After weeks of rumors, Barnes & Noble has officially announced its e-reader, the oddly named “nook”.

Mixing a traditional e ink 6-inch screen for reading with a full color touchscreen for book browsing and purchasing, the nook (yes, Barnes & Noble is going with not capitalizing it) is the first venture into the gadget marketplace for the book seller.

The nook will feature both Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity, 2GBs of built-in memory, a microSD card slot allowing for up to another 16GBs of memory, built-in speaker, 3.5mm headphone jack, replaceable battery, swappable colored back panels and several other features.  The device will have access to 500,000 free books at launch as well as an additional 500,000 purchasable books.

Two exciting software features are LendMe which will allow one Barnes & Noble customer to lend a book they have purchased to another person for free for 14 days, and a continuous reading experience that lets you move between devices without losing your place in the book.

The nook is available for pre-order now at a price of $259 with deliveries beginning in late November.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 2:30 am under Technology.

Read more entries by Sean P. Aune.
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