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The rumour comes courtesy of analyst Tim Bueneman, who met with Amazon's management and was told the company was considering building on its familiarity with the textbook market to push the Kindle towards universities.

"There are already several new, improved versions of the Kindle in the works," he wrote in a note to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "But AMZN has no plans, however, for an MP3 music audio version. We guess the new version will have improved interface operating controls. This has been an issue with some buyers."

Alongside the simplified interface, the new Kindle could also feature a much larger screen than the original, possibly as large as 8.5in x 11in, ideal for scratching out notes.

The company also reaffirmed that the reader is selling well, but suggested recent reports by CitiGroup that it would sell 380,000 in 2008 were "extremely high".