See Also: Sarah Palin's 'Going Rogue' Goes Discount On Kindle Time Inc.'s Jonathan Shar Joins Barnes & Noble To Build 'Digital Newsstand' Plastic Logic Debuts A $649 E-Reader Aimed At The Business Market

Barnes & Noble Inc. CEO Steve Riggio is stepping down, the company announced this morning. William Lynch, the president of bn.com, will replace him.

Lynch, 39, has been running Barnes & Noble's Web site since February 2009 and is known as the guy who spearheaded the launch of the Nook. He's essentially Barnes & Noble's digital leader, and they will expect him to navigate the company through the increasingly competitive e-book market.

Plastic Logic, which was planning to ship its Que e-reader in April, has concluded that it needs more time to put the finishing touches on its creation. It says it's postponing release until summer in order to "further fine-tune features and enhance the overall product experience."

If the delay indeed ends up being a few months at most, it doesn't seem like that huge a deal. If I were a prospective customer, I'd surely prefer to wait a few months for a rock-solid Que than get a buggy one right away.

logic ceo richard archuleta reportedly cited the need to fine-tune the device and improve the overall experience as the reasons behind the delay. the que is particularly notable for its price point, higher than that of other e-readers

Bad news and good news. You can probably guess the bad news if you read the headline. Plastic Logic has officially delayed the Que. You may recall that the Que was the one e-reader at CES 2010 that stood above the crowd thanks to its very thin casing and large screen. It was supposed to ship mid-April, but the company can't meet that deadline. The new shipping timetable is mid-summer.

Plastic Logic is stating that they delay is 'to fine-tune the features and enhance the overall product experience.' Sorry, pre-oderers. At least.

Orson Welles famously used to say in his commercials for Paul Masson that the winemaker would "sell no wine before its time." Apparently, Plastic Logic has adopted a similar philosophy, as its once highly anticipated Plastic Logic Que proReader has encountered another snag and won't be released this spring after all.

Alas, the company continues to "fine-tune the features and enhance the overall product experience," which means that those who preordered the rather expensive e-reader aimed at mobile professionals will have to wait till summer to get their units.

Plastic Logic, which was set to ship its large screen Que e-reader in April, is now delaying it to 'sometime this summer.'

The company sent notifications to pre-order customers late Thursday afternoon announcing the delay and saying it needed the time to 'fine-tune features and enhance the overall product.'

Plastic Logic launched the Que at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. The Que proReader has an 8.5 x 11-inch touchscreen display and the ability to handle a range of documents such as Microsoft Word files.

Kindle e-reader? There is an app for that. Or, at least there will be as Amazon courts developers with the KDK (Kindle Developers Kit). The question, though, is whether or not Kindle users are even interested in apps.

The move by Amazon seems to be partly a way to raise the bar and set the Kindle apart from competing e-readers like the Barnes & Noble Nook, and the Plastic Logic Que proReader. It also seems like an aggressive move by Amazon to expand the functionality of the Kindle to provide a more "tablet-like" experience to preempt the rise of tablet PC's--like the Apple tablet PC expected to be announced by Apple next week.

For several years Richard Archuleta has been showing up at trade shows with prototypes of Plastic Logic's as-yet-unreleased Que e-reader. But it's almost ready. Archuleta told Larry Magid that the device will finally ship in April at a starting price of $649 for a 4GB model with Wi-Fi and $799 for the 8 GB model with Wi-Fi and 3G.

At that price, the 3G model (with the ability to download books via a built-in cellular radio) will be more than three times the price of the Amazon Kindle and $310 more than Amazon's 9.7-inch global wireless Kindle. The Que will have a 8-1/2x11-inch display.

Think CES stands for the annual Consumer Electronics Show? Think again: this year CES could stand for "Crammed with E-readers and Slates." Every time you turn around, a new report comes out of CES announcing yet another multipurpose touchscreen device that's smaller than a netbook, but bigger than an iPhone.

Archos, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Sony are just a few of the manufacturers to debut slate computers at CES. Meanwhile, Plastic Logic finally announced a release date for the Que e-reader, Hearst debuted the Skiff, Spring Design unveiled Alex--a dual-screen, Android-based e-reader--and Amazon announced the Kindle DX with Global Wireless.

Taken by itself, the Marvell Armada 166e chip seems very similar to the Freescale i.MX embedded processor, which will also integrate the display controller from E Ink, the display technology at the heart of many e-readers, including the Amazon Kindle.

But the partnership with FirstPaper will also allow color graphics of different display sizes. On Monday, Marvell announced design wins with EnTourage Systems for its EnTourage Edge e-reader/netbook, which will ship in early 2010. The Armada 166e chip will also be included in the dual-screen Spring Design Alex e-reader.

The official unveiling of Barnes & Noble's new Nook e-reader is only the latest entry in an increasingly crowded market for a device which many hope will finally cut the average reader's ties to reading materials made from dead trees.It follows recent introductions of similar devices, including the Plastic Logic QUE, the Spring Design Alex, the Sony Reader, and the Amazon Kindle.

Barnes & Noble on Wednesday finally unveiled its Nook e-reader, a dual-screen device based on Google Android technology and an E-Ink display which allows the downloading, reading, and sharing of free and paid-for e-books.

Plastic Logic has given a name--but not a launch date--for its forthcoming e-reader.

The e-book reader, which can display electronic books as well as PDFs, PowerPoint, and other business documents, will be dubbed the Que, the company is announcing this week. Plastic Logic said it will show off the Que at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, at which time it will announce pricing, availability, and other details.

The online gadget site Gizmodo has posted photos and descriptions of what it says is the upcoming Barnes & Noble e-reader device, which seems to have a dual-screen configuration with a monochrome e-book reading screen and a color touch-sensitive LCD for browsing.Gizmodo declined to publish the name of the device because it may change and because the existing name "is freaking terrible," it wrote on its Web site. However, in one of the photos, the word "Athena" appears to be silk-screened on the upper right of the front bezel.

Plastic Logic has demonstrated the latest version of its upcoming e-book reader, showing off a thin device that uses its touch screen for all navigational tasks.

Richard Archuleta, chief executive of Plastic Logic, demonstrated the not-yet-named gadget at The Wall Street Journal's D7 conference. The reader is scheduled to make its debut in the market early next year.

Plastic Logic was on hand at yesterday's D7 session to demonstrate its highly anticipated, super-thin e-book reader. Expected to launch early next year, this Kindle rival is designed primarily for business users.

Almost everybody loves an underdog. Still, it's a monumental leap of faith to suggest that a small fry has much of a chance at toppling the Goliath of the electronic reader market, Amazon.com.

When it comes to e-readers, the hype machine has gotten ahead of the reality. Earlier this week, photos of the super-slim, sexy Plastic Logic Reader -- not available until next year -- circulated the 'Net and graced a New York Times article on the coming wave of big-screen readers meant to display newspaper, magazine and textbook content.

Amazon's Kindle DX.

Amazon's (Nasdaq: AMZN) announcement of the Kindle DX on Wednesday -- hot on the heels of the Kindle 2's emergence earlier this year -- appears to have injected new life into the e-reader industry, which has been languishing for about 10 years.

Amazon may still be riding high on the success of the Kindle 2.0, but rumor has it that the company is already getting ready to release a new version of the eBook reader. The latest rev of the device is said to compete with forthcoming devices from News Corp., Hearst, and Plastic Logic--all seeking to give readers an electronic method for consuming newspaper content.

The rumored device will have a larger screen than the current Kindle--with dimensions closer to that of a standard newspaper. The Kindle will theoretically.

Amazon plans to introduce a new, larger version of its e-book reader Kindle as early as this Wednesday according to reports. The new device will be aimed as an alternative to physical newspapers and magazines in a bid to salvage the dying print media.

A larger Amazon Kindle could look like this prototype from Plastic Logic, who is also developing a larger reading tablet. | Photo: Plastic Logic