by Vera H-C Chan

Imagine a rack that holds only one magazine, but the issue magically updates every month. Or every time you pick up the newspaper, the news has changed.

That future is kind-of-but-not-quite-here with Esquire's 75th anniversary edition and its E-Ink digital display cover. Well, it's not the entire cover, and tecchies have sniffed at the unveiling. Portfolio describes the unit as "only a little bigger than a credit card, and about as flexible." The gadget boys at Boing Boing aren't only underwhelmed, they're "outraged by the design's tackiness, the bereavement of imagination, the lack of class..." The blog goes on to kick some more dirt into the face of "dying" print journalism.

Still, in the clubby sluggish world of publishing, a beginning's a beginning (or, as the publisher put it, version 1.0 is version 1.0). Esquire tells of the 7,000-mile journey to get the issue developed (at least the display unit is recyclable). Like many, Make magazine promptly disemboweled the cover to reveal its 21st-century innards.

The next evolution may not come shrinkwrapped in a magazine, but be tossed on the front steps as a newspaper... or newsscreen, as the case may be. A British company called Plastic Logic debuted a plastic screen double the size of the Amazon Kindle or Sony eReader. PaidContent reports that the device, which also uses E-Ink technology, can be updated wirelessly. (A big investor in E-Ink: Hearst Interactive, which owns Esquire, newspapers, and other media.) 

The New York Times explores some implications of a Plastic Logic future, such as cost savings for daily news publishers and privacy concerns for readers, but no insight as to how birds used to having their cages lined with newspaper will feel about the death of newsprint. Feathered friends, messy collectors, news junkies, and technology critics can judge in 2009, when the British-made gizmo hits shelves.