The first commercial E-Ink product is about to hit the market in Japan. According to the BBC the Sony LIBRIe 1000-EP will cost around 200GBP and be available in April.
While this is the first version of the technology, it looks like it may well take off. If the screen is as good as it sounds, the propect of weighing your holiday bags down with paper-backs may well be coming to an end...
The Register have the specs of the new device. They say that the display is 800x600 @ 170dpi - as apposed to the usual computer display resolutions of 72dpi. The unit weighs 190g and measures 12.6 x 19 x 1.3cm. with a USB 2.0 port, Qwerty keypad, speaker and earphone socket.
Electronic Ink only requires power to change the display. The early prototypes had a slow refresh rate but the advantage that once the display has been changed the power is switched off, meaning you can spend as long as you want actually reading the text. Indeed, the press release says that 4 AA batteries lasts for 10,000 page changes.
No news yet on the systems OS. My guess is a palm based system as it is in Sony's ---- range. It would also support the speaker and headphone allowing you to play MP3's on the device...
