Amazon.com Inc. on Wednesday plans to unveil a new version of its Kindle e-book reader with a larger screen and other features designed to appeal to periodical and academic textbook publishers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Beginning this fall, some students at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland will be given large-screen Kindles with textbooks for chemistry, computer science and a freshman seminar already installed, said Lev Gonick, the school’s chief information officer. The university plans to compare the experiences of students who get the Kindles and those who use traditional textbooks, he said. [via wsj]

So what do we already know about what people are calling the “Kindle DX”? The following information has pretty much been confirmed:

• The 6-inch display has been increased to 9.7-inches
• There is an included PDF reader
• Added ability for note-taking and annotation
• The price of newspaper subscriptions might be dropped. Specifically mentioned was the NY Times, which makes sense because Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is said to be making an appearance tomorrow.
• The web browser will have improved functionality, though it’s not clear if this will be over the 3G Whispernet service
• Amazon has made deals to have the new Kindle in the hands of college students for the fall semester. Specifically Pace, Princeton, Reed, University of Virginia, and Arizona State were mentioned.

A bigger-screen version of the Kindle may be coming to market as soon as this week. The new e-ink device would arrive just three months after Amazon introduced the Kindle 2 and is expected to be optimized for newspapers, magazines and possibly even textbooks. The idea is that the current Kindle is fine for reading novels and the like, but a bigger screen device could help with newspaper and magazine layouts while giving these old-media companies a means to save millions on the cost of printing and distributing their publications. 

The big hope is to somehow reverse the fortunes of the tumbling print news industry, allowing publishers to charge subscription fees and load their pages with advertising. Of course, they’ll have to compete with free online versions of the same publications that are quite readable on today’s portables and handheld devices like the iPhone. There’s also the issue of having to buy and carry around yet another device, which is likely to be just as expensive (if not more) as the Kindle 2 – unless Amazon and its partners offer some kind of subsidy [via techspot]