Hmm. New (old) eReader coming?

From Publisher’s Lunch:

2006 is already looking a lot like 2000 again. At January’s big Consumer Electronics show, Sony is expected to unveil a US version of their e-book reader using an electronic ink display, previously available only in Japan (where it hasn’t exactly set the market on fire.) Expected to retail for $300 to $500, the e-reader will draw materials from Sony’s own iTunes.com clone — where Harper, Random House, and Simon & Schuster have agreed to provide files, with Harper and Random each saying they’ll offer nearly entire lists of 25,000 titles. The report has no indication on how the e-books will be priced.

Does this mean that they’re getting rid of some of the more annoying DRM on this thing? Let’s see…