A Kindle for Magazines? Hearst's Working on It

Whatever the future of magazines looks like, there's a pretty good chance that an e-reader along the lines of Amazon's Kindle, but with a bigger, more sophisticated display, plays some part in it. It looks like the first ones will be produced by Hearst Corp.

According to Fortune, Hearst has been developing a device it plans to unveil later this year. It will bear a resemblance to the Kindle in several regards: The display will use energy-efficient e-ink, and content will be downloaded via a wireless connection. Unfortunately, like the Kindle, the first version will also have a black-and-white display -- almost certainly limiting it to a curiosity for hardcore gadget geeks. But color displays capable of video are being tested, and even the first-generation devices will boast a large screen approximating the size of a standard magazine page.

A 122-year-old company, Hearst has been engaging in some fairly forward thinking of late. This week alone, the company hired a Yahoo executive, Neeraj Khemlani, to spearhead its digital content operations; unveiled plans to introduce citizen journalism to its newspapers through a partnership with Helium; and explored the possibility of adding pay-per-view sections to the website of the San Francisco Chronicle (assuming that paper survives).