Germany's Deutsche Telekom is developing a portable e-reader that could be competition for Amazon's Kindle.

They are currently planning a test run with a few dozen of prototypes in Berlin. Pictures of the product, whose code name is "News4me", have not been revealed yet.

Peter Möckel, head of Deutsche Telekom's R&D department, said the "company sees a market in the gap between mobile phones and laptops."

However, Deutsche Telecom won't manufacture the devices, nor will they offer any kind of content, according to CrunchGear. Unlike with Kindle, the users will just have to download content from print media onto their e-readers (no RSS, online news, and so forth).

The researchers are trying to keep the "form" as similar as possible to articles in the printed format. According to one of the engineers, Kindle is in the right direction but DT's News4me will have a larger (and possibly flexible) display, and it will be easier to operate.

France Telecom's Orange is also working on a similar project called "Read&Go". Kindle is not in either the French or the German market.

Source: CrunchGear