CES: E-read all about it

The electronic book reader category didn't exist at last year's International Consumer Electronics Show. This year it has its own place on the show floor, the eBooks TechZone. Twenty-three manufacturers are showing goods here — everything from the processors that are the machines’ brains to a waterproof case to the devices themselves.

The leaders in this fast-growing branch of the electronics market have so far been Amazon.com’s Kindle, Sony’s Reader and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. But many more are coming.

One new e-reader is the eDGe Reader from McLean, Va.-based Entourage (http://www.entourageedge.com/). This first-ever dual screen reader won a 2010 Innovations Award at CES. It opens like a book and includes a 9.7-inch electronic-ink screen on the left side and a 10-inch liquid-crystal-display touch screen on the right. It's the best of both worlds, as links embedded in pages on the e-ink side will open on the LCD side. This includes videos, which I saw during a demonstration of the eDGe.

The unit is scheduled to hit the market in February priced at $490.

For people who want to read while soaking in the bathtub or floating on a raft without sinking their Kindles, a new waterproof case will be available soon. M-Edge, an Odenton, Md., (http://www.medgestore.com/) company that produces e-reader cases and accessories, will be shipping a waterproof case sometime this year that’s priced at less than $100, a company representative said.

Click below for a list of all the manufacturers in the CES eBooks TechZone:
http://bit.ly/6nOIbN