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Kindle for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad can now display embedded video and audio clips for Kindle e-books, courtesy of the latest upgrade to the app. Read this blog post by Lance Whitney on Digital Media.

Not sure if someone else already posted about this, but Kindle could find itself in the middle of a copyright battle over audio rights.

New Kindle feature infringes on audio rights?

Find Hundreds of Free eBooks, Audio Books, and Textbooks at Open Culture

President of Author's Guild feels Kindle's "text to audio" feature infringes copyright.

Possible generation-gap-type issues for digital educational publishing for colleges: "Today, the college assumes all students not only have computer skills but a plethora of high-tech devices and services. The class schedule and registration procedure is entirely online-even if you're in the registrar's office....In the first class, the professor handed out her e-mail address and the URL where the syllabus could be found--instead of her office phone number and a copy of the syllabus. Unfortunately, the college sites are full of graphics and animations and download very slowly on my dial-up connection. (Even if I could afford a broadband connection, my ISP doesn't provide it in my area.)" "At least one exercise in each chapter requires accessing the publisher's textbook Web site. Many of these exercises could just as easily be put on the computer disk also sold-at an increased profit (I used to work for a textbook-preparation company)-with the text....Again, a dial-up connection won't download the videos. The audio files are .mp3; I can't open them, don't have the skill to know what program I need, and have no access to free technical support....So once every chapter I head for either the heavily used public library or the equally heavily used computer lab in the college's suburban learning center (branch campus)--and hope that a computer is available."

Perhaps soon audio books and e-books will be combined, and parents will no longer have to read to their children! Interesting that their is a publisher out there adding/expanding print.

G.P. Putnam's Sons acquired two new novels in Paretsky's bestselling V.I Warshawski series. Ivan Held, president of G.P. Putnam's Sons, and G.P. Putnam's Sons executive editor Christine Pepe negotiated the deal with Paretsky's longtime agent, Dominick Abel, for North American, audio and e-book rights.

Amazon and the Authors Guild reach an agreement on the read-aloud feature. I think it's a smart play by Amazon. Authors that choose to disable may hesitate due to a possible public relations backlash for not wanting disabled readers to get access without getting more money in the process.

Wil Wheaton responds to Kindle Text2Speech controversy.