This one's still officially in the rumour stages but definitely plausible, considering Barnes & Noble's recent purchase of eBook seller Fictionwise.com — the number one bookstore chain is reportedly working with an unnamed device maker and cell carrier Sprint on an electronic book-reading device of its own. Partnering with Sprint would provide the eReader with an always-on wireless connection for content delivery on par with the Amazon Kindle's Whispernet, giving it an edge over its other main competitor Sony with its line of Reader devices using e-ink technology for low-power page turns.

We greet this news with mixed feelings — on one hand it's welcome to have more competition and options in the eReader device market (we're looking forward to seeing the Plastic Logic Reader come to market as well). On the other hand there's a nagging suspicion that electronic book readers may prove to be too expensive one trick ponys, particularly with the advent of cheap netbooks, more of which are likely to be subsidized by cell carriers. With the Whispernet model the consumer pays an up-front device cost and gets unlimited wireless service for the life of the device — but for now that device can only do one thing: serve up a la carte priced content supported on that device. Is the act of book reading really so specialized that hardware must be specially designed to accomodate its entry into the digital realm, or will eReaders be a relatively short chapter sandwiched between physical print distribution and the advent of more generalized portable ubiquitous computing devices? What's your take?

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