I previously mentioned Barnes & Noble selling refurbished Nook Colors on eBay for $130, but it turns out that’s not the only great e-reader deal the site is offering. CNet notes that, today and tomorrow only, B&N is listing the new, not refurbished, Nook Simple Touch e-reader on eBay for $74.99 ($25 off the current sale price elsewhere) with delivery by December 22. It notes that only a limited quantity of the readers are available, and it seems to sell out and get resupplied throughout the day. That’s $25 less than Amazon’s touchscreen Kindle With Special Offers. Might be...

The Bookseller reports that Theresa Horner, vice-president for digital content at Barnes & Noble, has announced that the Nook will be coming to the United Kingdom in the “not too distant future.” Though B&N hasn’t determined whether it will be partnering with a UK company or creating its own UK presence, it is seriously considering expanding now that it has created “a successful platform in the US to work from.” There has been speculation B&N might partner with the Waterstone’s chain, since having a print bookstore to work from would be beneficial to an e-reader. However, the company has...

Barnes & Noble is listing a refurbished Nook Color (its first-generation Android tablet/e-reader, which is more hackable than the new Nook Tablet) for $119.99 on eBay, knocking $30 off the normal refurb price. Although it is refurbished, it does come with a one-year warranty, which is better than most non-Apple refurb sales get. A couple of my friends picked up this tablet back in the day when it was more expensive and were very happy with it (once they’d jailbroken it). I don’t have the disposable income to snag one myself right now, alas, but don’t let that stop...

Black Friday is almost upon us, and it bids fair to be an e-reader kind of holiday season. There’s no word yet from Amazon on any discounts on its Kindle products (though it seems to be discounting just about everything else), but Barnes & Noble has announced a special deal on a “Limited Edition” of its Nook Simple Touch e-reader—in stores only, it’s knocking $20 off the price. This brings it down to $79—on par with Amazon’s lowest-tier ad-supported Kindle price. Amusingly, one of its listed benefits is No Annoying Ads Reading...

If you’re getting a Nook Tablet, don’t expect to have access to much of its 16 gigabytes of onboard memory. Maximum PC reports (based on an Engadget review) that only 1 gigabyte of onboard storage is accessible to users. The other 13 or so gigs (that aren’t taken up by the operating system) can only be used for content downloaded from Barnes & Noble (though users can plug an SD card into the tablet and get access to more storage that way). Gizmodo checked with B&N and was told that the measure was intended to prevent customers from...

It’s probably obvious from the article posted earlier today about sideloading apps onto the Kindle Fire, but just to make it explicit, Mashable reports that it is fully possible to install the Nook Android app onto the Kindle Fire. It’s just necessary to enable installation of apps from unknown sources on the Fire, then sideload the non-corporate app store GetJar (choosing another Android 2.3 device from its install options since the Kindle Fire isn’t listed). Then GetJar can install the Nook app. (Not all third-party GetJar apps will install successfully, but Nook is one that will.) There’s...

Mike Shatzkin’s latest blog entry looks at the quandary posed by converting “illustrated” books, which one estimate puts at 25% of print books sold, into e-books. The major problem is that usually the books have to be specifically formatted so that the pictures are in the right place—and when you come to different screen-sized devices, such as the 10” iPad, the 7” Kindle, Nook, or Kobo tablets, or the 3.5” iPhone and iPod Touch, that means one size definitely does not fit all. Although tools exist that make it relatively quick and easy for a designer...

Our sister blog Gadgetell has a brief piece on the new version of the Nook for Android app, which notably adds the Nook Newsstand and personalized recommendations to the app for any Android device running version 2.1 or later—including smartphones. And speaking of Newsstand apps, ReadWriteWeb looks at the Kindle Fire Newsstand’s app as one of Amazon’s secret weapons in the war against the iPad. Offering over 400 full-color publications,  and including a free three-month trial of various Condé Nast magazines for those who subscribe before March 1, 2012, the app will compete with Apple’s own Newsstand. The Apple...

Earlier this year, Microsoft sued Barnes & Noble for patent infringement over its use of Android in the Nook Color. (I somehow missed this when it happened, so didn’t know about it when I posted this article more recently about Microsoft’s Android patent licensing deals.) But this week, an interesting new document emerged as evidence in the case: a 29-page slide deck from Barnes & Noble presenting the problems with Microsoft’s patent stance. The site that presented the slides, GeekWire, is down right now (presumably due to the heavy bandwidth demand from all 29 of those pictures being downloaded...

At The Digital Reader blog, Nate Hoffelder has heard from three different sources, at least a couple of whom are Barnes & Noble employees, that Barnes & Noble will be launching its next generation of Nook Color on November 7th. One source remarked on the huge “NOOK boutique” that his store built, complete with LED TVs, touchscreen point-of-sale systems, and so on, which his manager said “was not designed to house just 2 nooks.” It will be interesting to see whether this pans out. As Hoffelder points out, given that the Kindle Fire will be shipping soon, this is...

Whether it will ever be great again or not, Barnes & Noble seems to be trying to survive by imitating Amazon. An article on Time explains that B&N is adding more shopping categories to its bn.com website, including Home and Gift, Consumer Electronics, Arts and Crafts, Toys and Games, and Baby. The items in these new categories will mostly be provided by third-party vendors, with B&N taking a sales commission on each item it sells. This seems to be an example of playing to one’s strengths—thanks to Nook e-book sales, the bn.com website seems to be one of...

On FutureBook, Steve Emecz wonders why Barnes & Noble still hasn’t made the Nook devices, Nook Reader apps, or Nook e-books available outside the US and Canada. Amazon and Kobo, he points out, have readers and software available in the UK. Why not B&N? An excited author of mine downloaded the Nook PC app and bought a copy of his e-enhanced book this weekend and was hugely impressed (The London of Sherlock Holmes hyperlinking to Google Maps). I tried to do the same, and indeed also tried to download the exciting new Nook iPad app too...