I have been following the development of e-readers quite closely for years. Back in my software company days, we sublet office space from Common Angels. I got early looks at electronic paper because E Ink Corp. was one of their investments. It was clear that soon digital displays would leave the world of energy intensive heavy displays and move to a technology that would be more paper like in its resolution, weight, and durability.  Just last week I looked at the Sony Reader at B & H Photo in NYC. I have looked at the Amazon Kindle when I have bumped into users in coffee shops.

And, over the last six months, I have been reading detective novels, mainly, on my iPod Touch. I have quite a collection of free books stashed on my Touch. It is great to be able to take out a book and read wherever I am. And, at night, I can reverse the display to show the text in white against a black background. Great for reading in bed without any other light source. This of course suggests that when I shift to electronic paper displays that I will have to turn on the light to read since electronic paper is not backlit like all other electronic display technologies.

Finally, now that the New York Times costs $2.00 to read on paper, we have taken up reading it via the New York Times Reader on our laptops and desktop machines.

So, it is clear that new reading tools are available and the race is on to making them a mass market device.

I was startled though to see the Sungale 7 inch eReader (picture above) for sale at Price Chopper, our local supermarket, for $75 amidst a pile of other discounted electrical and electronic products near the checkout counters. On closer examination, it turns out this is not much of an e-reader since it will only display .txt files and offers none of the conveniences that the real ereaders provide. This is really a mislabeled device for displaying pictures and music videos. Nevertheless, this is an early signal of the coming ereader revolution