Before preliminary rulings, the ITC staff attorney assigned to a case makes a recommendation to the ITC judge. In this case, staff attorney Jeff Hsu revealed in an interview today that he will be recommending to judge Theodore Essex that there has been no violation by Barnes & Noble on the Microsoft patents in question.

However, the judge is not required to follow the recommendation and if Essex rules in favor of Microsoft, the Nook e-reader could face an import ban. The patent suit is part of Microsoft’s strategy against Android device makers, which has already successfully secured patent royalties from several manufacturers, including HTC, Samsung, and LG. The preliminary ruling for the Barnes & Noble case is set to be released on April 27.

“We see substantial value in what we’ve built with our NOOK business in only two years, and we believe it’s the right time to investigate our options to unlock that value. In NOOK, we’ve established one of the world’s best retail platforms for the sale of digital copyright content. We have a large and growing installed base of millions of satisfied customers buying digital content from us, and we have a NOOK business that’s growing rapidly year-over-year and should be approximately $1.5 billion in comparable sales this fiscal year. Between continued projected growth in the U.S., and the opportunity for NOOK internationally in the next 12 months, we expect the business to continue to scale rapidly for the foreseeable future” William Lynch, CEO, Barnes & Noble

That traditional business is being propped up by NOOK sales, it seems, with online purchases actually dropping over the holiday period but overall BN.com performance rising thanks to NOOK shoppers. In fact, NOOK accounted for $327m in online sales revenue.

In contrast, B&N overall made a $6.6m loss for the quarter as a whole, despite NOOK sales rising 70-percent in comparison to the previous year. The retailer is in talks with distributors, publishers and others regarding an international NOOK launch.

B&N says that there’s “no assurance that the review of a potential separation of the NOOK digital business will result in a separation” and that it will not comment on the decision process until a conclusion is made.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble declined to comment. However, we know that Sterling publishes mainly nonfiction titles in areas such as puzzles and games, gardening, cooking, crafts, as well as children’s books, and that Barnes & Noble will probably try to look for a potential suitor in those particular categories of interest.

Though the bookseller doesn’t disclose Sterling Publishing’s sales in its public filings, in trading today on the New York Stock Exchange, Barnes & Noble shares were down approximately 4% to $13.55. SlashGear readers, how much do you think Barnes & Noble’s publishing division will fetch in a sale? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

[via The Wall Street Journal]

The apps already available for download include Scrabble single user, Office Gamebox, Rock ‘Em sock ‘Em Robots, Jeopardy!, Wreck this App, Magic 8 Ball, and Doodle Jump Christmas. The new app for users of the devices include Words with Friends. There are more popular apps coming soon as well according to B&N.

The apps that will be added next include Twitter and Plants vs. Zombies. It’s too bad that the real Android Market is blocked. I hate to see the app choices limited to only a handful that are approved. Lots of other content is coming to the B&N Android devices including books and more.

In fact, if the rumors are to be believed, Apple is targeting a 2048 x 1536 resolution in its third-generation tablet, delivering smoother graphics and fonts. Production of the existing iPad 2 has slowed, as Apple anticipates tapering demand ahead of the iPad 3 arriving early in 2012. According to the most recent reports, that launch should take place in February.

Suggestions, then, that the 7-inch form-factor has overtaken the roughly 10-inch segment in popularity must be tempered by that Apple transition. However, despite Steve Jobs protestations against the “tweener” market, rumors of a roughly 7.85-inch iPad continue to proliferate, slotting in-between the iPhone and the iPad.

There have also been compromises required in order to buoy 7-inch tablet sales. Key among those has been competitive pricing, with the $200-250 segment hotly contested but coming in several hundred dollars lower than Apple’s tablet.

The Ebook Reader found that existing apps side-loaded onto the NOOK Tablet are still present and functional after the v1.4.1 firmware has been installed. However, attempting to run a package installer for a new app prompts an error message saying only software from B&N’s NOOK Store can be loaded.

That basically means that those who keep up to date with the latest firmware are stuck with Barnes & Noble’s selection of around 2,000 apps, rather than the many thousands generally available. The absence of Android Market access was frustrating enough, but B&N specifically locking down the NOOK Tablet in this way is unlikely to win them any fans among owners.

B&N’s decision comes as something of a shift in strategy, given how relatively casual toward hacks and mods of the NOOK Color the retailer had appeared. That helped buoy the 7-inch slate among Android enthusiasts, and the NOOK Tablet initially seemed to be more of that same solid recipe. We’re checking with B&N to see if this was a purposeful decision on its part, and will update when we know more.

The Nook Tablet launched on November 7 with a price tag of $249 and quickly became the fastest selling Nook product for Barnes & Noble. At the same time, the company dropped the price of its Nook Color and Nook Simple Touch e-readers to $199 and $99, respectively. Altogether, these changes in the last quarter increased Nook sales by 85 percent.

Sales of physical books had dropped, but Barnes & Noble says it was offset by the strong Nook sales as well as the liquidation of Borders stores. The company’s online sales increased by 17 percent from the same quarter last year and was further boosted another 10.7 percent thanks to the three-day holiday weekend. But the company still missed Wall Street expectations, reporting a $6.6 million net loss, although a slight improvement over the $12.6 million net loss from the year before.

What the folks at ifixit seem the most interested in here in this teardown they’ve done is actually one of the features you can see plainly from the outside: the carabiner clip. This little loop is one of the most unique features on the device, it meant to “represent a turning page” as we were told by Barnes and Noble back when the NOOK Color was released, both of these devices having essentially the same body when viewed from afar. Inside of course there’s a 1GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM here in the Tablet, 16GB of internal storage and availability of 32GB more via the microSD card slot behind the clip. NOTE here though if you’ve not heard it before: only 12GB of the internal storage is usable by you, and only 1GB can be used by non-B&N content. Your external microSD can house all of whatever you like.

Inside the device can be found a massive 4000mAh battery which boasts 11.5 hours of reading time here for the Nook Tablet but whose name suggests NOOKCOLOR. Don’t be deceived though, citizens, this is more than likely simply because the battery providers probably had the batteries made before Barnes & Noble decided on the new “Tablet” name. Also inside you’ll find SanDisk is providing the 16GB of internal memory, Texas Instruments provides power management IC, audio at 1.3 W on a Class-D speaker amp, and the TI LVDS83B FlatLink 10-135 MHz Transmitter.

You’ll find a FocalTech FT5406EE8 Capacitive Touch Panel Controller, display made by LG, this display being a 7-inch IPS display running at 1024 x 600 pixels and producing 16 million colors. This is essentially the same as this tablet’s biggest competitor with the same sized screen.

[via ifixit]

B&N hasn’t wandered too far from the original NOOK Color for its design inspiration, with the NOOK Tablet getting a slightly lighter finish but otherwise looking and feeling the same. At 8.1 x 5.0 x 0.48 inches it’s an easily gripped, narrow (if a little thick) device, while the 14.1-ounce weight is actually a little less than the NOOK Color. We’re glad to see dedicated home and volume controls remain, while the 7-inch 1024 x 600 IPS touchscreen is bright and has great viewing angles.

The NOOK Tablet’s software is likely to be instantly familiar to anyone who has spent time with the NOOK Color, though multimedia has been injected throughout. As well as ebooks there are now options for video – including Netflix and Hulu Plus – and Music – including Napster and Pandora – together with the tablet’s own onboard media players. 16GB of internal storage and a microSD slot should mean there’s plenty of space for local media, but B&N has strangely opted to reserve all but 1GB of the internal memory for content bought from its own store. Any microSD you slot in is fully available for your own use, however, though it’s worth noting that Android .apk files won’t install.

B&N may have built the NOOK Tablet to a budget, but the essentials are all there. There’s a microphone and a battery the company reckons is good for up to 9hrs of video playback or 11.5hrs of ebook reading, and the 1GHz TI OMAP4 dual-core processor is paired with a healthy 1GB of RAM. That should help the NOOK Tablet find favor among Android hackers, who are likely to be keen to get their unofficial ROMs running on the slate. The microphone also comes in useful for B&N’s Read and Record ebooks, which allow parents to record audio tracks for their kids to listen along to.

We’ll be testing battery life and seeing quite how good the NOOK Tablet is as a multimedia ereader in time for the full SlashGear review, so until then enjoy our hands-on unboxing and demo video and gallery!

It seems Barnes & Noble is trying to get out of having to license those patents and the bookseller is attempting to get out of licensing by urging US regulators to investigate Microsoft on the patents it holds. B&N feels that Microsoft is trying to monopolize the mobile device market by forcing Android using firms to pay patent royalties.

B&N says that Microsoft and other firms are using patents as a way to boost the cost of rival devices that use Android and take away from Windows device sales. B&N is also claiming according to Bloomberg that Microsoft is demanding the same Android licensing fees that it charges to license its Windows Mobile OS. The case of Microsoft and B&N will go to court in Washington in February.

[via Bloomberg]

Kobo’s founding company, Canadian-based Indigo Books & Music, which owns 58 percent, will receive $140 to $150 million from the deal, while Rakuten will receive 100 percent of all issued and outstanding shares of Kobo. This will bring Rakuten a line of e-readers, tablets, software, and a 5.6 million user base spread over more than 100 countries.

Rakuten claims to be one of the world’s top three e-commerce companies by revenue and will be adding 50 million potential Kobo customers from around the world. Kobo will become a wholly owned subsidiary that will continue to operate as a standalone company under CEO Michael Serbinis in Toronto.

Kobo recently introduced the new 7-inch Kobo Vox Android-based e-reader that competes with Amazon’s Kindle Fire with a $199.99 price tag, but allows for full access to the installed Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

[via VentureBeat]

David Carnoy of CNet has for the most part seen no distinct advantage in the NOOK Tablet over the Kindle Fire, the device’s primary opponent, in anything other than the storage, which he speaks about thusly:

Storage: This is a big one. Even before I lay a finger on the Kindle Fire, its 8GB, non-expandable storage capacity gave me pause. (Of that 8GB, only 6GB is user accessible.) By doubling to 16GB out of the gate–and offering the ability to add up to 32GB additional storage via microSD–the Nook Tablet makes me less anxious about storing all of the books, magazines, apps, music, and videos I expect to need, without needing to worry about being within range of a Wi-Fi hotspot for real-time streaming from the cloud (as Amazon emphasizes on its product). Advantage: Nook Color (The Kindle’s 8GB of space feels awfully thin compared to the Nook’s spacious–and expandable–16GB.)

Joanna Stern of The Verge took note of the operating system similarities to the NOOK Color and gave some interesting insight on the Netflix integration:

In terms of the OS, not much has really changed on the interface front. You still have the bookshelf layout (yes, similar to the Kindle Fire) with apps and a carousel of books on the bottom. Double-tapping on the Nook hardware button on the front takes you to another list of core-apps, including the Browser and Settings. We went back to try and get some time with Netflix only to be unfortunately blocked in our efforts — the rep we spoke with wouldn’t even open the app for us, citing bad wi-fi connection that would give a subpar impression. She repeatedly assured us that the Netflix UI was optimal (though wouldn’t say if it was the same as the general Android app) and that both companies worked together to integrate into the device strongly (i.e. recommendations).

Brian Heater of Engadget notes how the NOOK Tablet appears so similar to the NOOK Color that it’d be difficult to tell them apart in a lineup, also mentioning how they’re not quite ready for a true hands-on experience quite yet:

The new Nook Tablet certainly isn’t all that new from an aesthetic standpoint, compared with the Nook Color. Walking into a store blind, it would be awfully tough to distinguish the devices — though the Tablet is bit lighter, color wise. What separates Barnes & Noble’s two higher end readers is largely internal. Unfortunately, the products being show off at today’s event weren’t quite ready for prime time. … Unfortunately, we’re going to have to spend a bit more time with a final version of the product before we feel comfortable recommending the Tablet, given its $50 premium over both the Nook Color and the Kindle Fire.

Steve Kovach of the Business Insider notes a couple of items including Marvel Comics and Netflix integration, noting here that the OS has been improved over the original NOOK Color:

Barnes & Noble partnered with Marvel Comics to bring graphic novels to the new Nook Tablet. You can swipe through each comic panel or zoom in on each one individually. … The Nook also integrates with Netflix. This notification center lets you know which movies are in your queue and recommends new ones to watch. … Here’s the new home screen. It looks a lot better than the old OS, giving you access to your favorite apps and publications.

So we’ll have to wait for a more final-hardware version of the device to get a real perfect impression of what we’re dealing with, is what’s to be taken away from this situation. That and Netflix has hits claws firmly implanted in the NOOK Tablet’s guts. Also note: images in this post are either from Barnes & Noble or were photographed by the publications they appear below.

The NOOK Tablet is a reader’s tablet, as Barnes and Noble say, and is made for text-based products for the most part. On the other hand, you can also watch 1080p video from Netflix and Hulu plus amongst other sources, each of these available right out of the box. Have a look at what the device is comprised of here in this 360 video below. Also note that for the most part, this is essentially the same chassis design as the original NOOK Color, just shaved down a bit with some different guts – have a look at our week-long review of the NOOK Color for a better idea of what we’re viewing here:

This next-generation NOOK is up for pre-order now at Barnes & Noble’s online store for $249, with free shipping and a ship date of November 18th. Take note of how this device compares to the Kindle Fire, its primary opposition, with some choice words from Barnes and Noble CEO William J Lynch Jr. And finally, have a look below at the tour of the NOOK Tablet with Kate!

Look like the device for you for this holiday season? We’ll see how this tablet stands up against the Kindle Fire in the coming weeks!

As with the NOOK Tablet, B&N’s deal with Netflix will see video access to NOOK Color owners once the new firmware hits. That will enable movie and TV show downloads; meanwhile, Hulu Plus streaming is expected to arrive “in the coming months.” Ebooks will get portrait and landscape support, along with more font sizes.

The way content is downloaded will also be streamlined, with a new, faster library of books, magazines, newspapers and apps. E-magazines will be organized into stacks with dates and cover art. Buying new content will also be improved, the NOOK Store getting suggestions based on favorite authors and social suggestions from NOOK Friends contacts.

The $199 price will take affect today, while existing owners will get the new firmware next month.

Interestingly, Barnes & Noble says that the NOOK Simple Touch’s faster screen refresh is a software rather than a hardware improvement, thanks to the new Best-Text software. In fact, existing owners will be able to upgrade and get the speedier performance, thanks to firmware update available for manual installation today or pushed out over WiFi in the coming weeks.

Battery life has been extended to two months, based on an hour of reading per day, and adverts have been stripped out too. B&N took the opportunity to snipe at Amazon’s marketing-supported Kindles with the comment that there are “no annoying ads” on its range.

Of course there are a few tiny improvements over the original NOOK Color in that it’s .02 inches thinner and .9 ounces lighter, and that 16GB of storage is 8GB larger than the original. Have a peek at our week-long review of the NOOK Color for more information on what it will mean to hold this new device. Inside you’ll find such apps as Hulu Plus, Rhapsody, MOG, and Grooveshark along with the apps that came with the NOOK Color – Pandora, for example.

One of the biggest bits of news surrounding this release is the fact that while it, the NOOK Tablet, will be set at the $249 price point the NOOK Color had been at, the NOOK Color will be cut down to $199, this setting it right in line with the Kindle Fire, a device which has been known to have been compared to the NOOK Color upon its first reveal. Additional benefits of this new tablet include free Cloud Storage with Barnes and Noble (“Nook Cloud”) and the promise of an ultra-light under-a-pound chassis.

Netflix also comes pre-loaded on the device along with video support for up to 1080p, this being what Barnes and Noble calls the deepest Netflix integration of any tablet device. Nook Comics has been introduced for the tablet, this now the largest digital collection of Marvel graphic novels on any one device. Peter Vesterbacka of Rovio lent his helping hand to the fray with a lovely quote on how well Angry Birds will work on the device:

“NOOK Tablet’s display and speed make for a wonderfully colorful and dynamic Angry Birds gameplay experience.” – Vesterbacka aka Mighty Eagle

Stick here on SlashGear for a hands-on roundup in just a bit!

UPDATE: Check out the pre-release info and demo videos, the intensely viscous words of war vs the Kindle Fire spoken by Barnes and Noble’s CEO, and the official skinny on the price reduction of the original NOOK Color!

The tablet has been thinned out by .02 inches, made lighter by .9 ounces, and increased in built-in storage by 8 GB. Other than that, This device seems to be rather similar to the original NOOK Color indeed. Have a look at our massive week-long look at the NOOK Color from back when it was called NOOKcolor right here: Week With NOOKcolor.

Other than that, there’s a bump in NOOK Color software in that it now features Hulu Plus, you’ve now got access to Rhapsody, MOG, and Grooveshark, and of course Pandora still works as it comes pre-installed. Real Simple and The New Yorker have been added to the Barnes and Noble library, and games such as Scrabble have been added to the basic NOOK Color store of games.

The current NOOK Color will be $199 in the near future while the new NOOK Tablet will be $249, this making us very much have to think about whether we want an ultra-inexpensive dual-core tablet or an undeniably inexpensive original NOOK Color. Think about that! Of course the whole thing will have to be rooted and turned to Android UNLESS the interface has been opened up beyond what we’ve seen on the NOOK Color thus far. We’ll just have to wait until Monday when all of this information comes out officially.

“Please join us for a very special announcement” is all the hint B&N gives, but with the first-gen NOOK Color now over a year old, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the ebook retailer refresh it. Specs are unknown at this stage, but a color touchscreen and Android underpinnings look likely if it’s to compete with the Kindle Fire.

However, Barnes & Noble lacks the broad multimedia ecosystem that Amazon can call upon to bolster its new ereader, such as the Amazon Prime streaming TV and movie content. Instead, B&N will have to focus on how it can leverage its ebook catalog as well as build on the popularity of the original NOOK Color with developers.

Amazon’s ereader tablet ships on November 15, with estimates suggesting well over a quarter of a million preorders have been placed. Historically, Amazon has lacked an in-store presence, but that ceased to be the case back in June 2010 when Target became the first retailer to offer the Kindle in its physical shops.

Exactly what the new NOOK Color might look like, and what its specifications could be, remains a mystery. The original model became popular with Android hackers, who discovered it was relatively straightforward to gain access to the underlying OS.

According to former Borders customers (thanks everyone who sent this in, by the way,) Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch sent them an email [which can be seen here] that the surviving books and media company acquired the customer data which included “the subject matter of your DVD and other video purchases” amongst other tidbits. Lynch wrote that they sought out the purchase of this data in order to “try and earn your business.”

Massachusetts State Attorney General Martha Coakley has released a statement that noted the following as specifically what is included in the data in question:

Information customers shared with the Borders website, including name, address, and e-mail address.

Information collected from customers in the Borders Rewards loyalty program, including customer name, address, e-mail address, and purchase history. This purchase history will not include the titles of video materials (like DVDs or VHS tapes) purchased by customers.

E-mail addresses from customers who requested to receive special offers from Borders.

You should note here, of course, that credit card information and any and all financial-related information is not included in the Borders database nor in this sale of data. To quell fears that they’d just been bamboozled by the companies in the deal, Lynch added the following in the letter to customers:

It’s important for you to understand, however, that you have the absolute right to opt-out of having your customer data transferred to Barnes & Noble. If you would like to opt-out, we will ensure all your data we receive from Borders is disposed of in a secure and confidential manner. Please visit www.bn.com/borders by October 29, 2011 to do so.

Sound good enough for you?

You can also purchase both versions of the NOOK online at Target, though both versions still read OUT OF STOCK at the moment I’m typing this post up. You can take a closer look at these two newest versions of the nook by heading to, first, our hands-on with the NOOK Simple Touch Reader then head back to our ultimate look at the NOOK Color, what was then called the NOOKcolor:

A Week with NOOKcolor: Hardware
A Week with NOOKcolor: Reading (aka Core Apps)
NOOKcolor Unboxing and Hands-on
NOOKcolor Demo
A Bit of Extra Clarity for Would-be Developers of NOOKcolor Apps
and of course A Week with NOOKcolor: 3rd Party Apps and Final Wrap-Up

All the NOOK color you could possibly want! Now get out there and pick yourself up one of each at Target, and tell em I’ve got a thing or two to say to them about their mobile department, tablets included!

According to DigiTimes, industry sources in the supply chain say that Barnes & Noble has placed orders with TPK for the touch panels, while Inventec will take care of assembly with additional help from Pegatron. The two contract manufacturers could supply two to three million units of the Nook Color 2 by year-end. It’s said to feature a 7-inch full color touchscreen and have support for email, music, games, and apps.

However, what throws some doubt into this report is the claim that “E Ink will continue to supply e-paper backplanes for Nook Color 2″ because the current Nook Color utilizes a full color LCD touchscreen display instead of E Ink. It is possible, though, that a new iteration of the Nook Color could incorporate E Ink technology with a touchscreen LCD panel similar to what’s being done in the All-New-Nook.

It’s also possible that the Nook Color 2 could go with a color E Ink display, which we’ve seen demonstrated along with other new E Ink technologies at IFA 2011.

[via Pocket-lint]

In addition to having access to all this great content, the magazines will also have special editions for the NOOK Color that adds a bunch of extras built into the pages. This lets you get more out of the stories with embedded multimedia enhancements such as videos, animations, photo galleries, audio podcasts and other bonus features. Some examples include celebrity interviews, how-to videos, and interactive quizzes.

The first special editions magazines will be Fortune, People, Sports Illustrated, and Time, but by year-end special editions will also be available for all 21 titles of Time Inc., including Real Simple, InStyle, Entertainment Weekly, and Cooking Light. Special additons for Better Homes and Gardens as well as a few other titles are also expected this fall.

The NOOK Color 1.3 update is available now via immediate manual download at www.nookcolor.com/update while a free over-the-air update will roll-out to WiFi-connected customers starting this week. The update also brings performance improvements, WiFi connectivity enhancements, and a parental control feature that can disable the built-in web browser.

[via BusinessWire]

The $100 worth of free books, however, is limited to 12 classics, which include “A Tale of Two Cities,” “Beowulf,” and “Crime and Punishment.” The study guides include those from Spark Notes, which offers companions for popular titles such as “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”

Additionally, there are free NOOK Study Guides to choose from such as “50 Survival Tips: How to Win at College.” And if you purchase a NOOK Color, you can also select from specialty apps like Fliq Notes, Fliq Tasks, Nook Word of the Day, and Pulse News.

The majority of the books and apps offered can be had for free, so this isn’t quite as sweet of a deal, but it does package things together conveniently for students to get all the classics and study guides they need for the school year in one fell swoop.

[via Barnes & Noble]

Normally you’d have to subscribe to each service separately if you’d wanted access to the New York Times content you crave from all your different devices, but now anyone who has in the past or will in the future purchase a subscription to the NOOK version of The New York Times will also be given access to the web-based service as well. For those of you wondering why you’d want access to a webpage, you should know that NYTimes.com is a subscriber ONLY webpage where you’re able to see parts of articles until you pay a premium to see the rest. Normally this would be harsh, now Barnes and Noble’s deal here makes is smooth.

Those of you subscribing today will be given the same access that those of you who’ve subscribed in the past will be given, there’s no “new subscriber” bonus, only a regular subscriber bonus. And what about those of you who don’t yet own a NOOK tablet? We’ve got you covered! Let’s take a trip down review lane: First take a look at our massive Week With NOOKcolor series in which you’ll get the full double and triple dosage of coverage on the one and only NOOK color. Then have a look at our hands-on with the all-new NOOK as well! Then you’ve got to purchase them both, all of them, every one!

It’s certainly more compact than before, with the absence of a physical keyboard making it shorter than the Kindle and the first-gen NOOK. The grippy black plastic – a little thicker than a Kindle – leads your fingers neatly to the concave recess on the back, while the page-turn strips down either side of the 6-inch display fall neatly under the fingertips.

The E Ink Pearl display is the same as on the third-gen Kindle, paired with an infrared touchscreen using emitters down the edge of the bezel. Inside is WiFi and 238MB of available storage – augmented with a microSD card slot – along with an 800MHz processor. The biggest source of lag remains the display refresh, which is much-quicker than on the first-gen NOOK but still initially jolting until your eyes get used to it. If you’re already an ereader user, though, you’ll probably find the All-New NOOK is swifter than your current model.

We’ll be putting the All-New NOOK through its paces in time for the full SlashGear review, so until then enjoy our hands-on unboxing and gallery!

The All-New NOOK hands-on and unboxing video

Last week, I kicked off a new SlashGear poll about tablets with integrated 3G, and wrote about how I personally prefer to tether to my phone rather than have a WWAN connection – and agreement – built in. When it comes to ereaders, though, I wouldn’t give up my 3G-equipped Kindle.

One of the advantages of an ereader over traditional books is the fact you can carry such a huge library with you. That’s only half of it, though, really: the other part is that you can add to that library while on the move too, with no extra burden to carry. Finish your current ebook? Quickly download a new one, even if you’re already in your seat on the plane and waiting for the cabin crew to close the doors.

Obviously that depends on getting a connection. With my 3G Kindle I can power on the WWAN and grab a book most places; okay, I’m dependent on the speed of the network, but even when I’m down to GPRS that’s no great hardship when you’re thinking in kilobyte terms rather than megabytes. That last-minute plane purchase? I’ve done that. I bought an ebook from a hotel room in South Korea, where the hotel wanted $23 for each WiFi device online. I’ve bought ebooks while in the park, enjoying one of London’s rare sunny days. Sure, I could’ve tethered a WiFi ereader to my phone and got online that way, but that’s another step or two in a process where the hardest thing should be deciding what book I want to buy.

When it comes down to it, I see a tablet as another type of computer whereas an ereader is an appliance. With computers, we’re used to there being limitations and provisos on use: factors that affect the extent of the functionality we can expect at any one time. With an appliance, however, we want convenience and consistency. I don’t want to have to hunt down a WiFi hotspot if I decide I need a new book.

There are less obvious benefits to a 3G ereader, too. I’ve been delayed in airports before now, no free WiFi to be had, and the rudimentary browser on my second-gen Kindle has let me get online, check Twitter, even send emails. It’s hardly the most elegant of ways to use the internet (though the WebKit-based browser on the third-gen Kindle is far more refined) but firing off a quick, free email rather than making an expensive international call on your cellphone certainly helps the wallet.

Of course, the big issue is choice: there are quite a few good WiFi ereaders out there, but far fewer 3G models. That’s probably down to the inherent cost of providing bundled internet access – it seemingly proved too much for Barnes & Noble after all, and their new NOOK will be WiFi-only, at least at first. Amazon’s Kindle or Sony’s Reader Daily Edition are basically your choices, though for the moment B&N is still selling the original NOOK 3G.

Yes, you’ll pay $50 more for a 3G Kindle instead of a WiFi one. Sony’s Reader Daily Edition is a hefty $299.99, and the original 3G NOOK is $169, $50 more than its WiFi counterpart and $30 more than the new WiFi-only NOOK. But that’s it – no ongoing 3G fees, no minimum agreement, no having to remember to top-up your prepaid allowance or use the 3G at least once every month or so just to make sure the carrier doesn’t deactivate your account.

I’m a geek who loves reading; it’s my downtime. That means if I can cut out one of the geeky hurdles to getting on with it, I will. Hotspot hunting is part of the game when you’re working, but it’s an unnecessary hassle when I just want to curl up with a good ebook.

Controls have also been streamlined, with a single home button and everything else handled by the touchscreen UI; B&N are keen to point out that’s 37 fewer than the Kindle. The company claims a single charge is good for up to two months of usage, and there’s WiFi connectivity though no sign of 3G at this stage. Storage is via microSD, and the whole thing is powered by a TI OMAP3 chip running at 800MHz.

There’s also a new, textured back panel for easier holding, and the whole thing is supposedly 10-percent smaller than the Kindle. The new B&N NOOK will be priced at $139 when it begins shipping on June 10.

Press Release:

Barnes & Noble Introduces The All-New NOOK™, The Simple Touch Reader™

Best Battery Life Ever – Up to an Incredible Two Months on a Single Charge

Ultra-Light and Compact for Optimal Portability, Lighter than a Paperback

Full Touchscreen with E Ink® Pearl Display Technology for Reading Anywhere

Optimized Display Performance Offers 80 Percent Less Flashing

than Any Other eReader for the Most Immersive Reading Experience

The Most Intuitive, Easy-to-Use eReader for Everyone

Barnes & Noble Expert Recommendations,

Plus the Most Social Reading Experience with NOOK Friends™

Pre-Order for $139 in Time for Father’s Day and Summer Reading

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today expanded its bestselling digital reading offering with the All-New NOOK, The Simple Touch Reader. With a full touchscreen, NOOK™ features record-setting, extra-long battery life on the easiest-to-use, ultra-light, portable 6-inch eReader with the most-advanced E Ink Pearl display, and the world’s largest bookstore available by Wi-Fi®. Now available for pre-order at www.nook.com and at Barnes & Noble stores for just $139, NOOK will begin shipping on or about June 10. Barnes & Noble adds the All-New NOOK, a significant leap forward in the dedicated eReader category, to a product line that includes the bestselling NOOK Color™, the only Reader’s Tablet™. Based on the success of the NOOK product line, combined with focus on the absolute best reading experience, Barnes & Noble now claims more than 25 percent of the digital book market – just 18 months after launching NOOK 1st Edition™.

“We set out to design the easiest-to-use, most optimized, dedicated reading device ever created and accomplished it with the All-New NOOK”
Barnes & Noble has always recognized the simplicity and ease that the element of touch brings to its NOOK product line, and the All-New NOOK is no exception. With a simple tap to the 6-inch touchscreen, it’s intuitive and easy to navigate, shop and read. Customers can look up words, highlight passages, adjust the font size and style or search by typing on the responsive on-screen keyboard that appears only when a customer needs it. The paper-like E Ink display features crisp, clear text that’s great for reading anywhere, even in bright sunlight. The no-glare display offers 50 percent more contrast than NOOK 1st Edition.

At only 7.48 ounces (212 grams), the artfully designed All-New NOOK is lightweight and thin – 35 percent lighter and 15 percent thinner than NOOK Wi-Fi 1st Edition™. Lighter than a paperback, NOOK’s sleek but durable, compact design (6.5 inches high by 5 inches wide by 0.47 inches deep) makes it easy to fit in a jacket, pocket, purse or backpack, holding up to 1,000 digital books and more personal content using the expandable memory slot. Its ergonomic, contoured design with a soft-touch back makes it easy and comfortable to read, even with just one hand, and for extended periods of time. And thanks to best-in-class battery life, read for up to 2 months on a single charge with Wi-Fi off – that’s twice as long as the other leading eReader available.

Barnes & Noble’s use of the latest-generation E Ink screen and proprietary technology offers unmatched performance on the All-New NOOK, delivering a seamless and immersive reading experience. NOOK offers 80 percent less flashing than other eReaders – whether turning pages, browsing for books or scrolling through your library. Page turns are lightning fast, using the touchscreen or well-placed side buttons, and with the new Fast Page™ feature, just press and hold a side button to quickly scan through content and skip right to the desired section.

“We set out to design the easiest-to-use, most optimized, dedicated reading device ever created and accomplished it with the All-New NOOK,” said William Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble. “Touch makes it simple to use, and the beautifully compact design makes it the most portable eReader in its class. Add to that an unmatched battery life, the most advanced paper-like touch display on the market and wireless access to the world’s largest digital bookstore, and we believe that for readers of all ages, the All-New NOOK is the best eReader on the market, and a great value at $139.”

The World’s Largest Bookstore in Your Pocket

With the All-New NOOK, customers can enjoy a wide variety of digital content, all at their fingertips. Shop for everything from new releases and current bestsellers to classics and more, all in a single search. The NOOK Bookstore™ offers one of the most expansive digital catalogs of more than two million books, magazines and newspapers. Enjoy helpful recommendations from Barnes & Noble’s experts, personalized based on customers’ favored authors and genres, to decide what to read next. Have more than 80 popular national and local market newspapers and magazines from the NOOK Newsstand™ automatically delivered to NOOK the moment they’re released, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and USA TODAY, as well as Forbes, Reader’s Digest, Discover, Fast Company and New York magazine. All periodicals are available for subscription with a 14-day free trial or via single copies.

Most NOOK Books™ are $9.99 or less, including most of The New York Times Bestsellers, plus there’s over a million free classics. Enjoy more than 100,000 titles from independent publishers and self-publishing authors using Barnes & Noble’s PubIt!™ digital publishing platform. Young readers will find more than 12,000 NOOK Kids™ chapter books in Barnes & Noble’s world’s largest collection of digital children’s content. Sample NOOK Book titles for free and download all content wirelessly over a Wi-Fi connection in just seconds.

When customers visit Barnes & Noble stores with their All-New NOOK, the shopping and reading experience gets even better. Connect to free and fast Wi-Fi and browse complete NOOK Books for free through the company’s innovative Read In Store™ program and get exclusive content and special promotions through the More In Store™ program. NOOK customers receive access at more than 24,000 AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots, as well as other personal and public hotspots to browse, buy and download new content wirelessly.

Get Social with NOOK Friends

Another way NOOK customers can learn more about great books is through NOOK Friends, an exciting social experience previously available only to NOOK Color customers. From the home page, customers can see book recommendations from friends. See what your friends have posted about their current read, swap recommendations, share reading status, favorite quotes, and much more. Through Twitter® and Facebook® integrations, right from their current book, customers can tweet the title they’re reading, post on their Facebook wall and see what their NOOK Friends “like” on Facebook. With Barnes & Noble’s exclusive LendMe® technology, you can also lend eligible books to your friends at no cost for 14 days, and see and request to borrow friends’ LendMe books.

And coming in the next few weeks, Barnes & Noble will offer a new custom website, mynook.com, where customers can get recommendations from Barnes & Noble expert booksellers and NOOK Friends, access their NOOK Library™, and manage their device.

Read Your Way

Customers can customize their All-New NOOK and reading experience to their liking. Choose from 7 font sizes and 6 font styles. NOOK owners can personalize their device with one of Barnes & Noble’s screen savers or transfer personal photos (JPG, PNG, BMP and GIF) to make NOOK their own, and choose from a complete line of exclusive, new NOOK accessories (www.nook.com/accessories) to show their style wherever they go. They can also create personalized My Shelves to organize their NOOK Library and group reading content similar to their bookcase.

Read Everywhere

A customer’s entire NOOK Library follows them wherever they go. They can also easily transfer personal EPUB and PDF files to their All-New NOOK device to read documents on the go using the 2GB internal memory or a microSD™ card. Since the All-New NOOK is built on Android™ Operating System 2.1 and uses Adobe technology, device owners can also borrow digital books from their local library, a feature Barnes & Noble has always offered to NOOK device customers. Customers can also read seamlessly, accessing their NOOK Library and sync the last page read across their NOOK devices and their favorite mobile and computing devices using Barnes & Noble’s free line of eReading software (www.bn.com/freenookapps).

Availability

The All-New NOOK can be pre-ordered for $139 today and is expected to begin shipping on or about June 10, making it the perfect gift for dads and grads, and a great addition for every book lover’s summer reading wish list. Experience the All-New NOOK at www.nook.com or at the NOOK Boutiques™ and displays in one of Barnes & Noble’s more than 700 bookstores. With The Barnes & Noble Promise™, the company offers unmatched customer support in neighborhood Barnes & Noble bookstores, as more than 40,000 booksellers across the country are ready to assist customers with setting up their NOOKs or choosing their next great read. The company also continues to provide award-winning customer service support via phone and email. The All-New NOOK will also be available beginning next month at Best Buy, Walmart, Staples and Books-A-Million, along with NOOK Color.

About NOOK™ from Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble’s NOOK brand of eReading products makes it easy to read what you love, anywhere you like™ with a fun, easy-to-use and immersive digital reading experience. With NOOK, customers gain access to Barnes & Noble’s expansive NOOK Bookstore™ of more than two million digital titles, and the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices. The award-winning NOOK Color™ Reader’s Tablet™, the best-value on the tablet market ($249), features a stunning 7-inch VividView™ Color Touchscreen to read all of the content you love, shop popular apps, connect via email, browse the Web and more. The All-New NOOK ($139), the Simple Touch Reader™, is the easiest-to-use 6-inch touch reader, with the longest battery life of any eReader. In Barnes & Noble stores, NOOK owners can access free Wi-Fi connectivity, enjoy the Read In Store™ feature to read NOOK Books™ for free, and the More In Store™ program, which offers free, exclusive content and special promotions. Barnes & Noble was the first company to offer digital lending for a wide selection of books through its LendMe® technology, available through NOOK eReading products. Find NOOK devices in Barnes & Noble stores and online at www.BN.com, as well as at Best Buy, Walmart, Staples and Books-A-Million.

In addition to NOOK devices, Barnes & Noble makes it easy for customers to enjoy any book, anytime, anywhere with its free line of NOOK software, available at www.bn.com/freenookapps. Customers can use Barnes & Noble’s free eReading software to access and read books from their personal Barnes & Noble digital library on devices including iPad™, iPhone®, iPod touch®, Android™ smartphones and tablets BlackBerry®, PC and Mac®. Lifetime Library™ helps ensure that Barnes & Noble customers will always be able to access their digital libraries on NOOK products and software-enabled devices and BN.com. Barnes & Noble also offers NOOK Study™ (www.nookstudy.com), an innovative study platform and software solution for higher education, NOOK Kids™ (www.nookkids.com), a collection of digital picture and chapter books for children, and NOOK Books en español™ (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooksenespanol), the first-ever Spanish language digital bookstore in the United States.

For more information on NOOK devices and eReading software, updates, new NOOK Book releases, Free Friday™ NOOK Books and more, follow us on www.twitter.com/ebooksbn and www.facebook.com/nookbn.

Barnes & Noble, the filing confirmed, “expects to make an announcement on May 24, 2011 regarding the launch of a new eReader device.” Specifications and name weren’t revealed, but there’s a good possibility that this could be a 3G-enabled version of the NOOKcolor.

The NOOKcolor has already proved to be something of a surprise sales success, and B&N recently pushed out a firmware update that blessed the Android-based slate with more tablet-style functionality. Currently only a WiFi model is on sale, but B&N may well be looking to take on the iPad 2 more directly by throwing in some 3G. We won’t know for sure – leaks aside – until next Tuesday.

The revelation itself is short – “In a meeting with investor analysts on May 4, 2011, Barnes & Noble, Inc. (the “Company”) indicated it expects to make an announcement on May 24, 2011 regarding the launch of a new eReader device” – and doesn’t give any indication of hardware or capabilities the new device. However, it’s possible that B&N could be unveiling the NOOKcolor 3G, a 3G-enabled version of the existing tablet/ereader hybrid.

The retailer discontinued the NOOK 3G – the WWAN version of its original dual-display Android powered ereader – earlier this year, leaving only the WiFi version on sale. However, given the success of the NOOKcolor and the demand for 3G-equipped tablets, it looks likely that the company could have reconsidered its stance, at least on the newer model. However, the sort of subsidies – which saw users of the original NOOK 3G able to download ebooks without ever seeing a monthly data bill – are unlikely to be carried over to a NOOKcolor 3G.

[via WSJ]

Taking a quick glance at the Barnes & Noble website, you will see 14 of their most popular games. The entire lineup is accessible only via the NOOK Color and purchasing is only available via the device as well. You will be familiar with most of the games from Solitaire to Flight Control and to the most notorious of all, Angry Birds.

Below is a little demo video of the Aces Bubble Popper for the NOOK Color.

However, games are just part of the new apps market. You will also find numerous other apps that help you “explore” as in access web services such as American Airlines, Springpad, and Pulse News. There are also various apps for learning and organization as well as apps designed specifically for kids.

The NOOK Color is really beefing up its functionality and thanks to it running Android OS, there can be many other possibilities with the device. For those of us not keen on hacking the eReader, we now can still enjoy the addition of apps, email, and enhanced web browsing and Flash support. The WiFi version retails for $249.

[via Concrete Software]

As with the Kindle edition, the B&N NOOK NYTimes subscription is $19.99 per month. It’s also worth noting that – again, as with Amazon’s version – you can only read the digital newspaper on your NOOK or NOOKcolor, not B&N’s software ereader apps.

Press Release:

Subscribers to The New York Times on NOOK™ by Barnes & Noble to Receive Free Access to NYTimes.com

Customers Enjoy Digital Edition of Newspaper on NOOK Devices,
Plus Online News, Opinion, Videos and More

New York, New York – April 5, 2011 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced that all subscribers to The New York Times through NOOK Newsstand™ will also enjoy access to the NYTimes.com website. Barnes & Noble customers can already enjoy their digital subscription to The New York Times, reading the daily e-edition content on NOOK Color™ Reader’s Tablet, NOOK™ and NOOK Wi-Fi® eReaders. Coming soon, NOOK subscribers to The New York Times will also be able to access NYTimes.com, The Times’s award-winning website, including timely news updates, opinion, blogs, video, interactive graphics and more, at no additional cost.

“We are excited to expand our long-standing relationship with The New York Times to provide NOOK customers with online access to even more great content any time,” said Jonathan Shar, Vice President and General Manager of digital newsstand at Barnes & Noble. “Our customers already enjoy access to one of the leading NOOK Newspapers™ on their favorite NOOK device, and we believe they’ll appreciate the easy access to all of the wonderful online content available at NYTimes.com at no extra cost.”

The New York Times continues to be one of the bestselling NOOK Newspapers and, as with other digital periodicals, is available for a risk-free, 14 day free trial for all customers.

“The Times’s digital subscription plan was designed to offer access to our high-quality journalism across a variety of platforms,” said Yasmin Namini, senior vice president, marketing and circulation, and general manager, reader applications, The New York Times Media Group. “We are pleased be able to offer online access to NYTimes.com as part of the subscription experience for our loyal readers on NOOK devices.”

Barnes & Noble customers with current subscriptions to The New York Times through NOOK Newsstand™ will be notified via email in the coming weeks with more information on how to enjoy free access to NYTimes.com.

For more information and to order The New York Times for NOOK, visit www.bn.com/nytimes or visit any of NOOK Boutique or display in one of Barnes & Noble’s more than 700 bookstores (http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com) to learn more.

The financial terms of the deal have not been revealed, so we don’t know how much B&N is paying Spring Design in return for the patent access. The smaller company had alleged that Barnes & Noble used privileged information in their ereader hardware development, that had been gleaned during negotiations prior to the original NOOK’s release when Spring Design were in the running to develop the device.

B&N had sought to have the litigation dismissed, but were rejected by a court decision that there was “genuine dispute” over whether IP theft had taken place.

[Thanks Andy!]

Press Release:

Barnes & Noble, Inc. Settles Litigation with Spring Design

New York, NY – March 2, 2011 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced that it has settled a lawsuit brought against the Company by Spring Design, Inc. Spring Design initiated legal action against Barnes & Noble in November 2009, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, in connection with Spring Design’s Alex eReader.

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Spring Design will grant Barnes & Noble a non-exclusive, paid-up royalty free license for the entire portfolio of Spring Design patents and patent applications. The terms of the settlement are otherwise confidential. The settlement agreement announced today resolves all claims brought by Spring Design, which will be dismissed with prejudice.

Eugene V. DeFelice, Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Barnes & Noble, Inc., said, “We are pleased to put this matter behind us. NOOK Color™ and NOOK™, together with Spring Design’s patents and patent applications, have become two of our most innovative and highly-sought after devices. Barnes & Noble is pleased to add Spring Design’s patents and patent applications as a complementary addition to our rapidly growing digital portfolio.”

The hardware buttons are also functional, along with the accelerometer (for automatic screen rotation). Still to come are sound and hardware video decoding, though neither should stop NOOKcolor owners from getting a decent impression of what Honeycomb brings to the tablet table.

If you’ve not got a NOOKcolor of your own, then head over to Android Community for the full Android 3.0 Honeycomb deep dive, and remember to join us tomorrow, Wednesday February 2, for Google’s official launch event. We’re expecting Motorola’s XOOM to get rolled out for some serious playtime, and we’ll have all the photos and video you need.

[via Android Community]

Update: Steve Troughton-Smith has put together a walkthrough video:

The NOOK WiFi will continue to be sold, as will the newer full-touchscreen NOOKcolor tablet. It’s unclear on B&N’s motivations behind the decision – while it was originally suggested that poor sales were the reason behind the discontinuation, that’s apparently not necessarily the case – but it could well be a sign that the bookseller is reluctant to continue subsidizing mobile data access.

As on the Kindle, the NOOK offers bundled data for downloading ebooks and samples; the end-user doesn’t see a monthly bill. With the WiFi-version of the NOOK, the onus on connectivity is placed on the user, rather than B&N, which reduces ongoing costs for the company.

[via Android Community]

Actual breakdowns of the figures aren’t being shared, which means we don’t know exactly how many of that 650,000 were NOOKcolor buyers experimenting with a single e-magazine issue purchase, and how many were opting for more expensive subscriptions. Over 120 periodicals are available.

Press Release:

Barnes & Noble’s Best-In-Class NOOKnewsstand™ Delivers Richest Periodical Offering and Experience, Achieves Blockbuster Sales

NOOKnewsstand Exceeds 650,000 Digital Periodical Subscriptions and
Single Copy Sales Driven by NOOKcolor™ Customers in First Two Months

Company Offers Exciting Array of Over 120 Periodical Titles Including
the Fastest-Growing Digital Collection of Full-Color Magazines

New York, New York – January 24, 2011 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, is experiencing robust NOOKnewsstand (www.NOOKnewsstand.com) sales since it brought touch and full, rich color to a wide array of digital magazines and leading newspapers when it began shipping NOOKcolor, the first full-color touch Reader’s Tablet. The company announced digital periodical sales are exceeding expectations with more than 650,000 total subscriptions and single copy sales driven by NOOKcolor customers reading interactive versions of all of their favorite newspapers and magazines, along with books and children’s books. With a dozen new titles, including O, the Oprah Magazine, Food Network Magazine, Martha Stewart Weddings, Guitar World and Consumer Reports ShopSmart;) added within the last month, NOOKnewsstand now features more than 120 top magazine and newspaper brands and offers the fastest-growing catalog of interactive, full-color magazines with something for every NOOKcolor customer.

Designed for people who love to read everything – books, magazines, newspapers and children’s books – in rich, beautiful color, the award-winning NOOKcolor was the company’s best-selling holiday gift. Since Christmas Day customers, hungry not only for new books, but also periodicals, have already ordered 150% more subscriptions than the total number sold over the entire previous 12 months. And sales continue to be very strong as NOOKcolor customers experience and enjoy the expansive NOOKnewsstand offering on the device’s stunning 7-inch VividView™ Color Touchscreen.

“We are excited to offer a wide array of top periodicals and have seen explosive growth in NOOKnewsstand sales since the launch of NOOKcolor. Our customers clearly enjoy reading digital versions of their favorite magazines in rich, beautiful color, along with their daily newspapers, with the convenience of subscription or single issue purchases,” said Jonathan Shar, Vice President and General Manager of digital newsstand at Barnes & Noble. “We’ve had overwhelmingly positive feedback from our content partners as well and will continue to build upon our vast collection of periodicals and incorporate even more interactivity for NOOKcolor customers this year.”

Among the NOOKnewsstand magazine best-sellers are: Us Weekly, Cosmopolitan, National Geographic, Reader’s Digest, Maxim, Star, O, the Oprah Magazine, Food Network Magazine, Women’s Health and Shape. The top newspapers include USA TODAY, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

With nearly 100 magazine titles and growing, Barnes & Noble offers a wide variety covering home, fashion and beauty, travel, parenting, health, food, celebrities, business, general news and more. Among the NOOKmagazines™ also offered are Glamour, Elle, Men’s Health, Martha Stewart Living, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Bloomberg Businessweek, House Beautiful, Family Circle, Popular Science, Runner’s World and many more. All magazines are in full-color and are an enhanced version of the print edition, featuring a universal, easy-to-use reading experience including Barnes & Noble’s exclusive ArticleView™ which puts the focus on the content, customized to your favorite reading style.

Customers with NOOKcolor and NOOK devices can also enjoy a wide range of top newspapers, delivered automatically each morning (or when the issue is published) via subscription, or through single copy purchases. The selection of NOOKnewspapers™ also includes The Financial Times, and major dailies such as Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and The Boston Globe.

Experience the wide variety of rich, colorful periodicals available for NOOKcolor today at www.NOOKnewsstand.com, www.NOOKcolor.com or at the NOOK Boutiques and displays in one of Barnes & Noble’s more than 700 bookstores (http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com).

Parents can lock down specific content via a password, and some titles support text-to-speech. The same titles can be viewed on the NOOKcolor as well. The app is available via iTunes.

Press Release:

Barnes & Noble Extends its Best-In-Class Digital Children’s Reading Experience with New NOOK kids™ for iPad™ Application

Company Adds Over 100 NOOK kids Interactive Books to the Largest Digital Collection of Children’s Content

New York, New York – January 5, 2011 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced it is extending its popular digital children’s reading experience to iPad owners with the introduction of the NOOK kids for iPad application, available for free at www.NOOKkids.com/ipad and www.itunes.com/appstore. The new application makes the company’s expansive digital catalog of children’s content – including 100 new interactive kids’ books including Caps for Sale, Skippyjon Jones and Sheep in a Jeep – even more accessible to customers of all ages, bringing iPad owners the state-of-the-art children’s reading experience first available on NOOKcolor by Barnes & Noble.

With an entirely new application designed specifically for children, NOOK kids for iPad offers various features exclusive to the NOOK kids reading experience. Using NOOK kids-only AliveTouch™ technology, kids can easily find a favorite story and engage with the books and their favorite characters by digitally turning pages, interacting with the text, zooming in and around graphics – all from the iPad. The application helps parents select which books are appropriate for their children through a password-protected Parent’s Corner.

With the NOOK kids catalog, Barnes & Noble offers the largest and growing collection of digital books for kids of all ages, with more than 230 interactive picture books, many with audio narration, for both NOOKcolor and NOOK kids for iPad owners to explore and enjoy. From the Llama Llama series and Max & Ruby to The Snowy Day and Are You My Mother?, customers can easily shop for books organized by age range, and NOOK kids books are presented in a consistent format, so parents and kids can discover a reading experience that is as familiar to them as the content itself. NOOK kids for iPad complements Barnes & Noble’s NOOK™ for iPad application which gives older children and adults access to more than 12,000 children’s chapter books – coming soon to NOOK kids for iPad – as well as more than two million digital titles.

“Since creating an in-store experience for kids decades ago, Barnes & Noble has helped millions of children and their parents discover books and ignite a love for reading, so we could not be more pleased to bring that experience to new platforms and expand our NOOK kids offering even further,” said Jamie Iannone, President of Digital Products, Barnes & Noble. “Since NOOK kids first became available some seven weeks ago on NOOKcolor, parents, grandparents and children continue to tell us they love our winning combination of color, touch and timeless stories. We’re excited to extend another best-in-class reading experience to iPad owners, and give parents and children more access to timeless classics and new favorites wherever they go.”

NOOK kids for iPad also lets young readers choose between reading books themselves or hearing professional recordings of the stories using Barnes & Noble’s exclusive Read to Me™ feature. Kids and parents will enjoy more than fifty titles featuring professional narration which are only available from Barnes & Noble, including story collections from Richard Scarry, Olivia, Thomas and Friends, Barbie and Splat the Cat, as well as popular books such as On the Night You Were Born, The Polar Express, President Obama’s new book, Of Thee I Sing, and Go, Dog, Go! – the top-selling NOOKcolor children’s picture book to date.

To celebrate the introduction of the newest NOOK app, Barnes & Noble is offering two complimentary children’s picture books to new NOOKcolor and NOOK kids for iPad customers – Richard Scarry’s Colors and Elephant’s Child, which will automatically appear in the customer’s digital library upon registration.

Two new online videos bring NOOK kids to life and let customers experience the new, fun and colorful way of reading at their local Barnes & Noble bookstore. The “NOOK Kids Guided Tour” video highlights the exciting ways children and parents can enjoy NOOK, and the “Kids Love NOOKcolor” video shows children exploring NOOK kids content with ease, swiping and tapping their way through some of their favorite reads at a Barnes & Noble book store, one of several with a dedicated NOOK kids reading area which is proving immensely popular. Learn more and view the video at www.NOOK.com/kidslovenookcolor, or visit a local Barnes & Noble today to let your children delight in the NOOK kids experience themselves.

There are some drawbacks, not least that it’s said to be a little glitchy at present, and you need to be running Android 2.2 on the NOOKcolor rather than the Android 2.1 it ships with. However, the tablet potential of this low-cost device continues to grow, potentially making it one of the more polished affordable slates on the market.

[via Review Horizon; thanks Sorin!]

Updated with B&N statement on the server outages after the cut

The news follows Amazon’s announcement that the Kindle is now its best-selling product of all time. Neither retailer has publicly confirmed sales figures, however, with B&N only saying that “millions” of NOOK devices – including the original NOOK, its WiFi-only version and the newest NOOKcolor – have been sold.

For more on the NOOKcolor, check out our multi-part series on a week with the new color ereader tablet. We’re chasing B&N for an official comment on the outage.

Update: Barnes & Noble spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating gave us the following brief statement:

“Due to the high traffic and customer demand on Christmas Day, we experienced some sporadic issues with our servers that were quickly resolved.”

Press Release:

NOOK™ Line of eReading Devices Becomes Barnes & Noble’s Biggest Bestseller in Its History

NOOKcolor™ is Company’s Top Holiday Gift

Millions of NOOK™ Devices and Expansive Digital Catalog Combine to Result in Nearly One Million NOOKbooks Sold on Christmas Day

New York, New York – December 30, 2010 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced that with millions of NOOK eReading devices sold, the line has become the company’s biggest bestseller ever in its nearly 40-year history. The new NOOKcolor Reader’s Tablet, introduced just eight weeks before Christmas, is the company’s number one selling gift of the holiday season. Barnes & Noble also announced that it now sells more digital books than its large and growing physical book business on BN.com, the world’s second largest online bookstore. With its growth across device and NOOKbook™ sales over the critical holiday selling season, Barnes & Noble has successfully established itself as a leader in digital reading.

Demand for the critically acclaimed NOOKcolor remained high following the product’s introduction in late October through the holidays. Sales have continued to exceed the company’s high expectations. In addition to a great customer response, NOOKcolor has received high praise and critical acclaim from leading technology and consumer media outlets including being named “Editors’ Choice” and the “Best Android Tablet of The Year.” The company also experienced robust sales for its award-winning line of NOOK 3G and Wi-Fi devices, which feature an E-Ink display and a color touchscreen for navigation.

The company also reported record holiday sales from its comprehensive two-million-title catalog, including nearly one million NOOKbooks purchased and downloaded on Christmas Day alone. Through Barnes & Noble’s eReading offerings, customers can buy and read their NOOKbooks on the widest range of platforms, including NOOKcolor, NOOK 3G, Wi-Fi®, and using NOOK apps on popular devices including iPad™, iPhone®, Android™ smartphones and more. Among the best-selling titles of the holiday season were James Patterson’s Cross Fire, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Confession by John Grisham, and Decision Points by former U.S. President George W. Bush.

“NOOKcolor became the gift of choice over the holidays for people who love to read everything – books, magazines, newspapers, children’s books and more – in rich, beautiful color,” said William Lynch, CEO of Barnes & Noble. “The success of NOOKcolor, along with our unique ability to market NOOK devices to readers in our stores and through our strong channel partnerships with Best Buy, Walmart and Books-a-Million, resulted in the continued explosive growth of our Digital Content business and our NOOK line, our most successful products ever. We have a large online book business at BN.com, that’s been recently growing. And the fact that eBook unit sales now exceed physical book sales through BN.com, illustrates how quickly we’ve grown this exciting new business at Barnes & Noble.”

NOOKcolor is the first full-color touch Reader’s Tablet that integrates books, magazines, newspapers and children’s books – all in amazing, rich color in a device that weighs less than a pound. It features a stunning 7-inch VividView™ Color Touchscreen and is the most social reading device ever built. NOOKcolor is available at your local Barnes & Noble store and at www.NOOKcolor.com, as well as Best Buy, Walmart and Books-A-Million stores.

Nook Cook, meanwhile, is described as a “downloadable software application providing information on cooking, recipes, and related information in the field of food.” Nook Smart seems connected to the existing Nook Study educational system in some way.

Finally, there’s a “Nooksellers” trademark which seemingly describes a service combining online and telephone support as well as a media recommendation and social network system. B&N describes this as “a web site for users with specific informed recommendations of specific consumer products and services validated by the inputted preferences and social network of the user; providing a web site for users with exclusive personalized recommendations on books, electronic books, authors, book subject matter, book genres, music and digital media entertainment.”