Now we see the 4th generation e-Readers enter the market.....

Its great when you can talk about work you have done, and great companies you have worked with. Too often in cutting edge tech work, the NDA's are pretty constrictive. Anyway, this week Plastic Logic unveiled its next generation e-Reader, using flexible pages. There is a video of it over here from DEMOfall.

As the article we've linked to notes, however:

Other bloggers have overreacted somewhat by predicting that the Plastic Logic reader will kill the Kindle, but that isn't going to happen. There's more to providing a good e-book experience than industrial design. The Kindle is very well supported by Amazon, and it has that unique free-forever wireless-data link. But if Plastic Logic can find a partner with ties to the publishing industry and solve the wireless problem, the result would be a serious challenge to Amazon.

Exactly - the lesson, from the iPod onwards, is that the end device needs to be supported by an end to end supply chain to capture maximum value. I'm sure Plastic Logic is well aware of this. But, having seen the technology in action, all we can say to anyone contemplating buying an e-Reader is check these ones and maybe wait till they come out.

(Update - from Drew Benvie's blog a link to El Reg talking about a toaster that acts like a printer. Seems like a very similar space to our work on e-Readers really. Prompts the thought - will Plastic Logic make plates, shower curtains and the like that one can read? )