Had to happen sometime

Of course this would happen in Korea first. A while ago, a friend and I had a semi-Kindle type of machine for a project, and the major criticism was that to have a successful replacement for a magazine or a book, the device would need to be flexible, say like rolling a magazine up into a beach bag. The technology has plenty of different applications, too.

LG has been prototyping this for a while, and says that the first product to market will be an 11.5 in reader, released some time in the first half of 2010. Seeing that, according to Inhabitat, we killed 125 million trees in creating books and magazines in 2008, it would most definitely save on paper resources, as well as the energy to transport the trees and process them. With the incredible battery life of even the first litter of e-readers, I would assume the battery life will not be an issue. Imagine if there was no need to publicize with paper products anymore. Of course, there is no replacement for buying a new book, flipping through it to get that new book smell, and having it on your bedside table. From an energy and convenience standpoint, however, e-readers are the way of the future.