You don’t need to work in the media industry to know that the publishing world is in dire straights. E-Readers are offering new hope to newspapers, magazines and other struggling print publishers.

E-Publication was a core topic at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, with a myriad of new third generation eReaders hitting the market in the hopes of make reading cool again and easily discoverable. Gone are the days of black and white text, this year we are seeing magazine inspired layouts, color screens and interactive features. Looking at the endless array of kindle-like devices, I realized how hard it is for them to stand out from the crowd, and how many of these products might never see the light of day.  Brands such as Barnes and Nobles are able to leverage their brand presence and consumer points to push the “Nook”, and many others are also partnering with traditional books stores like Borders to get their product to market. They are all looking to set themselves apart with larger screens, heightened connectivity and interactivity. So, let’s have a look at the top players.

Many of us have already seen the Barnes and Noble “Nook” pre-CES, priced at $259. The Nook features a 6-inch e-ink screen as the Kindle as well as a lower color touch screen that allows you to navigate content and use a virtual keyboard for typing searches and annotations. In addition to its AT&T 3G wireless connection, the Nook features Wi-Fi connectivity and 2GB of internal memory (you can add up to 18GB via microSD cardslot).

The Plastic Logic’s Que is on the market for  $649, but for $799 you can get the AT&T connected 3G version. It has a much bigger screen than the Kindle (11.6-inch), and will be sold through Barnes and Noble, which powers its bookstore. The plastic touchscreen makes it lighter than glass eReaders, weighing just over a pound. Though displaying in black and white only, CEO Rich Archuleta’s claim that the Que marks the arrival of the “paperless briefcase”, with 4GB and 8GB models holding up to 35k and 75 documents respectively.

With its 11.5-inch-diagonal screen and quarter-inch thick design, “The Skiff” is very similar to the Que. Backed by Hearst, Sprint is powering the Skiff’s wireless feature and will carry it in 1,000 of its stores.

The Entourage Edge is most closely related to Microsoft Blio, and will be priced at $490. It has a color LCD screen and an e-ink display, weighs three pounds and runs on Google’s Android operating system.  It opens up like a book, with an eReader on the left and a netbook on the right. The makers of the device claim, “It’s not two devices. It’s one device with two screens”. Similar to the Blio, the synchronized screens are conducive to a wide array of activities – you can highlight a word on the eReader and Google it on the netbook portion, or you can keep notes on a word document while following an academic text book on the left. A cool feature is the integrated microphone and camera, for recording classroom lectures!

Then there’s Spring Design’s Alex. Priced at $399, the Alex reader is available via Google Books and a partnership with Borders. The Alex has two screens: the upper 6 inch electronic ink screen is used for e-reading, and the bottom 3.5 inch color touch screen is used for synchronized Android web browsing.  While supported by Borders, the Alex is an open platform, so you can go to any bookstore (even Barnes and Noble).  It’s a bit thinner than the Kindle and will be available in February.

Finally we have Microsoft’s Blio Software, a highlight of Steve Ballmer’s keynote speech. With its dual screen and Ray Kurzweil software, the Blio is much more interactive than the Entourage Edge. It takes interactivity beyond mere online web browsing and synchronized screens, allowing users to take an anatomy quiz or write notes directly on the eReader portion of the device. I’m also a fan of the read-aloud feature, with a computerized voice reading highlighted words on the page.  The Blio is an excellent academic tool, and makes me wish I had it when I was back in high school!

There is something very intriguing about the Blio, or any device that incorporates more elements into one. Personally, I already have an Apple laptop, a netbook, an iPhone and a Kindle. If there could be a nifty device that incorporated at least two of those things, I could be easily sold. Being able to watch a movie, read a book, write an email or proofread a word document on one platform is the ideal scenario.

Even though we have listed the myriad exciting devices on the market for 2010, we have missed one very important device, which could destroy the future of any of the above players: The Apple iSlate or Tablet. The Apple Threat is real and very much felt across the CES floor, as everyone awaits the January 27th Macworld announcement. What the iPod and iTunes did for music, so the iSlate tablet hopes to do for publishing!

Speaking of tablets, many have coined 2010 “The year of the Tablet”, with Microsoft, Apple and many manufacturers fighting for dominance. It seems the Android has secured its place as the leading tablet operating system, with a plethora of manufacturers signing on.

In addition to the HP-branded one that Microsoft displayed in the keynote, Dell also showed off its first-ever 5inch screen tablet, based on the Android OS. Another Android based tablet comes from Motorola, with a 7-inch screen and full network interactivity. Interestingly, HP also announced a tablet running Android, which looks alarmingly like the one we saw in the keynote running on Windows 7 (confirming my assumption that Ballmer desperately scrambled last minute to get a tablet on show).