Earlier this week, a cheaper Barnes & Noble Nook Touch was revealed to the world. Now, it looks like the Kobo wants to do the same touchscreen thing with the announcement of the Kobo Touch Edition. And they got there one day earlier too.

You won’t get a full color touchscreen like how you get with the iPad or Nook Color; instead, it’s an e-ink touchscreen. The interface is pretty much what you’d expect with swipes to turn pages, for example, as well as the ability to highlight text, take notes, and bookmark. They’re also including an on-screen virtual keyboard for ease of text entry.

They’re also noting that it’s not the capacitive technology that you find on most smartphones and tablets today. They’re using an “infrared touch technology” instead, which allows you to use any object to touch the screen.

And it’s ten bucks cheaper than the Nook Touch too. The Kobo Touch Edition went on preorder on Monday for $129.99, dropping the regular Kobo down to $99.99 in the process. What’s interesting is that Amazon has yet to release a touch-enabled Kindle, despite being at the top of the heap when it comes to dedicated e-readers.

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I know. It’s a little weird finding a product like this from a company that normally specializes in turntables and other audio equipment, but you also have to realize that they’ve already developed products to convert vinyl records into MP3 files. The same kind of philosophy is taken with converting paper-based books into digital ones.

Yes, the Book Saver looks like quite the contraption with its spider-like legs and almost post-apocalyptic stance, but that’s part of why it can work so quickly. They’re saying that a 200-page book can be scanned and converted to e-book in 15 minutes.

The clever contraption consists of an angled cradle for holding your book and an upper frame with two cameras and built-in flash units (one pointed at each page). You snap the picture, flip the page, and move on. Each pair of pages takes about a second. At the end, the e-book is recorded onto an SD card and away you go.

You know what would help this $149 scanner even more? If it had some kind of mechanism for flipping the pages for you. Perhaps the $100,000 ScanRobot would better suit your needs.

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Kobo is launching the Kobo WiFi edition, adding wireless connectivity to the tiny e-reader and giving it a price drop. But is it enough to keep Kobo in the e-book game? The company launched the Kobo software for mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android, Mac, PC, Linux and soon BlackBerry PlayBook. The Kobo software would require you to download your purchases to the computer via the Kobo app, then transfer them to the Kobo reader via Bluetooth, USB or SD card. So adding WiFi is a logical extension, but still with no keyboard searching for exactly what you want will involve flipping and clicking through dozens of titles and viewing listings by either category or alphabetically.

When the Kobo first came out I took a good look at it, the software was sluggish, but the new Kobo WiFI should address that concern with 2x faster processor, making page turns and navigation faster than before – the same as the Kindle says Kobo. Other upgrades include longer battery life, sharper eInk screen for reading and a dictionary built in to quickly look up definitions.

Kobo WiFi sells for $140 USD ($149 CAD) and comes in Black, Pearlized Onyx and Silver. Its available now for pre-order and will ship October 5th via KoboBooks.

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For starters, the $160 Literati e-reader comes equipped with a full color display. Sharper Image isn’t specify exactly, but we’re likely expecting to see a regular LCD display. There’s also a full QWERTY keyboard underneath for ease of text entry. It doesn’t have 3G Whispernet, but the Literati does have Wi-Fi for wireless book downloads and free reading apps.

But where will it get these book downloads? The Sharper Image Literati is actually connected to the Kobo e-book store. This way, you can gain access to the same content as you would on the e-ink powered Kobo eReader… but with color.

The Literati is expected to hit store shelves in early October. Look for it in Bed Bath and Beyond, Best Buy, JC Penney, Kohl’s, Macy’s and of course, Shaper Image locations.

Now Sharper Image Launches an E-Reader [Gadget Lab]

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Kobo eReader pre-orders for June 17 shipment in the USA

The Kobo eReader we took a good look at last week which launched in Canada, is now officially available for pre-order from Borders in the USA.

The $150 e-Ink Kobo is the most affordable eReading currently device on the market.  It’s small size and quilted back make it unlike your typical electronics device.  This will get you hooked on Border’s soon to be launched online eBook store, which I have a sneaking suspicion will be a re-branded Kobo Store.

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The Kobo eReader book library display screen - Photo: Fabrizio Pilato

Since the beginning, Kobo was a platform. The eReader hardware only came in to the picture later on, as a way to affordably introduce people interested in the technology. Kobo eReader is already available for the Apple iPad, and they intend to release their app for other platforms like Android. Eventually making themselves known as an eReader OS for third-party devices sometime this summer.

The standard for eBooks and newspapers is epub. This is essentially an HTML file, epub and pdf books are accessible from the Kobo platform, this covers 99% of books on the market. The first iteration of Kobo eReader will not support your own word or powerpoint files for example, but they plan to bring other formats to the eReader down the pipeline.

eReaders on the market today are around $300 and up. Kobo wanted to give users an opportunity to get in to eReading at half the price, and eventually bring that down to even $100. According to Michael Serbinis, CEO of Kobo Inc. the average consumer buys a book a month. “We wanted to bring out a device that was affordable, physically great to hold and to have, not looking like a piece of cheap electronics, and a device that would be a great experience for that single piece of reading.” Serbinis told Mobile Magazine in a telephone interview last week.

This means Kobo is not going up against any specific hardware device, as they will be deploying across various styles of eReaders in the near future. That alone changes the companies perceived business model up until this point.

The Kobo future will be an app (like on the iPad) and also a complete OS/firmware package. It will support Wi-Fi/3G for connectivity, some of these tablets have gorgeous screens, LCD or OLED, not just E-Ink. Certainly color is far richer and higher resolution screens will make more appealing devices, but that will just allow Kobo to really make a richer user experience. The OS that is on the Kobo eReader has the ability to support embedded video, audio, animations, a richer style of content. That doesn’t make sense for a bestseller novels, for richer content like cookbooks or kids books, text books, and magazines it begins to be relevant. The majority of magazines released so far on eReaders have been the text kind, New Yorker is one of the few supporting different formats, “multimodal.” Serbinis says. Kobo’s book store will allow you to take these books to other devices that support their platform, not lock you in to one piece of hardware or device.

My one gripe about the Kobo eReader device itself is the refresh. You get a black animation sweeping across the display, this is just an artifact of the eInk screen, the next generation of Eink screens will remove that. So until then we just have to live with it. Freescale and Marvel have apparently figured out engineering solutions for the hardware to get around this problem. “I think we will see the next gen of eInk be even easier on the eyes, and will have even longer battery life. The huge advantage of the device is 2 weeks on one charge. The power down will be updated with new firmware update to power up much quicker, right now 30-45 seconds to get the screen.” Added Serbinis.

The Kobo eReader's E-Ink display caught in between refreshes - Photo: Mobile Magazine

Bottom Line
The Kobo eReader is an introductory device to the world of eReading. If you compare it with other multi-functional tablet’s, its going to get killed. But looking at it from the perspective of a taste test, affordable for many, and scalable. You will understand its potential. The hardware has a nice design, the screen is a bit smaller but does not feel like an electronics device while reading it. The quilted back is smooth and supple, making it a pleasure to hold on to. Loading and accessing pages could be a bit faster, as the ability to search and bookmark would be helpful too. I really like the “standy” mode, how it shows the cover of the book you are currently reading. This uses no battery power at all, since eInk only uses juice when changing pages. But as CEO Michael Serbinis told us, we can expect more features and devices to come down the line from Kobo.

The Kobo eReader sells for $150 beginning this Saturday at Chapters and Indigo stores across Canada. Borders in the USA in a month or so. Check Kobo’s website for detailed specifications and other information.

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Kobo eReader first hands-on Photo: Fabrizio Pilato

This is it my fellow book worms, the newest contender on the ebook shelf. Up against Sony’s Reader, the Barnes & Noble Nook, and Amazon’s Kindle, we welcome the Kobo: with a slim stylish 6-inch E Ink display to read your ebooks on and at a price no one has yet to beat.

The first time I saw E Ink I thought it was amazing. It’s almost like looking at a photo copied piece of paper, but on an electronic device. You see, E Ink has a chillingly inanimate way about it. If an LCD were to be dead, E Ink could be an LCD’s resurrected zombie. Kind of there, but not all there. Just enough to keep it moving and always ready for something.

Kobo is starting off on the right foot.  With a major book chain behind them and a low price out the door, Kobo could make a name for themselves, and fast.

The Kobo is quite slim, it has a sturdy feel and a “quilted back.” Yah, quilted means diamonds, it’s made of that super soft smooth plastic that feels almost rubber. It has an SD expansion slot, 1GB of internal memory, and really flips through pages quite fast. You will have to wait until next month to get one, but Chapters Indigo is taking pre-orders at $150 a pop.

Here are some of our initial impressions:

• The weight is perfect, not too light or heavy, easy to hold in one hand.
• I wanted to bookmark a page, or flag it for later because of something I found interesting, but it doesn’t seem to be a feature in this version.
• When you power down the Kobo, it shows the book cover of what you are currently reading. I thought this was a nice touch and gave it the “leave on a coffee table or anywhere feel.” As you would do with a regular book.
• The “quilted back” is a really nice touch and does make it comfortable to hold. It’s a soft rubber/plastic type material that is super smooth, the quilts, or diamonds as I prefer to call them, give it a pillow-like effect.
• Software still under development. No playing with KoboBooks.com just yet.
• Browsing books by “Covers Only” mode is a bit slow and tedious.  Looks like it was setup to copy an iBooks shelf, interesting to see an E Ink display “flash” as it refreshes the screen twice before you.   I much prefer “Covers and Text” browsing, its quick and easier to tell what you are actually looking at.
• The D-Pad blue navigation button is easy to use and very responsive.  Acts a bit strange in “Covers Only” mode.
• 100 free titles are classics.  Agathie Christie, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, T.S. Elliot, Karl Marx to name a few.

Kobo eReader first hands-on Gallery

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Kobo eReader

It seems that new ebook device releases are not going to slow down anytime soon,  Wired is arguing that the Apple iPad will not be a Kindle killer. It’s in a different segment altogether. Instead, they’re saying that Jeff Bezos and the Amazon crew should be fearful of the Kobo eReader.

As a quick refresher, Kobo is a global eBook retailer with support from Chapters/Indigo, Borders, REDGroup Retail, and Cheung Kong Holidings. It already supports the major ebook readers (and smartphones) on the market, but it seems that Kobo wants some hardware of its own.

What you see here is the Kobo eReader and, from what we can tell, it’s going to be sold for a mere $150. That’s pretty darn cheap, considering that sure looks a lot like the more expensive Kindle. It has a similar e-ink display, plain white chassis, and long battery life.

There are some shortcomings at that price, of course. The $150 Kobo eReader does not have a 3G connection, for instance, relying instead on SD, USB or Bluetooth to get its content. There is only 1GB of storage, but you can expand with an SD card. For controls, you get that big blue directional pad on the front, but the rest of the buttons are tucked away on the left edge.

The Kobo eReader is cheap and effective, but I think the lack of 3G or atleast Wi-Fi could hurt its sales. The direct delivery model of the Amazon Kindle just seems so much more appealing.

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