Esquire will include an electronic display on the cover of its September issue. The display will use E Ink technology (the same technology used by the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle) to flash "the 21st Century Begins Now."

The New York Times has the details:

If it does wind up in the Smithsonian, it will need a power source; on its own, the magazine will run out of juice after 90 days. Mr. Granger knows some will see the cover as a gimmick — but he says he thinks the technology behind it, which has been used for supermarket displays but never embedded in a magazine, speaks to the possibilities of print.

“Magazines have basically looked the same for 150 years,” Mr. Granger said. “I have been frustrated with the lack of forward movement in the magazine industry.”

Pointing to the prototype sitting on a conference room table, Mr. Granger said, “The possibilities of print have just begun. In two years, I hope this looks like cellphones did in 1982, or car phones.”

So what do you think? Is this just a gimmick to show that magazines can be chic in the digital age, or is this the beginning of a trend to embed electronic images and pages within printed periodicals?