Aiming to “evoke the crackling ignition of knowledge,” Amazon.com will debut its wireless e-book reader Kindle today, promising to do for the written word what the iPod has done for digital entertainment, Newsweek’s Steven Levy writes.

Levy waxes rhapsodic over the $399 device that appears, at least in poorly-lit FCC photos, to have skipped the design department, holds about 200 books and a “limitless amount in virtual library stacks maintained by Amazon.” It also allows aging baby boomers to change the font size.

The trick? Readers can buy books on the fly — without a PC — over a built-in wireless access based on cell phone broadband technology EVDO called “Whispernet.”

The Kindle arrives on store shelves as the notion of paying for content online appears to have passed its prime and after myriad failed attempts at making the long-form printed word obsolete.

With books costing about $10, blogs at either 99 cents or $1.99 a month per blog and newspaper subscriptions, perhaps Amazon’s bigger challenge is to rekindle the notion of paying for content online, even when you can get most of it for free.

(Newsweek )

Keep an eye on:

• Pioneer Electronics-backed online TV service, SyncTV, launches private test. (Reuters)
• AT&T aims to cobble together a bid for EchoStar Communications before the end of the year. (Barron’s, subscription only)
• Fox News anchor Shepard Smith reups contract for $7 million to $8 million per year. (NYT)
•  Cell phone ringtone provider Hurray Holding Co. and China’s largest independent television-show producer Enlight Media Ltd. have agreed to combine their operations. (WSJ, subscription only)

(Photo: Newsweek.com)