One of the most interesting finally-hitting-the-real-world products shown at the Consumer Electronic Show is Sony's electronic portable reader. Most will scoff at the idea that this will change user habits -- we've had, and largely rejected, the idea of reading eBooks on little PDAs for years -- however there is a core difference with the new Sony device: electronic paper.

Instead of using an emissive technology like LCD (which is emissive through the backlight, with negligible reflective properties) or CRTs, electronic paper (which has been evolving in various niche products for going on a decade) actually changes the reflective property of the surface, absorbing or reflecting the ambient light, just like real paper. Secondly, this first generation release features a dot density greater than most current display technologies, display 170 dots per inch rather than the standard 72 dots per inch (fitting 800x600 in a relatively small display, versus the terrible 320x240 display of most PDAs). A static, reflective, relatively high resolution display not only allows for a good amount of information on the screen at once, but it'll be dramatically easier on the eyes as well.

Supposedly electronic paper in colour form should be available soon, which should be very interesting.

I'm going to keep my eye on this technology, and will really consider it if they can maintain or increase the dot density, but up the size to 8 1/2 x 11. It would be a killer device at that point.