and offers pre-WiMax service in a number of markets, including Seattle.

Susan Johnson, a spokeswoman for Clearwire, called Sprint’s 4G plans in Seattle and other cities a "win-win" for Clearwire.

"Whether our customer subscribes to our service through Clearwire or through one of our wholesale partners, it’s favorable to our company," Johnston said.

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and E-books in academia: Univ of Michigan Press going digital  College students have always been an intriguing potential market for Amazon’s Kindle and other electronic book readers. In theory, students burdened by heavy and expensive textbooks could benefit from light, portable electronic readers. Amazon has long been rumored to have a student version of Kindle in development, though the company hasn’t announced anything yet. In the meantime, some parts of academia are moving toward electronic books. The University of Michigan Press said this week it will transition to "primarily digital" production of scholarly texts.

Here’s more from the U-M Press blog:

The ongoing challenge is to utilize all the emerging technology without compromising the integrity of published scholarship, said Phil Pochoda, director of U-M Press.

"Freeing the press, in large part, from the constraints imposed by the print-based business model will permit us to more fully explore and exploit ever-expanding digital resources and opportunities," he said. "Scholarly texts will continue to be subjected to rigorous peer review and will still be available in printed versions, primarily on demand."

It will be interesting to see if digital texts catch on elsewhere in academia. Our recent informal survey of students at the University of Washington showed that many students weren’t sold on the idea of the Kindle as a textbook replacement.

[Flickr photo via Plutor]

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Public officials defend stimulus money for ‘Bridge to Microsoft’  

Redmond’s 36th Street Bridge, better known as the "Bridge to Microsoft," is a "wonderful project" that benefits much more than the software giant, write the city’s mayor and the head of the Puget Sound Regional Council in a Seattle Times guest column.

The plan "reduces congestion and greenhouse-gas emissions, helps our region meet growth and housing obligations, and addresses the needs of hundreds of employers within a major regional job center," say Redmond’s John Marchione and the PSRC’s Bob Drewel — responding to critics who assert that the project doesn’t deserve federal stimulus money.

"Simply put, without this bridge, Redmond cannot — repeat, cannot — accommodate the employment and housing the city is expected to absorb for the benefit of our region and our state," they write.

Bloomberg News reported March 13 that local planners designated $11 million of the region’s federal stimulus money for the project. Microsoft is paying about half of the total $36.5 million project cost.

Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, told the news service at the time that federal funding was inappropriate, considering that Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates "could finance this out of pocket change."

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