[DonaldL.]

More Readers Picking Up Electronic Books

For a decade, consumers mostly ignored electronic book devices, which were often hard to use and offered few good things to read. But this year, thanks in part to the popularity of Amazon.com’s wireless Kindle device, the e-book has started to take hold.

“The perception is that e-books have been around for 10 years and haven’t done anything,” said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division. “But it’s happening now. This is really starting to take off.”

E Ink, the company in Cambridge, Mass., that has developed the screen technology for many of these companies, says it is testing color screens in its labs and hopes to introduce them by 2010.