Newspapers on portable flexi-screen

One of the interesting things about e-readers is figuring out a way to put books on a portable, lightweight, easy-to-read device without taking away too much of the experience of holding a book. Hence the reason why the Kindle has a giant button on the side that is kinda sorta like turning a page. Well, what about with newspapers, where your news is printed on these giant sheets of paper?

Plastic Logic has come up with a concept: a lightweight screen that displays your newspaper, flexes, and when you “turn the page” it refreshes the screen to the next page of the paper. Something like this, if made durably enough, could go a long way to finally eliminating printed newspapers. And people who like the idea of reading a paper on something other than their computer screen or phone could have something more substantial to hold.

The device would be the size of a standard piece of (electronic) paper (lighter than the iLiad) and would keep updated content via a wireless link. It would also be able to store and display hundreds of pages, so users could store several full newspapers (depending on what news organizations participate in formatting articles) from the week all at once. Plastic Logic is hoping to have the reader out for consumers in the first half of 2009, and the price will be revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas in January.

Electronic newspapers could possibly be the rebirth of the newspaper as something useful, since, for now, there’s no reason to subscribe to a paper unless you like the sound of a snapping page, the feel of ink on your fingers, and the handiness of scrap paper laying around the house. Via NYTimes