A few weeks back, Borders opened up pre-ordering for the Kobo e-reader, a simple, $150 tablet that will be attached to its upcoming e-bookstore. We didn’t realize at the time, but the bookseller has no plans of stopping there. In fact, Borders will launch a series of up to 10 e-reading devices across the price spectrum in its retail locations. All the devices will make use of Borders e-bookstore and will be showcased in retail stores in an area called “Area-e.”

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Now that we know that ultra-thin, flexible OLEDs are coming, designers have really seemed to open the floodgates of imagination in coming up with devices to feature them. I’m officially declaring it National Flexi-Display Week 2010.

We’ve seen what Sony is working on and we’ve seen a wrist computer concept that Sony should be proud to put its name on. Now here’s an e-reader concept that gets even more thin and flexible. The eRoll designed by Dragan Trencevski features a thin, paperlike display that rolls in and out of a cylindrical carrying case. After all, the e-reader was designed to replace the magazine and newspaper, why shouldn’t it roll up like one?

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Amazon CEO Jeff  Bezos was quoted at a shareholder’s meeting yesterday as stating that a color version of the Amazon Kindle is still a “long way out.” Despite making some early moves that appeared like it was going to try to compete on the iPad’s turf, Amazon looks like it will retain the Kindle’s classic, black-and-white e-ink display for the forseeable future.

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If you’ve been waiting for the wonderful world of color to open up your e-reading experience and don’t want to throw down $500 on an iPad to get there, this new Pandigital Novel e-reader looks like just the ticket. Priced at a sub-Kindle/Nook $200, the Pandigital brings a seven-inch color touchscreen and Barnes and Noble e-book support, providing access to over a million books as well as B&N’s LendMe feature.

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With other major bookselling players Amazon and Barnes & Noble already staking their claim in the e-reader market, Borders has followed suit and branded its own e-reader. Leaving the high-tech and fancy interface to devices like the iPad, Borders has chosen to compete on another front: price. Since e-readers really just replace inexpensive paperback books, a lower price could appeal to many people.

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Amazon will be releasing an update for Kindle software. The v2.5 update brings a variety of new features that Kindle users may or may not love.

Like every other electronic device out there, the Kindle is now more social thanks to the addition of Facebook and Twitter features that let you share parts of books via the social media sites. A similar feature called Popular Highlights lets you view what passages other readers from the Kindle community liked in the book that you’re reading–sounds kind of like when you’d buy a used book in college and have to read through multi-colored highlighter marks.

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Shortly before the iPad was trouncing both of them, the Nook had a strong month of March and beat out the Amazon Kindle in terms of e-readers shipped. According to numbers by Digitimes, B&N took 53 percent of e-readers shipped in March. Analyst Mingchi Kuo said that the strong showing was due in part to general consumer interest in new products, so the Nook won’t necessarily continue such strong numbers.

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E-Ink has some new e-reader displays under development, and vice president of marketing Sriram Peruvemba has put together brief demonstrations of the displays in action. The first new display offers several prominent upgrades including a drastic, near-double increase in contrast (10 to 1 from 6 to 1) that should make e-ink a little easier on the eyes. Another big upgrade is faster refresh rates that will make animation possible.

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In a robust firmware update, Barnes & Noble has brought a variety of new features to the Nook. Version 1.3 should be available to Nook owners as I write and offers some interesting new upgrades that they’ll surely enjoy.

Perhaps the most interesting is Read in Store. Barnes & Noble will add a number of free titles that will be available for streaming in retail locations. Nook users can tap into the free Wi-Fi already available in B&N stores and enjoy access to the titles while in the store. It’s unclear how many titles will be offered, but they’re supposed to include bestsellers and releases from all major publishers. The only catch is that titles will only be available for an hour per day, but users will be able to get a free peak at the book or come back several times to read it all (likely dropping some money on coffee and pastries in the meantime).

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