Sony will launch its Portable Reader System (PRS-500) in Canada this fall, which could provide a new revenue stream for this country’s newspapers. Some major papers in the U.S., U.K., and Europe are already testing readers, which can also help cut production and delivery costs.

Canada’s major papers are already firmly entrenched in the electronic world with online editions and e-mail newsletters, and most offer downloadable content. The Globe and Mail, for example, provides an electronic version, as well as RSS feeds, and content accessible to mobile/PDA devices through third-party services like AvantGo or wireless providers.

A Globe spokesperson says the national paper doesn’t currently support content for the new form of portable readers but does have a project team dedicated to exploring such opportunities.

The Sony reader is already available in the U.S. where the Borders chain of bookstores recently signed a deal to make the reader available for ebooks in about 200 of its stores. The device weighs less than nine ounces, is only half an inch thick, and can store and display multiple formats including pdfs and jpegs in addition to playing MP3 files. Currently priced between US$300 and US$400, it is expected that, like most technology, lower costs will facilitate penetration.

iRex Technologies BV of the Netherlands, a spinoff of Royal Philips Electronics, is the other company active with electronic readers. Italy’s Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso S.P.A. recently began a test of iRex’s iLiad brand reader with a panel of 300 customers receiving electronic versions of its paper, la Repubblica.

Perhaps they are smart to jump now; by 2007, it is expected that digital screen technology will have evolved to the point of being lightweight, flexible, and portable enough to be able to carry a downloadable electronic newspaper and then be rolled up and tucked into a back pocket.