Barnes & Noble introduces Nook e-reader

Jake Widman
Wednesday, 21 October 2009 07:27

Your IT - Mobility

Barnes & Noble is taking pre-orders for the Nook, which will ship at the end of November and cost US$259.

That's the same price as the 6-inch Kindle, which has a physical keyboard where the Nook's color LCD screen is.

Besides the color screen and WiFi support, the main advantage touted by Barnes & Noble over the Kindle is the Nook's LendMe feature. This lets one Nook owner pass an e-book to another device with supported e-reading software -- such as an iPhone or iPod Touch, certain BlackBerry or Motorola smartphones, or a Mac or PC -- where it can be viewed for up to 14 days.

Other highlighted advantages include the ability to synchronize notes between devices.

In further news, Barnes & Noble and Adobe announced a partnership to standardize the EPUB and PDF formats for e-books.

Furthermore, Barnes & Noble plans to adopt Adobe Content Server as a DRM solution for downloaded digital content.

The partnership is described as a benefit to consumers because it will enable the bookseller to provide a wide variety of content across a wide range of devices.