A look at the Plastic Logic eBook reader from the floor of the 2009 O'Reilly Tools of Change Publishing Conference. The reader also features a wireless interface, a soft (onscreen) keyboard, and downloadable document mark-up. Perhaps most importantly, Plastic Logic plans to releases an SDK for it, making it a software development platform as well. The reader is expected to launch early next year. They say that they plan to keep the price competitive with other readers, while noting that it does have more features. As one rep said, it's got double the features, but won't be double the price (we're guessing between $350 and $500). Visit www.plasticlogic.com for more details on the reader. The video was produced by the Open Publishing Lab at RIT. The OPL is a cross disciplinary open-source publishing research center. To learn more about the OPL and our open-source publishing projects, visit http://opl.rit.edu or follow us at: http://twitter.com/ritopl This video was taken using a Kodak Zi6 Digital Video Camera http://www.kodak.com/go/Zi6

In addition to the Plastic Logic, the Readius eBook reader and the iRex (in the background) were also on the floor of the 2009 O'Reilly Tools of Change Publishing Conference. These two units were hanging out at the PressReader booth, and Igor Smirnoff of PressReader was good enough to give us a quick demo of the Readius. As you can see this reader has a neat fold out screen, taking advantage of eInk's flexible qualities. In fact, the screen is larger than the core body of the reader. Note that (in a possible design trade off) the screen isn't touch sensitive, and browsing is controlled by buttons on the side of the body. Also, according the the Readius website it currently doesn't support as many eBook formats as the Digital Logic (though more could be enabled before launch). In the video Igor mentions in the video that it's also a phone. While the Readius is a Tri Band/3.5G HSDPA device, it doesn't appear to have a built in voice2voice telephony app. That said, it will definitely be able to download content over the network (including from PressDisplay's service -- more on that in a moment). The reader is expected to launch later this year in Europe. No word yet on price or when it is coming to the US. Note that because its a Tri Band/3.5G HSDPA device when it does make it to our shores it will only work on AT&T; and TMobile networks. Visit readius.com for more details on the reader. The service/software that Igor is demoing on the Readius is PressDisplay -- an online newspaper publishing and reading platform. From a publisher's perspective it allows newspapers to push their daily edition to the web and maintain a "paper style" browsing experience without losing such online features as reflowing text. It also provides an e-commerce engine for buying individual issues and subscriptions. For readers, the site aggregates newspaper content from around the world, and allows users integrate it into a custom newspaper that can be read on screen and mobile devices. For more information on PressDisplay check out their website www.pressDisplay.com and their blog http://blog.pressdisplay.com. The other eReader in the video is an iRex www.irextechnologies.com/irexdr1000 The video was produced by the Open Publishing Lab at RIT. The OPL is a cross disciplinary open-source publishing research center. To learn more about the OPL and our open-source publishing projects, visit http://opl.rit.edu or follow us at: http://twitter.com/ritopl This video was taken using a Kodak Zi6 Digital Video Camera http://www.kodak.com/go/Zi6