Barnes & Noble soon to add more tablet functionality to Nook Color

Chris Meadows, TeleRead:: "Barnes & Noble has announced a big update for the Nook Color e-reader coming in April which will include a number of new functions such as applications and email, essentially bringing the LCD e-reader closer to being a full-fledged Android tablet. ... "

Nook Color Android app store coming in April along with Flash support

Crave - CNET: "While plenty of people have "rooted" their Nook Colors with custom firmware that allows them to access the Android Market and download applications, most Nook Color buyers have stuck with the official firmware that came with the device. If you're in the latter group, you'll be happy to note that you'll soon have access to Barnes & Noble's version of an app store, which is due to launch in April, according to the HSN Web Site, where the Nook is being sold for $299.90."

Barnes & Noble Struggles to Find a Buyer

Note: Kindle = 67% eReader market. Nook = 22%. BloggingStocks: "The biggest threat to Barnes & Noble emerged over the past few years as the more and more readers made the switch from actual books to digital books. The company's main competitor, Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) was quick to capture this market with its e-reader Kindle. Barnes & Noble have come out with their own e-reader, the Nook, but sources close to the company said that one reason buyers are backing away from a potential purchase of the company is due to the length of time it will take for the company to increase its digital sales. ... "

Google Says Microsoft Patent Lawsuit Threatens Innovation

PCWorld: "'Sweeping software patent claims like Microsoft's threaten innovation,' Google said in a statement. 'While we are not a party to this lawsuit, we stand behind the Android platform and the partners who have helped us to develop it.'"

Microsoft v. Android: now B&N Nook gets software patent lawsuit

Computerworld Blogs: "Microsoft is suing more Android device makers: now it's Barnes & Noble with it's partners Foxconn and Inventec. Steve Ballmer's gang doesn't like B&N's Nook e-reader, so has slapped them with a software patent lawsuit."

Barnes & Noble/Spring Design settle lawsuit over Nook feature

Yahoo! Finance: "NEW YORK (Reuters) - Barnes & Noble Inc has settled a lawsuit brought against it by Spring Design, which had accused the top U.S. bookseller of illegally copying a screen design for its popular Nook electronic book reader. Under terms of the agreement, Spring is granting Barnes & Noble a non-exclusive license for all of its patents and patent applications. Other terms of the settlement were not disclosed."

NOOK for Android updated with new grid view, wish list and download progress meter

intomobile: "Barnes & Noble has updated its NOOK Android app adding in few of the user-requested features. Version 2.5 comes with a new library grid view, wish list facility and download progress meter, along with “other improvements” — I assume they talk about performance improvements."

Nook Color Honeycomb 'beta' hack advances | Crave - CNET

Carnoy, CNET: "A couple of weeks ago, I posted something on how an industrious Android enthusiast, who goes by the handle deeper-blue on the xdadevelopers' forum, had hacked or 'rooted' the Nook Color to run a preview version of Honeycomb. At the time, we were looking at a pretty crude port that was missing a lot of Honeycomb's core features. But since then, some improvements have been made, giving 'rooters' hope that the slightly underpowered Nook Color might be able to handle Google's Android 3.0 operating system for tablets without running too sluggishly. Several videos of "HoneyNook" in action have cropped up in recent days, including the embedded video from Noah at TechnoBuffalo, who credits the newer NookHoney port to deeper-dev. More recently, David Cogen at theunlockr.com put together his own NookHoney demo complete with a background soundtrack. His assessment: "Not bad for a $250 tablet running beta software...it can only get better." (Note: Cogen is running the Honeycomb port from the internal memory, which works better and has the Android Market, but is harder to undo)."

Page Numbers for Kindle Books an Imperfect Solution

But imperfect is all we can hope for - so says Dave Pogue in the NY Times.

Android Powered Archos 70 Joins eReader Market

At $149, serious competition for the Nook. EverythingUSB: "Archos will begin shipping a new Android device which will undercut every other 7 inch tablet available now. The Archos 70 tablet unassumingly sports the usual feature set of lower end tablets. Marketed as an eReader, the Archos 70 is an a capable tablet that ‘should’ come with all the abilities of any Android device. In the past, Archos has chosen to disable some of the Android features in order to focus users on their intended features; Music,Video and eBooks. These lockouts are usually quickly undone by the modding community. ... "

B&N's Nooknewstand (the Combo of Nookmagazine & Nooknewspaper) a Success Thus Far

Readers get here what they can't on iPad: subscriptions. Crave - CNET: In a press release, Barnes & Noble says, 'Digital periodical sales are exceeding expectations with more than 650,000 total subscriptions and single copy sales driven by Nook Color customers reading interactive versions of all of their favorite newspapers and magazines ... .'"

Barnes & Noble Update 1.1.0 for Nook Color

AndroidOS.in: "Barnes & Noble has released the update version 1.1.0 for Nook Color Android tablet. It is no FroYo update, but it comes with several bug fixes including improved Wi-Fi connectivity. ... "

Digital Subscription Numbers from Barnes & Noble

PW: "Barnes & Noble ... said since the launch of the Nookcolor it has sold more than 650,000 total subscriptions and single copy sales of digital editions of newspapers and magazines. Since Christmas Day customers have already ordered 150% more subscriptions than the total number sold over the entire previous 12 months, B&N said."

Study: Kindle Tweets Outpace Nook Tweets 2 to 1

Crave - CNET: "Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble don't report sales figures for their respective e-readers, the Nook and Kindle. But one company, Crimson Hexagon, has taken it upon itself to formulate some opinions about the e-reader market by charting and analyzing Twitter conversations for both the Nook and Kindle, as well as the iPad as an e-reader."

Nook Color Gets Hacked Again, Now Runs Ubuntu Linux

Elizabeth Fish, PC World: "CES certainly didn’t put the XDA Developers forum users off from their usual tinkering. Ever since first getting jailbroken, the Nook Color has had plenty of hacker’s attention, mainly getting Android and Angry Birds (and then potentially blowing up). Now, hackers have moved their focus from Android to Ubuntu Linux. ... "

Barnes & Noble Reports Online, Store Holiday Gains

PW: "After giving a preliminary report earlier this week about strong holiday gains, this morning Barnes & Noble gave a more detailed presentation, cited huge increases at Barnes & Noble.com and solid gains at its trade bookstores. While the increases were led by sales of Nookcolor and related digital products, B&N said that sales of physical books, especially hardcovers, exceeded expectations. Same store sales at B&N.com jumped 78% for the nine-week holiday period ended January 1 driven by sales of devices and e-books. Total sales at B&N.com rose 67% in the period, to $228.5 million. The company said it sold 'virtually its entire inventory of Nookcolor and E-Ink devices during the holiday season.'"

B&N Introduces Nook Kids for iPad

PW: "Barnes & Noble has introduced a Nook kids for iPad application. The app makes B&N’s digital catalog of children’s content—which includes 100 new interactive kids’ books–available on the e-reading device. To promote the new app, B&N is offering two free picture books: Richard Scarry’s Colors and Rudyard Kipling’s The Elephant’s Child, which will automatically appear in a customer’s digital library when they register. ... "

eBooks Outsell Paper Books On Barnes & Noble's Online Store

Riggio & colleagues better enjoy themselves and get the most out of the moment, now that the Nook Color has been rooted to run Android apps, including Kindle for Android. They could not foresee this? HuffPost: "The New York company said its Nookcolor e-reader, which launched eight weeks before Christmas, was its top-selling gift of the holiday season. Barnes & Noble also said it now sells more digital books than physical books on its Web site. Nearly 1 million e-books were purchased on Christmas Day alone, the company said, with popular titles including James Patterson's Cross Fire and Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." Wow, what great results. But imagine how many more books they would have sold on Christmas day if their servers hadn't crashed.

How To Run Android Apps, Including Kindle, On A (Rooted) Nook

San Francisco Chronicle: "If you got a Nook Color instead of a Kindle 3 for Christmas and you're feeling left out, have no fear: a simple hack posted by Blog Kindle lets your Nook read books in Amazon's Kindle format...and run just about any other Android application as well. The hack works because the Nook is actually a bare-bones Android tablet that automatically starts the Nook application and doesn't let you run any other Android apps. But users can download a rootkit that overrides the Nook's presets, then enable the Android Market and go to town."

Spring Design Suit Against B&N Goes Forward

PWxyz: "The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has declined to dismiss a lawsuit filed against Barnes & Noble that claims the bookseller stole the design of the original Nook digital reading device. U.S. District Court Judge James Ware ruled that Spring Design, which produces the Alex eReader, a dual screen digital reader much like the original Nook, can pursue a suit charging B&N with misappropriating trade secrets, breach of contract and unfair competition. ... "