Like something out of Star Trek, a newspaper editor reaches across his desk for a slim, page-sized rectangular sheet of plastic, pushes a button, touches the screen and the daily headlines appear. He tosses the e-reader from one hand lightly to the other, lets it drop to the desk and turns to his computer to reprimand an employee for a typo...

Elsewhere, a student picks up his e-reader and taps the screen until the correct page of his textbook appears, reads a sentence or two, and then continues writing his essay assignment for the day...

Okay, back to reality. But is this all that far-fetched? Kindle, an electronic reader specifically designed to be easy on the eyes and user-friendly, is currently available from Amazon.com. Sony has a similar design, and many technology companies will follow suit with similar readers for books, magazines and newspapers during the course of the year (Michael Copeland, "The End of Paper?" Fortune, March 3, 2009). A new technology and a new era of the "printed" word...Stay tuned for its impact on life as we know it!