That e-books and publishing industry actually have a future became more evident from Sony's over 500,000 book-titles agreement with Google for the Sony Reader Digital Book!

The announced collection, comprising public domain titles from Google's book archiving attempts, will be available by means of Sony's eBook Store service. It would be accessible for users either via their PCs or via Sony's PRS-505 and PRS-700 Reader devices.

With the new collection, the overall collection of books at the eBook Store will soar to over 600,000 titles available for download. The figures would have a significant bearing so far as Sony's competition with the Amazon Kindle 2 is concerned - Amazon sells over 245,000 books for the Kindle, assorted newspapers, magazines, and blog content!

No doubt, the Sony and Google agreement is a striking one - what with the tech industry now exposed to better devices, accessible e-commerce stores, better-functioning DRM, and more publishers!

Talking about the move, Steve Haber, president of Sony's digital reading business unit, said: "We have focused our efforts on offering an open platform and making it easy to find as much content as possible, from our store or others, whether that content is purchased, borrowed or free. Working with Google, we can offer book lovers another avenue for free books while still providing a seamless experience from our store."