Imagine an electronic device about the size of an 8.5" x 11" pad of paper, light-weight, flexible, networked, with crisp display capable of displaying content magazine-formatted content. Such a device could download issues of your favorite magazines and newspapers for your reading pleasure. Better yet, such a device could download and assemble custom periodicals from editorial sources, blogs, social networking sites, any any other sources that you select!

Sound like a vision of the future? Take a look at Plastic Logic. They're launching their first product in 2009.

Plastic Logic isn't alone in this space, though. Amazon.com's high profile Kindle reader is approaching the market with a different form-factor device with similar capabilities. And then there is Apple's iPhone, along with a growing number of competitors, which offers yet another, more portable form-factor and more interactive features.

The future is here, now, but we'll need to wait to see which approach(es) will win in the market.