According to The Guardian, “it certainly looks and feels like the Mail - with the same brash headlines and high-impact designs that the paper is famous for - but allows readers the flexibility to either click through content as they would on the web, or flip through page by page.”

Stories resize to fit the screen they are downloaded for, so the e-paper could theoretically be used on mobile phones, palmtops and other small devices.

Do innovations like the Mail eReader contribute to diverting readers from newspapers’ print editions?

"We absolutely don't see it as being cannibalistic; research shows that people use the two things in a complementary fashion. We want the eReader to slide in somewhere between the printed publication and the website," said Alan Revell, chief operating officer of Associated Northcliffe Digital, the Mail's new-media arm.

The target goal of the eReader is to reach ‘touchpoints’, which describes how readers use different media and have different media habits throughout the day.

The Mail’s British competitors are still divided, trying to decide whether they should follow suit or wait for this market to grow.

"Increasingly we want to be seen as a company that does want to experiment around the leading edge of technology; we want to be a leader not a follower," said Revell.

In any case, e-paper is far from being a dream anymore. Last week, Fujitsu announced it had developed a full color e-paper product at the Publishing Expo in London.

Source: Media Guardian