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The day after you bought that Kindle 2 last week, Jeff Bezos was on a stage announcing a whole new Kindle: the DX, with a larger screen, support for PDFs and a free pony with every purchase. (The screen isn't the only thing that's larger - have a look at the price tag.)

The size increase will go over well with people who need a big canvas - students using the Kindle to read textbooks are a big target audience for the DX. But I can't help but wonder if the newest Kindle is heading in the wrong direction. Portability, after all, is one of the device's most dazzling charms; Kindles 1 and 2 are about the size of a trade paperback, and smaller than most hardcovers.

During an event in New York City this morning, Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, unveiled a larger version of the company's successful Kindle eBook reader. The new device, the Kindle DX, has a 9.7" display that is about two and a half times larger than that of the Kindle 2. The Kindle DX will come with a built-in PDF reader, and features an auto-rotate mode, so that readers can easily switch between reading in portrait and landscape modes. The Kindle DX will cost $489 and is scheduled to ship this summer.

Amazon just released a free application for the iPhone and iPod touch (iTunes link) that allows users to download and read any eBook from Amazon's Kindle store on Apple's popular mobile devices. This move comes just a few days after Amazon's Kindle 2 eBook reader arrived in users' hands, but according to Ian Freed, an Amazon vice president, Amazon does not expect that this app will cannibalize Kindle sales as users will probably only use their phones to read for short periods.

"Gather 'round children, it's time for story time with RoboGrandma - just make sure my batteries are charged!" This kind of blatant intellectual property violation will no longer be committed by the Amazon Kindle. The company today announced that it has given in to demands by the Author's Guild and will let publishers choose whether or not to enable the Kindle's speech to text audio functions for individual texts. Remember, folks, when reading by robots is outlawed, only outlaw robots will read aloud.

The Author's Guild argued that Kindle had only licensed display rights for content on the kindle, not audio or performance rights. The feature will now be neutered and put under the control of publishers on a title by title basis.

A few weeks ago, just after the introduction of the new Kindle 2, the Authors Guild complained that Amazon's eBook reader had a text-to-speech function. According to Paul Aitken, the Guild's executive director, this meant that Amazon would have to pay for audio rights for every book downloaded onto the device. Today, Roy Blount Jr., the Guild's president, echoed this sentiment in an op-ed piece in the New York Times.