Sure, you could read the news on a portable device from a seasoned tech company, like Apple. But why turn to Apple for technology when you could buy something built by Time Inc. and a cartel of other desperate magazines?

Terminal patients often suffer colorful delusions. But none is as cruel as the fantasy Amazon.com has kindled among dying ink-stained wretches, who believe a magical electronic reading device will cure what ails magazines and newspapers.

Digg needs to sell itself. Kevin Rose's headline-voting site is drowning; the more popular it gets, the more red ink it generates. But who needs a bunch of news stories rated? Here's an idea: Amazon.com.

Discovery Communications, the owner of cable channels like FitTV and Animal Planet, is suing Amazon.com, maker of the Kindle, over an electronic-books patent taken out by its founder and CEO, John Hendricks, years ago.

What's Twitter good for? Knowing that your life of quiet desperation is shared by the rich, powerful, or merely well-read, for starters. Steve Case, Sasha Frere-Jones, and Rob Corddry deserve twitty pity:

Esquire editor David Granger loves the Amazon Kindle. Sort of. The e-book reader gives him hope that Internet-shortened attention spans will lengthen enough to spark a renaissance in books and magazines. He's utterly delusional.

If you didn't buy Amazon,com's e-book reader — shown above in a CNET video — you're far, far from alone. A CrunchGear rumor report says Amazon will try again for this year's holiday shopping season. Kindle 2.0, says "an insider," will be bigger, less fussy to use, and thank God Almighty they're going to get rid of the original model's retro 1983 IBM PC sickly off-white plastic case color. Even Zune Brown would be an improvement. The key points from CrunchGear's report:

In case you missed their guest appearance on Today, Jenna and Laura Bush have collaborated with an illustrator on Read All About It!, the $17.99, 32-page tale of math machine and science whiz Tyrone, a reluctant reader until the books that his teacher read to the class actually came to life. All five-star reviews so far, with the exception of one Zebo Quad, who opines: "This book just proves that celebrities could vomit onto a blank page and publishers would publish it." It also suggests Steve Jobs was onto something when he dissed the Amazon Kindle e-book reader: