Here are some quiet happenings as e-books struggles to cross the technological chasm. This is what technology looks like when it struggles under the radar years before mainstream acceptance.

• Sony, Philips and digital paper pioneer E-Ink began selling last year in Japan (of course) a paperback-sized electronic book reader that uses 170dpi electronic paper (paper with dynamic ink).
• Early experiments with color video on electronic paper have successfully pushed the refresh rate from one frame a second to 80 frames a second.

By the way, new cool electronics always show up in Japan first. My trip to Japan in 1999 put me in gadget paradise, full of useful widgets that I never knew existed. The Japanese population is addicted to this stuff. For instance, check out Japanese button-controlled high-tech toilets with numerous features such as a cockpit-like control panel, seat warming, bidet, butt-cleaning spray, air freshener, artificial flushing sounds (to hide certain other sounds), etc. There are a number of sites on the Internet that showcase and sell Japanese gadgets like gadgets.3yen.com and dynamism.com.