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Brit e-Reader Makes U.S. Debut

Reading, England — With more then a passing resemblance to an iPod, the new Cool-er E-book reader from British startup Interead will debut June 1 in the U.S., offering a number of “firsts” for the e-book market, including a low $249 price point.

The device also claims to be slimmer than current e-readers and almost half the weight, at about 6 ounces and a

third of an inch thick. It hopes to work with multiple e-book sites in addition to Interead’s own e-book site, as it accepts documents in EPUB, Adobe PDF and text. The Coolerbooks.com site has a selection of 750,000 books that may be downloaded to other types of e-readers.

The Cool-er E-book will sell initially exclusively at Interead’s Web sites. Features include a 6-inch screen with E Ink technology, so the device uses power only when a page is turned. The company claims a single charge will last for 8,000 page turns, “which is the equivalent to reading the classic novel ‘War and Peace’ five times,” according to its Web site.

The device has a built-in MP3 player and comes in eight colors. It requires a USB link or SD card to download books, rather than the over-the-air ease of the Amazon Kindle. The device also has 1GB of storage and supports e-books in seven languages.

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