On last Wednesday (06.05.09.), Amazon introduced a larger version of the Kindle, pitching it as a new way for people to read textbooks, newspapers and documents. It also offered limited information about new partnerships that are intended to put Kindles in the hands of more university students and newspaper readers.

The device, called the Kindle DX (for deluxe), has a screen two and a half times the size of those on the two older versions of the Kindle, which were aimed primarily at displaying book pages. The price tag is larger, too: the DX costs $489, or $130 more than the previous model, the Kindle 2. It will go on sale this summer.

Speaking to a crowd of journalists, Amazon employees and business partners at Pace University in Manhattan, Jeffrey Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, said the new Kindle was a step in the direction of a long-dreamed-of “paperless society.”

Amazon said it had reached agreements with three major textbook publishers to make their books available in the Kindle store: Pearson Education, Cengage Learning and Wiley Higher Education. It said six colleges and universities — Pace, Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, Reed College and the University of Virginia — would begin testing the device with students later this year.