The third generation of Amazon's already succesful e-reader looks to have sold two to three times the amount of previous versions. Amazon themselves are yet to officially release sales figures this year for the new Kindle, but in a Facebook post the company cited "millions of our all-new Kindles" being sold in the first 72 days.

A story published by Bloomberg however says sources "aware of the company's sales projections" are suggesting 8 million units have been sold.

This would mean that the Kindle has enjoyed success on a similar scale to that of Apple's iPad tablet computer. The relatively low price point of the Kindle could partly explain this.

The tablet market is likely to intensify with a new entry from Blackberry – Blackberry Playbook.

Details surrounding the Blackberry Playbook remain somewhat unclear, with any demonstrations of the tablet being made with the device encased in a glass box. There are however several things which we do know for certain about the device.

The QNX operating system:

The Playbook is to make use of a newly designed QNX OS. Given RIM's history of producing stable and secure operating systems it will undoubtedly impress. Early demonstrations of the OS known as QNX Neutrino show one capable of multi-tasking and multi-core processing.

The OS is also said to be capable of running Flash 10.1 and HTML 5 allowing a complete web browsing experience. The Playbook is also capable of pairing with any other Blackberry smartphone running software V5 or higher and sharing information between devices.

The Hardware:

According to Blackberry's website the Playbook is set to be the fastest tablet yet. It houses a dual-core 1GHZ processor and 1GB of RAM. This should allow the tablet to process some pretty graphic intensive applications as well as high resolution video. The tablet has already been shown playing 1080p footage without problems.

Dual cameras will allow video conferencing to take place on the device in a similar fashion to that of the iPhone 4's FaceTime.

The 7" screen is said to be multi-touch capable and full HD.

The Release Date:

Blackberry are yet to announce exactly when the Playbook will be available. However the official company website has a an in depth page on the tablet.

Price:

It is unclear yet as to how much the device will cost. Given Apple's tradition as a somewhat premium product and the success of the iPad in its current price range, it is unlikely that Blackberry will engage in a pricing war with Apple. However the tablet itself doesn't have a 3G connection, so potential buyers could see a discount when bought alongside a Blackberry smartphone.