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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Tech / Books Nookie Reader!

Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:27 AM

According to the New York Times, Barnes and Noble is introducing their e-reader today. It is called the "Nook" E-Reader, which, when you say it aloud fast, actually makes "Kindle" sound like the best name in the universe.

Engadget has a little more news about it: It does have an e-ink screen above and an iPhone-like touch-screen below. It also will allegedly cost $259. It will allow you to "lend books to friends," which the Kindle decidedly does not allow you to do. But it remains to be seen whether this is a Zune-like social feature that is heavy with weird stipulations.

By the end of this year, according to the Times article, it's estimated that the number of people who own e-books will double. I know that independent booksellers are getting very close to including e-book sales, too. I've heard that a couple independent bookstores in town will start selling e-book readers for that purpose pretty soon.

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Comments (7) RSS

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burgin22 1
Readers in their current form will never be more than a niche item owned by a small group of book/tech nerds.

Posted by burgin22 http://www.zombo.com/ on October 20, 2009 at 11:39 AM
2
It is a brilliant name the way Wii was a brilliant name: It can be defended with a semi-straight face ("Like a book nook! It's a place that holds all your books!") while obviously inviting jokes--and thus buzz, repetition, familiarity, fondness. It's worlds better than the name Kindle, which still evokes "Burn your dead-tree books!" to me.
Posted by Christin http://twitter.com/scottique on October 20, 2009 at 12:13 PM
Will in Seattle 3
LOL. Too bad the iPhone is still more usable in the real world.
Posted by Will in Seattle http://www.facebook.com/WillSeattle on October 20, 2009 at 12:16 PM
4
A biased comparison is here.

Prominent to me is this: "EPUB and eReader Formats Supported" Why AMZN decided they didn't need to support the industry standard, open format is beyond me.
Posted by thename on October 20, 2009 at 12:44 PM
dollface 5
whenever we mention "zune-like features" on SLOG I think we must also post back to Troy's comment from Nov. 2006.

http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/11how_m…
Posted by dollface on October 20, 2009 at 2:01 PM
Supreme Ruler Of The Universe 6

And its Android based!

http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=80…

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com on October 21, 2009 at 12:41 AM
7
The Nook is doomed on Day One. Future roadkill for Apple.
Posted by Arkansas Blogger on October 21, 2009 at 1:14 AM

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