Kindle doppelganger? The gang at Tech-On stumbled upon this little number at this week's Tokyo's Digital Publishing Fair, and unless our eyes deceive us, this snowflake's the spitting image of Amazon's e-book reader. It comes from Founder International, Inc., the Japanese unit of Chinese Peking University Founder Group Corp., and aesthetics aside, the screen comes from the same manufacturer (E Ink Corporation) and even lets you insert a SIM card and download directly to the device. And yet, despite the evidence, the company claims its gadget was "independently developed" and has nothing to do with the Kindle. Sure, whatever you say, wink wink, nod nod. The so-labeled WeFound is heading to China at the end of 2009 for around $209, with a possible release in Japan sometime after.

[Thanks, Alex]

The guys and gals at MobileRead have scored hands-on time with the Cybook Opus and early impressions are good. They were smitten with the ergonomics of the device and its "gorgeous" 5-inch e-ink display, but oddly neglected to point out any weaknesses. Equipped with an accelerometer, 1GB of storage, microSD expansion slot, and a user-replaceable battery, the Opus is able to read PDF and ePUB files -- with or without DRM -- and organize them into folders. There are rumors of a €250 ($349) asking price, but the exact details of when and where it will be available remain unknown. Click through for a video of the reader doing its thing or hit the read links for more extensive coverage.

[Via Slashgear]

Read - MobileRead exclusive : sneak preview of the Bookeen Opus
Read - Cybook Opus: Discovering the reader, video

A news item is circulating the internet reportedly from German business weekly Wirtschaftswoche claiming Amazon is facing a major hurdle in trying to bring its Kindle to Deutschland. The problem at hand? The two big wireless providers in the country, Vodafone and T-Mobile, are both saying "nein" to providing Whispernet service, and apparently the issue has to do with how much money Amazon was willing to give -- unsurprising, if true. Another, very likely reason for T-Mobile's unwillingness is that parent company Deutsche Telekom is rumored to be working on its own e-book reader, and we gotta believe those company picnics would be mighty awkward if a large subsidiary was given the competition a major boost. We can't imagine this stopping Amazon for long, and we'd be very surprised if the Kindle didn't find some way to sneak itself into the region sooner or later.

We can't say they look a whole heck of a lot different than the EB-300 and EB-100, but Netronix's EB-600 and EB-500 are still a push in the right direction. Seen at Computex, these e-readers pack a battery good for 8,000 page turns as well as a 6-inch (EB-600) / 5-inch (EB-500) e-ink display. We were even told that the EB-500 may end up with a slide-out keyboard, but as of now, all we can do is sit Indian style, meditate on the hands-on shots down in the read link and dream of what may some day be.

While you might say Amazon's Kindle is lucky to have a single CDMA / EV-DO radio built-in, IAC would likely venture to disagree. Over at Computex, said firm was showcasing its Prodigy e-reader, which just so happens to pack every major wireless radio we can think of. EV-DO Rev. A? Check. WCDMA / HSPA? Check. WiMAX? Oh, definitely. 802.11b/g WiFi? For sure, dudes. And the fun doesn't stop there -- it's packing a 6-inch 800 x 600 e-paper touchscreen, 256MB of NAND Flash memory, 128MB of DDR memory, 2GB of NAND storage and a Marvell PXA310 processor. If all goes well, this little bugger will ship in Q4 over in Taiwan, but it'll be a cold day in Hades before it arrives on US soil. Video's after the break.

You're probably wondering what's been happening with that super thin, super sexy Plastic Logic e-book reader that we've seen floating around various tradeshows. Well, the device has landed at D7, and it's got a few new features cooked up -- most notably, built-in 3G data. There's no specifics on what carriers or bands, but besides that WiFi connectivity, you'll be able to go totally nuts out in the real world. Additionally, it looks like the company has seriously tweaked the UI, now providing a simple and clear interface for getting around your documents, and a page-turning gesture (don't mind the green tint in the pic above, the screen is still very much grayscale). The slate is definitely lust-worthy, but we noted a fairly slow screen refresh (way slower than the Kindle), which is kind of a downer -- along with that fairly distant 2010 launch date. Plastic Logic also made an appearance on Fox Business News today, and the video is embedded after the break.

We've always heard that most things come in packs of three, so just as soon as some other dodgy source affirms that Hulk Hogan will actually be replacing Steve Jobs in August, we'll be set. Shortly after seeing a 32GB iPhone placeholder over at T-Mobile Austria, we're now staring at a comically brief report from Digitimes that pegs Wintek as the "panel module supplier for Apple's upcoming e-book form factor netbook product." If you'll recall, Wintek was already independently confirmed as said panel supplier for said product back in March, but obviously Apple has remained tight-lipped on the whole netbook / tablet / e-reader thing. That said, we do find it interesting that this report clarifies that whatever's purportedly cooking in some dark, highly guarded lab in Cupertino looks more like a tablet with a netbook-sized display rather than a conventional netbook. Whatever the case, we wouldn't expect it at WWDC, but any Tuesday morning after that is fair game.

Slowly but surely, those oh-so-juicy details are leaking out about Endless Ideas' upcoming duo of e-readers. We've now learned that the BeBook mini will boast the same specifications as the original BeBook, save for the much more compact 5-inch display; if all goes well, it should be available for purchase this summer for €199 ($270). Moving on to the BeBook 2, we've learned that it will include both WiFi and 3G access right out of the box, and the company is currently working with mobile operators in Germany and France in hopes of providing Kindle-like data access for on-the-go book downloads. Unfortunately, it looks like the asking price of that one will hover in the €350 ($476) to €400 ($544) range, but you can check out a Dutch interview with the new announcements just past the break.

[Via Slashgear]

Upstart company Interead is looking to jump into the ever-expanding library of e-book readers with its debut, the COOL-ER. Company founder Neil Jones describes it as the "iPod moment that e-readers have been waiting for," calling the device the first of its kind to be designed specifically for the non-technologically inclined reader in mind. Indeed, the aesthetics seems to borrow liberally from the iPod nano, and features eight different color options. It weighs in at 6.3 ounces, or a little less than half of the Kindle 2, with the same 6-inch e-ink screen, and is small enough to fit comfortably in your jacket pocket, he says. It's got 1GB internal memory and a SD card slot, as well as a 2.5mm headphone jack with a 3.5mm converter bundled with every device. The feature set is pretty barebones, with no keyboard, text-to-speech, WiFi, or Whispernet equivalent -- all files have to be loaded via USB or SD card -- but in its place is a more attractive $250 MSRP, and Jones assures us at that price the company'll be making a profit on each unit sold. Format support includes EPUB, TXT, JPEG, any kind of PDF, MP3 for audio, and eight languages including Russian and traditional / simplified Chinese. The company's also launching an e-book store and offering an extra discount for customers who register their COOL-ER. It'll go on sale May 29th for US and Europe via its website, with retail distribution partner expected to be announced closer to the launch date. We're gonna wait until we get a few chapters into Alice in Wonderland before giving a final verdict, but in the meantime, check out our initial hands-on in the gallery below.

Read - Product page
Read - Online store