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Sony Corp said Tuesday it will launch an electronic book store on the Internet and start selling a device that displays e-books purchased from the store October 1， after missing an earlier unveiling in the Spring due to technical reasons.
The Sony Connect book store will carry about 10，000 books from the top
six publishers， including News Corp.'s HarperCollins and CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster.
The launch of the store coincides with the official debut of its highly anticipated electronics book reader， which reviewers have said mimic the quality of regular paper.
The “Sony Reader Portable Reader” system will sell for about $350. For a limited period， new Connect customers will receive a $50 credit to buy books from the service.
Electronic books cost on average about 25 percent less than the cover price of physical books， a spokesman said.
Sony's latest generation reader， announced in North America at the Consumer Electronics Show in January， garnered attention for the electronic ink technology it employs made by E Ink of Cambridge， Massachusetts. It uses new technology that allows digital text and graphics to be displayed without power-hungry back-lit screens.
索尼公司周二表示，公司将推出网上书店，并从“十一”开始销售可显示电子图书内容的新设备。索尼原打算在今年春季发布电子书服务，但因技术原因推迟了。
索尼Connect书店拥有6家顶级出版商提供的约1万册图书，这些出版商包括新闻集团旗下的哈伯克林斯出版社和哥伦比亚广播公司的西蒙与舒斯特公司。
与网上书店同时推出的还有款新型的电子图书阅读器，一些评论家表示，该阅读器的印刷质量可与普通纸面相媲美。
新推出的“索尼便携式阅读器”售价约为350美元。在规定时间内，新用户在网上书店购书时可获得50美元折扣。
索尼发言人说，网上电子图书平均售价大约比普通书籍便宜25%。
在今年1月的北美消费者产品展会上，索尼发布了最新的阅读器，它采用了美国E Ink公司的电子墨水技术，新技术无需耗能的背光屏也能显示数字内容和图像。 董 莉
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