Google Editions e-book service launching this summer

Think Google is content to simply make public domain books freely available for e-book readers? Not quite -- the company has just confirmed that its previously announced Google Editions e-book service will finally be launching in late June or July. That service will apparently let folks buy digital copies of books they find through Google's existing book search service, and let book retailers sell Google Editions on their own site and retain the "bulk of the revenue." Details are otherwise still pretty light, including any word of pricing or publishers involved, but Google has previously said that it planned to make between 400,000 and 600,000 books available with prices set by the publishers.