In the mid-1990s, I ran across what looked like an incredible story: A teenager, dubbed the Whiz Kid, was selling a ton of computers from his parents' home. Newspapers told the story complete with images of the teenager talking on his cell phone-which, at the time, was a big deal.

Apple Inc. will not use Adobe Systems Inc.'s e-book digital rights management (DRM) technology, an Adobe executive said on Wednesday.

As e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle continue to rise, so follows the publishing industry's worst nightmare: e-book piracy. For years e-book piracy was the exclusive province of the determined few willing to ferret out mostly nerdy textbook titles from the Internet's dark alleys and read them on their PC. But publishers say that the problem is ballooning as e-readers grow in popularity and the appetite for mainstream e-books grows.

South Korea's LG Display has developed a solar panel for an e-book reader.

E-books are doubtless the future of reading, and Sony's newest device, the "Reader Daily Edition" makes good by supporting on open e-book format. But, ouch, the sticker shock!

Taiwan's largest telecommunications service provider, Chunghwa Telecom (CHT), has teamed up with Microsoft, smartphone maker High Tech Computer (HTC) and others to start building an e-book business for Chinese language materials.

As expected, Amazon.com Wednesday released a new version of its Kindle with a bigger screen, which is intended to present newspaper and magazine content better than the current, smaller Kindle 2.

Amazon may be working on a new device that is similar to the Kindle book reader but designed specifically for newspapers and magazines.

E-books may have been a niche technology so far, but Google Inc.'s entry into the market could burst the online business wide open.