Amazon will make its Kindle electronic books available for reading on web browsers beginning early next year, with people’s digital collections saved in the Internet “cloud”.

Amazon executives yesterday showed off “Kindle for the Web” at a Google press event introducing a new, swifter version of the California technology giant’s Chrome software for navigating the internet.

Kindle for the web was unveiled a day after Google opened an online electronic bookstore in a heavyweight entry into a booming market long dominated by Amazon.

Google eBookstore rolled out in the United States features the Mountain View, California-based company’s massive library of digitised works online at books.google.com.

Hundreds of thousands of digital books from leading publishers such as Macmillan, Random House and Simon & Schuster are for sale in the eBookstore, which Google said will expand internationally next year.

Google e-books are kept online in the Internet “cloud” and available for reading from any web-linked computer or using free applications on gadgets such as Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch or on smartphones running Google’s Android software.

Kindle for the web will launch early next year and the application will be available in a Google Web Store that made its debut on Tuesday.

Kindle books will be accessible through any standard browser, which will enable new features such as being able to do Internet searches on words highlighted in digital works, a demonstration showed.

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