iRex Digital Reader Coming Monday

Device an acceptable substitute for daily newspaper?
The new model, available in three different configurations and prices, features a 10.1-inch diagonal screen, big enough, says Hans Brons, iRex chief executive, to replicate the look of a newspaper’s layout. That’s still smaller than Plastic Logic’s prototype e-reader, which features a screen more than 13 inches in diagonal, but it is bigger than iRex’s current iLiad model, with its 8.1-inch diagonal screen. The Plastic Logic device won’t be available until next year. Both use E Ink’s screen technology, which is also behind the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader.
The New York Times

New Step in Electronic Readers

Plastic Logic demonstrates its 8 x 11 electronic reader

A No-Paper Newspaper

Will readers pay to subscribe and advertisers sign on?
"You'll see, in the next 12 to 18 months, a wave of electronic-newspaper devices," says Russell Wilcox, chief executive of E Ink, the MIT spinoff whose technology powers the Kindle, Sony's Reader and other competitors. Roger Fidler, a former newspaper executive who now researches and consults on e-readers at the University of Missouri, cites three requirements for e-newspapers to really catch on with consumers: the devices require larger screens (to allow room for better display of stories, photos and ads), color screens (a must for advertisers) and lower prices (the Kindle currently sells for $359).
Newsweek

Epson Developing Flexible Display Technologies

An 8 x 11 sheet would cost well under $100
The company is developing "e-paper" that can be rolled up and folded as a replacement for paper-based newspapers or magazines, says Tatsuya Shimoda, fellow and director of Epson's technology platform research center. The electronic paper is expected to be on the market in five years, he says.
PC World

Plastic Logic to Introduce Electronic Newspaper

Lightweight screen mimics look of a printed newspaper
The device, which is unnamed, uses the same technology as the Sony eReader and Amazon.com’s Kindle, a highly legible black-and-white display developed by the E Ink Corporation. While both of those devices are intended primarily as book readers, Plastic Logic’s device, which will be shown at an emerging technology trade show in San Diego, has a screen more than twice as large. The size of a piece of copier paper, it can be continually updated via a wireless link, and can store and display hundreds of pages of newspapers, books and documents.
New York Times

Cellphones With E-Ink Screens

Hitachi flip phones show 96 different designs
What looks like painted artwork on the Hitachi W61H phone is actually a new E-Ink screen. Unlike LCDs that add bulk to a device, manufacturers can add these screens—just twice the thickness of a hair—as if they were stickers. Hitachi’s phone is sold in Japan, but you can also see the new screens in the U.S. Lexar uses them as storage meters on its flash-memory drives, and Delphi is developing a wireless key fob to display information such as fuel level and whether the car doors are locked. The thinner screen is less prone to snagging when the fob slips in and out of a pocket and can endure drives during a San Antonio summer or a Minneapolis winter.
Popular Science

How Apple Could Make E-Books Work

E-Books: a natural extension of the iTunes Store.
I wonder why Apple hasn’t done for electronic books what it has done for other creative arts such as music, movies, and TV shows. Why hasn’t Apple crafted a top-notch shopping and viewing experience for books, and then slapped the greatest works of our most honored writers in copy-protected chains? Why is it that the basic concept of reading hasn’t been perverted into yet another massive, glorious, fire-belching engine that makes money for Apple?
MacWorld