Designer Valentina Trimani’s Lightleafs light-up bookmark would use a bright OLED light source, and not only would mark your pages, but provide sufficient illumination to read in bed with the lights off. The proposed design not only calls for a wireless, rechargeable lightsource, but would also offer adjustable brightness.

I really do hope that Valentina finds an OLED partner to produce these. While I can certainly read self-illuminated books on my iPad, I still like to pick up the occasional magazine or physical book and read in bed.

[via Buzz-Beast via Design You Trust]

Author Ryan Mecum’s humorous book features the 5-7-5 poetic stylings of the undead masses, including such literary gems as:

With a strong sucking,
they pop right into my mouth.
Eyeballs taste like grapes.

Lying on the road,
a few ate until they burst.
I eat what burst out.

and my personal favorite:

Brains, BRAINS, BRains, brains, BRAINS.
BRaiNS, brains, Brains, BRAINS, BRains, brains, BRAINS.
BRAINS, BRains, brains, BRAINS, brains.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Pulitzer prize here we come.

[Think Geek via The Awesomer]

Bookeen’s Cybook 3 reader will hit shelves this September, with prices starting at $350 USD. The Cybook 3 is a super-slim electronic book reader that’s only about as thick as a magazine and weighs in at just 6.1 ounces. Powered by a crisp 6-inch 166dpi E-Ink electrostatic display technology, the device can display up to 8,000 pages on a single charge.

The Cybook 3 is compatible with Amazon’s Mobipocket book distribution technology, meaning that you’ll have access to around 50,000 books when the reader is released. The device can also read a variety of other non-DRMed content formats like RTF, HTML, PDF and PRC files without any conversion software. It can also handle JPG, GIF, PNG and MP3 file formats. Just transfer the files you want to read via USB, and they’re ready to go. In addition to a small amount of on-board storage, the device has an SD slot, so you can store a huge number of books for those really long journeys.

This is definitely one to watch for when it comes out this Fall.

The WordsGear offers an amazingly sharp 5.6-inch TFT display with a 1024×600 pixel resolution (that’s about 211 pixels per inch.) This means reading small type should be no problem, and easy on the eyes. Thanks to a special touch sensitive grip, it’s designed to be controlled with a single hand, so you can even use it while standing up on the train or bus.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Since the display isn’t one of those electrostatic ones, it can also handle moving images, and cam play MPEG4 video clips. There’s also AAC and WMA audio playback, and you can listen to your tunes while reading. Content is stored on SD cards, providing plenty of expandability. The rechargeable battery should give you about 6 hours of reading on a single charge.

There’s a huge catalog of e-books for the device (all in Japanese, though) available from Saidoku. From what I can tell, you can load up your own PDF documents so you won’t be limited to Japanese content.

The Wordsgear can be ordered from gadget importer Dynamism for $479 (which is a significant premium over the price in Japan, which works out to about $350.) I’m hoping Panasonic will decide to make an English language version at some point, but I’m not holding my breath.

The Sony Reader features an innovative high contrast E-ink display, capable of allowing up to 7,500 pages to be displayed without a battery recharge. The display is designed to be read from just about any angle, and won’t wash out under daylight conditions (although I’d love a backlight for nighttime reading).

It’s hard to tell from the picture, but the Sony Reader is only about the size of a large paperback book at 6.9-inches high by 4.9-inches wide by .5-inch thick.

Out of the box, the player has sufficient (64MB) memory to store about 80 eBooks. Plenty of additional storage can be gained by adding a Memory Stick or SD memory card. In addition to displaying Sony’s book format, the Reader can also be used to view Adobe PDF files, JPEGs and even has audio playback capability for MP3 and AAC files.

Included with the Reader will be access to Sony’s CONNECT online store with over 10,000 eBook titles available for download. Sony has also announced that they will be including a $50 certificate toward eBook purchases with initial shipments of the Reader through December.

This is looking like it could be one of the must have gadgets for this holiday season.