Amazon to debut a Kindle for reading newspapers?

As early as this week, Amazon might unveil a bigger Kindle that could deliver digital versions of newspapers and magazines, according to a report in today's New York Times.

Such wireless reading devices might help save newspaper companies, if consumers are willing to pay for electronic subscriptions.

Enormous sums could also be saved on printing and distribution.

The current Kindle is sized for displaying books, although it already offers some magazine and newspaper subscriptions.

Publishers have complained, however, about problems using the current Kindle format to deliver ads.

The bigger version - reportedly about the size of a standard sheet of paper - would be able to display stories and ads in layouts similar to what readers would see in print, reports say.

The upsized Kindle could be the first in a series of such products to hit the market, including a device from Apple, according to today's Wall Street Journal.

The Gannett Co., publisher of USA Today and many regional newspapers, is working with a start-up called Plastic Logic Ltd. to produce an e-reader for newspapers by early next year.

The Hearst Corp., owner of more than a dozen newspapers and such popular magazines as O and Cosmopolitan, has its own project, and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., whose newspaper holdings include the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, "is exploring a possible investment in a Kindle competitor," today's Journal article states.

This first generation of these devices, like the Kindle, is likely to render its images only in black and white.

Apple, however, is rumored to have a small tablet computer - a kind of large form iPod Touch - coming out later this year that will display in color, play video, and even allow users to browse the web.

Perhaps it could help do for news publishers what the iPod did for music publishers - create another source of revenue.

But if it simply allows easier access to free news on the Web, it could undercut publishers' hopes for large e-reading devices.