Continuing to really dig my Xteink X4 ereader, a tiny eink device that easily fits in a shirt pocket, where mine has now semi-permanently taken refuge. I outfitted the gadget’s sleep screen with the central image from the American edition of William Gibson’s 2020 novel, Agency. Doing so was simple: You just make a 480 x 800 bitmap file and pop it on the memory card. Because the CrossPoint Reader alternate firmware provides wifi access for file transfer, doing so was all the more easy. As for the image itself, I’ve always loved the ingenious way this book’s designer drew attention to how a simple load sigil can signify emergence, especially when combined with the out-of-focus face. Even though you know it’s just a still image, the circle with the arrow suggests motion — or better yet, a software glitch that has resulted in a frozen state. Now reproduced in low resolution here on this cheap digital device, the image has a sense of actual software. This little Xteink ereader is unique at the moment (there’s also an X3, which is smaller but requires an idiosyncratic charging cable, circumstances at odds with the ease of the X4), and it suggests a new category, one in which things can be purpose-built using limited chips, older generation screens, and modestly scoped firmware — and then be hacked after the fact as the GitHub set demands.