Google brings e-books to mobiles

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Google is making its vast online library of books available for mobile phones.

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“We are excited to announce the launch of a mobile version of Google Book Search, opening up over 1.5 million mobile public domain books in the U.S. (and over half a million outside the U.S.) for you to browse,” the company said.

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The Internet search giant, in a post on Thursday on the Google Book Search blog, said mobile versions of the books could be read on devices such as the Apple iPhone or T-Mobile G1, which is powered by Google’s Android software.

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“These new mobile editions are optimized to be read on a small screen,” Google said. “With this launch, we believe that we’ve taken an important step toward more universal access to books.”

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To access the mobile version of Google Book Search a user needs to type http://books.google.com/m into the web browser of their iPhone or Android phone.

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Google’s announcement comes just days ahead of the expected unveiling by Amazon of a new generation version of its popular electronic book reader, the Kindle, at a New York press conference on Monday.

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Amazon is also planning to make its online store of e-books for the Kindle available on mobile phones, the New York Times reported on Friday.

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“We are excited to make Kindle books available on a range of mobile phones,” Drew Herdener, an Amazon spokesman, told the Times. “We are working on that now.”

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The Amazon spokesman did not provide any further details.

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Google will initially only be offering books in the public domain — those which are not under copyright — for mobile phones.

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Amazon, on the other hand, offers the latest releases and 230,000 titles in all, including 103 of the 112 current New York Times bestsellers.

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