Google eBooks is now live...sort of. Worldwide, you can download free, out-of-copyright, eBooks. It's only in the United States that you can actually buy books. Google says it's still in talks with publishers to sell books in other countries, but that should follow soon.
Google eBooks is up against stiff competition from the already-fairly-well established Amazon and Apple's iBooks. But it works in a slightly different way.
For a start, as well as being able to get books from the official Google eBookstore, there will be other sellers as well.
And the Google offering is cross-platform. You can buy and read books on your desktop computer, laptop, netbook, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Sony Readers and any Android-powered smartphone or tablet.
So, you could buy a book on your PC, start reading it on your iPhone and finish reading it on your Android tablet. Google eBooks will remember where you were up to in the book and take you straight there.
There are Google eBooks free apps for iOS and Android.
You'll notice the big omission: there's no support for the Kindle. You can't read Google books on the Amazon device.
Google says it has three-million titles and a quick look at the US store shows the paid-for ones are being sold at about the same price as Amazon and Apple.
But, with a new player in an emerging market, you never know....prices may get pushed down.
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