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eBooks: Almost Ready for Prime-Time

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to announce that I am now convinced that the days of books printed on paper are numbered. This new eBook Reader from iRex Technologies (warning: PDF link) looks almost like something I would buy. I would certainly rather use it to read eBooks than a Microsoft Origami device. Was Ray Kurzweil a little cautious when he predicted that paper would be rarely used by 2019 in his 1999 effort The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence?

In other recent virtual paper news, the Universal Display Corporation unveiled a 4-inch prototype of a 100dpi flexible OLED display last month. At this time last year, Philips Polymer Vision promised paper-liked displays in two years, and seems to be on track since they showed off a grayscale 5″ rollable display at this year’s CES in January.

[...] for the normal family. They need a new product to help out in the consumer space. I’ve written about eBooks before, but now Sony has released a new reader at an almost-reasonable price [...]