Citing unnamed sources, the New York Times has reported that a larger, super-sized version of Amazon. com's Kindle reader is on the cards, and will likely make its debut within this week!

The Times said that larger e-readers have a much wider sphere of focus over and above the textbook market alone. They are being visualized as "electronic life preservers" for newspapers and magazines threatened with complete extermination amid the difficult economic times. In fact, larger e-readers - include models from Plastic Logic and News Corporation - are lately being hyped as `digital saviors' for old-media firms.

Commenting on the use of e-readers, Roger Fidler - the digital publishing program director at the University of Missouri, Columbia, said: "If these devices had been ready for the general consumer market five years ago, we probably could have taken advantage of them quickly. Now the earliest we might see large-scale consumer adoption is next year, and unlike the iPod it's going to be a slower process migrating people from print to the device."

Without doubt, the attraction of digital readers lies essentially in their potential as a cost-saving paperless platform, which is accessible at a monthly fee. Particularly in the recession-hit traumatic situation faced by most publishers, the digital devices can help companies save considerably on the cost of printing and distributing their publications.