The FCC filing for the B&N device mentions a company named Amtek (
http://tinyurl.com/ygapga2), most likely manufacturing the device so I think what that rep is talking about is a separate Plastic Logic product to be released next year.
I was thinking what B&N could do as a marketing strategy to leapfrog the Kindle and it seems that color e-ink is the best option. Personally I could care less about color and would rather have an ebook reader that supports multiple formats and native PDF but for mass appeal, yep color is the way to go.
Average Consumer: Color > Black & White