Life is hard for dedicated e-readers these days, what with the iPad and other devices giving you so much more. And so Foxit is throwing in the towel. The company just announced that it’s killing its eSlick e-reader. Instead the company will focus on licensing its ebook software to other companies.

It didn’t help matters that the eSlick hasn’t received an update since it arrived in December 2008. It has been stuck at $199 as well, while other e-readers have been more competitive. RIP eSlick.

Acer’s LumiRead ebook reader will have Acer’s clear.fi solution implemented into the DLNA-compliant device that lets you access Acer clear.fi and share content like ebooks and audio-books across compatible devices. You can also connect via Wi-Fi or 3G connectivity to download the latest bestseller if you like.

Acer has an agreement with Barnes & Noble in the US, Libri.de in Germany and Founder in China for local content in English, Chinese and German. There are also other agreements in the works for French and Italian readers. The Acer LumiRead features a 6″ non-glare, non backlit e-Ink display which offers a paper-like reading experience even in bright sunlight.

With the Apple iPad on the way to the UK, it perhaps isn’t the best timing for Samsung to ship its SNE-60 eBook reader to the UK, but that’s their problem. If you want an Apple alternative, the SNE-60 packs a 6-inch 600 x 800 greyscale e-ink display and measures 171 x 120 x 16mm and weighs in at 315g.

It has Wi-Fi built-in, but no 3G. The built-in memory should store 1,200 eBooks, and there’s also the SD memory card slot. Other features of the SNE-60 include support for ePub, PDF and TXT formats, a built-in dictionary, text-to-speech, and MP3 playback.

ebook readers are everywhere these days and it seems that every manufacturer is jumping on the bandwagon. The latest from China is the Bmorn B80 ebook reader. While we don’t have very much information about it, we can tell you that it comes with a color display.

We have no idea what kind of color screen, but the battery life is probably not that good anyway. We don’t see this being a Kindle rival anytime soon anyway.

Looks like the Kindle now has a worthy arch-enemy. Apple’s iPad has an ebook store called “iBooks”. (What else?) The publishers include all of the big players: Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette.

Apparently the books won’t be cheap, which means publishers can stay in business longer. You can probably expect price wars very soon. The example book is a hefty $15. Interestingly, Apple is using ePub, which means books from other stores may work as well.

You love your Nook right? But the design is pretty boring. Well now you can choose the look that you want, whether it’s a clashing color scheme or a solid. You can go as ugly as as pretty as you like. You’re the one who has to look at it.

Colorware will now bring your Nook’s exterior to life. A fresh paintjob will cost you $125. If you have the scratch, head on over to Colorware and design the Nook of your dreams.

The rumors of a Lenovo eBook reader have been circulating for awhile now, and now we have word that it will be called the Lenovo Tianji EB-605. It’s not confirmed yet officially, but it’s a 6-inch device that should cost under $300.

See that SIM card icon at the top of the display? That probably means that it supports 3G. Some other features are a 400MHz Samsung ARM CPU and support for DF, CHM, EPUB, TXT, HTM, HTML, RTF, PDF, DJVU, MOBI, and PRC formats. Hopefully we will know more soon.

According to The Wall Street Journal, publishing company HarperCollins is in talks with Apple about bringing e-books to Apple’s rumored tablet. You know, the one that’s expected to be the focus of its January 27th event. That tablet.

Apparently other publishing companies have been in talks with Apple as well. Sure, e-book readers are what it’s all about at the moment, but soon after it will be all about being integrated into slates. It’s still unconfirmed and just a rumor, but this one makes logical sense and gels with what we’ve been hearing.

The latest ebook reader to hit the market is the new Hanvon N618 ebook reader from the WISEreader line. This one features a 6″ Vizplex e-paper display, Wi-Fi, a 3.5mm headphone jack, USB connectivity, 320MB of internal memory and an SD memory card slot.

The Hanvon will play nice with TXT, HTXT, HTML, PDF, DOC, XLS ebooks, JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF and TIF file formats. It also boasts handwriting recognition so you can jot down notes on your TXT ebooks. It’s just a tad expensive and costs half a grand in China. Keep in mind that this doesn’t even have an ebook store connection.

One day eBook readers may look different, but for now they all tend to look the same, with white bodies and a keyboard. Looks aside, they aren’t all created equal. Take the iRiver Story, now available on Amazon for £230 ($380).

Sure that’s a bit pricey, but competition will continue to sort things out. IRiver is hoping that you prefer this one over the Kindle or a Barnes & Noble Nook. Do you? Let us know your deepest darkest ebook thoughts.

BenQ is hitting the e-Book market with the nReader K60. The device has a 6-inch touchscreen e-paper display that uses SiPix Microcup technology to produce a native resolution of 800 x 600 pixels with 167 dots-per-inch and 16 grey scale.

The nReader K60 features 2GB of storage, which will hold roughly 4000 books and if you ned more it’s got a microSD card slot for more storage. Some other features include WiFi, a mini USB port, USB 2.0 port and a 3.5mm audio jack. The K60 supports a variety of file formats including ePub, PDF, TXT, HTML, JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, and MP3.

The eBook market is quickly getting as hot as the netbook market with new eReader coming to market all the time. Over the last few weeks, the Kindle has had its price cut and Barnes & Noble has announced the Nook. Today Creative has announced plans to bring its Zii MediaBook to market.

The MediaBook will be a touch screen device with a color screen that offers much more media functionality than existing products reports Creative. The MediaBook will let users surf the net, access Twitter, and Facebook.

We don’t have many details, but what we do know that Creative has been busy developing a “MediaBook” that aims to combine video, pictures and text into an eBook form factor. The company is talking with publishers, primarily in Singapore, where they already have several e-learning initiatives.

Thanks to Engadget we have a nice blurry pic of the Creative UI, but that’s about it. There’s a touchscreen, making it different than an ebook like the Kindle and similar to the Nook.

Here’s an interesting eBook from Asus dubbed the eee-Book, sporting two color displays that lets you flip the pages like you would on a real book. Think of it as a large Nintendo DS on it’s side. You can also browse the web on one of the displays, presumably while reading on the other.

It connects using 3G or Wifi, comes with a memory card slot and supports Skype audio/video conferencing. The price is a really nice $165. Look out Kindle! That’s about all the info we have right now, but we like what we see.

Barnes & Noble, the ginormous US book store chain has just announced its very own eBookStore. And as you might expect from a heavy literary retail hitter like B&N, they are doing things big. It already features some 700,000 eBooks. According to them, that’s the largest eBook store ever.

And you can bet that they expect that selection to grow quickly. The company also announced a partnership with Plastic Logic, which is an eBook manufacturer and says that they will be catering to every platform.