If you’ve been waiting with bated breath for a proper Kindle 2 knock-off, the Chinese have answered your prayers with this one that looks just like the Kindle. The device will arrive in Japan by the end of 2009, and the price tag will be around $210. The device will have a built-in cellular modem with SIM card.

The company, Peking University Founder, offered no further specs, but we would really like them to explain just what the hell their name means. Shady gadgets, shady names. I suppose they want to make you feel safe, as if the founder of Peking University endorses this thing.

Jointech has announced their new JE100 ebook reader, a 7-inch device that uses an LCD touchscreen instead of an e-ink display. Based on Windows CE 5.0, the Jointech JE100 will not only boast Mobipocket Reader, MSReader and eReader support, but also likely play back video and audio files together with viewing and editing Microsoft Office documents.

Inside it features a 400MHz CPU, 128MB of flash memory and 64MB of RAM. Transflash cards up to 4GB in capacity can be used to boost storage, and it rocks two USB ports: one a host, for plugging in external peripherals and the other a slave, for hooking up the JE100 to a computer where it presumably mounts as an external drive.

E-reader maker iRex promises to deliver a high-tech color, writable ebook reader by 2011. They claim that this device would have a brightness level three times that of the existing additive color electrophoretic displays, thanks to a system of subtractive color mixing.

Subtractive e-ink technology is compared to physical printing whereby colors act as filters to absorb portions of white light striking them and reflect back the desired hue. The additive system mixes together backlit or illuminated colors to create hues, often requiring filters that can reduce overall quality.

Rumors continue to swirl around whatever(if anything) Apple is building. Reports are that Apple has ordered 10-inch touchscreens from Taiwan. That part is looking more like fact. So the question is, will those screens end up in a netbook?

Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times has a slightly different and interesting theory about the device. He thinks it might be an ebook. Which makes more sense as the only real competitor they would have is Amazon.

This is a concept we’d really like to see realized. It looks amazing. The basic idea is that a baton contains two roll out and flexible screens. The OLED screens roll up in the baton for easy transport. When they are pulled out an electrical charge is sent down the screen, making them rigid and usable as a laptop screen and keyboard that we all know so well.

Just want to use an eBook? Then just roll out one screen. If you want to work from a desk you can just leave the screens rolled up and dock the baton on a docking station which attaches to a regular screen and keyboard.

With the success of the XO laptop from OLPC, it makes sense to start working on a second generation device called the XO 2.0. It will be much smaller compared to the first one, and will feature a foldable e-book factor.

It will also be just half the original’s size, with dual indoor-and-sunlight displays that provide both a right and left page when held vertically, a hinged laptop in horizontal format as well as a flat, dual screen continuous interface for tablet mode. Power suckage has been reduced to just an impressive 1 watt. You’ll have a nice long wait though, since it will be released sometime in 2010.