“Kobo is a global eBook retailer backed by Indigo Books & Music, Borders, REDgroup Retail, Cheung Kong Holdings, and other leaders in technology and retail. We believe consumers should be able to read any book, anytime, anywhere, and on the device of their choice.”

Kobo is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. You can find their company profile on LinkedIn. Kobo is an ebook company that also sells an ereader. Kobo makes partnerships to help sell its ebooks in over 200 countries around the world from Canada to Australia. For a company founded in 2009, 2010 has seen a period of large growth for the company of 110 employees as Kobo began selling ebooks in the UK in February 2010 and then started selling ebooks in United States Borders book stores and in Wal-Marts in Canada in June 2010.  Also in June, Kobo released a Kobo iPhone App. They also have apps available for Blackberry, Android, and HP/Palm Pre’.  In July 2010 Kobo and Borders began selling ebooks online at Border’s ebook store. Borders owns 20% of Kobo, Inc. so it’s no wonder they have a partnership (it’s who you know, you know?).

Can Kobo ebooks be read on a nook?

Yes, because the nook supports ePub and Adobe Digital Editions, Kobo ebooks can be read on a nook.  Unsure if your ereader is supported by Kobo? Find the full list here along with instructions on how to read an ebook on an ereader other than a Kobo.

Did I mention that they named it the iPad?

But, they didn’t ask me for a reason, I suppose…

I’ve had this discussion with a doctor who uses the iPhone like crazy when dealing with patients. There are a ton of apps that help doctors. I asked her if the iPad appealed to her; for the same reason that we think it is bunk technology (giant iPhone that is less convenient without reducing the need for a computer) and she said no.

I can see the medical profession using something like an iPad in the future, if the cost comes down and they are more PC-like (i.e. EMR and Hospital (Citrix) systems can be installed on the OS). If Epocrates (and others) could unshackle themselves from Apple, it would change the medical community. As it stands, Epocrates is simply latching on to a known (and healthy) distribution channel.

I’m surprised they surveyed physicians so soon after the release. That’s an interesting demographic to target.

Barnes and Noble’s nook already was capable of playing MP3′s in the background while you read a book, but recently a few nook device owners have hacked it to run the Pandora music application in the background. Pandora is an application that plays music over the Internet without the need to own or store the music locally, which would be required to play it the normal way on the nook ebook reader.

“It wasn’t that hard,” says Robbie Trencheny, a 18-year-old student who is also the team leader at nookDevs, a wiki and an online forum for Nook enthusiasts. “Once we had rooted the Nook (on Sunday), it was only a matter of time until we could put an app on it.”

The nook does not come with an Internet browser, but the nookDevs group has got a browser to run on the nook. This means the nook is capable of browsing the internet once hacked. The team also got an Android twitter client called Tweet, Google Reader and a Facebook application running on the Nook (probably one already developed to run on other Android mobile devices).

The move opens the door to running apps on the e-reader — something that Barnes & Noble does not support officially, but could lead to increased sales. This is a tactic many manufacturers have taken in the past and it has been successful for them to remain hands off, although some, like Apple, have had a heavy hand and so most of their innovation comes from within themselves.

“Rooting” the Nook involves hacking its system files to get full access to the device’s Android operating system. The Nook comes with access to 3G connectivity provided by AT&T that is ostensibly to used for downloading books wirelessly from the Barnes & Noble e-book store. Nook users aren’t charged for the 3G access.

How to Hack the Nook eBook Reader

But unlike jailbreaking Apple’s iPhone, rooting the Nook isn’t just about tinkering with the software. Instead, Nook customers have to adjust the hardware by taking a screwdriver to get to the device’s insides. Nook’s Android OS is on a microSD card that needs to be connected to a computer to change a file on it. Once that’s done, the power of Nook’s Android OS is available to its users.

To run Pandora, Trencheny first searched for the .apk file associated with the app. “It’s a file extension that Android uses and every app has it,” he says. Once that file is wirelessly downloaded onto the 3G-enabled Nook, users have to run a command in the terminal shell of the device. With a few more steps described on the nookDevs wiki, they can get Pandora installed on the Nook.

There are a few more steps to get it operational. The Nook’s touchscreen won’t cooperate with the Pandora app so users have to use a VNC remote control software to get past the app’s initial login screen. Once that’s done, Pandora works perfectly with the Nook touchscreen and can run in the background as you browse books, says Trencheny.

If all that sounds a little rough for someone who just likes to pick up an e-reader and read, then there’s a fix in the works, assures Trencheny. NookDevs is working on creating a software unlock so users won’t have to open up the Nook. They are also trying to open a marketplace just for Nook apps. This is one place where Barnes and Noble might want to intercede or at least beat them to the punch as iTunes marketplace has proven, apps are where the money is.

And while Pandora is the first to make it to the Nook, the procedure for adding other apps is the similar, says Trencheny. “We can run multiple apps if we want to,” he says. This is something even the iPhone can’t do and what gives mobile devices like the Nook who run the Android operating system an advantage. This is what makes the Droid phone even stand a chance against the iPhone.

NookDevs members haven’t heard any complaint, so far, from Barnes & Noble. “We have looked through the end user license agreement and, as far we can tell, there is nothing in there to get us into trouble,” says Trencheny. “We are not abusing the 3G or breaking the DRM rights on the books.” That is good news for technology enthusiasts everywhere.

Read the full story on Wired.

Amazon shot for simplicity and what they created was a simple product. Yes, it was improved with the Kindle 2, but Barnes and Noble raised the bar considerably with the release of the nook.

While Amazon’s Kindle is still the market leader, it’s grayscale-only screen makes Barnes and Noble’s nook’s color screen look fantastic. I also features iPhone-like touch screen and finger manipulation. Just flick your finger and the screen scrolls just as it does on Apple’s iPhone.

Both ebook readers are similarly priced at $259 so removing price from the comparison, you are truly choosing between hardware and software options at this point along with the back-end service and ebook availability. Both are strong companies who share roots in selling books, but Barnes and Nobles is exclusively a book store and that may be why they are able to offer up to three times as many ebooks than Amazon.

And while we are comparing nook’s color screen to Apple’s iPhone, let us remember that Apple has yet to release an ebook reader or even a touch screen tablet. iPhone users can download and use both Kindle and Barnes and Noble apps to read ebooks on the iPhone, but Apple has yet to release a standalone ebook hardware platform. While the nook has made improvements to the ebook reader, it is not necessarily a game changer like the way the iPod changed MP3 players and the iPhone changed cell phones forever. Can Apple do it again and if so, will that be the game changer?

You might want to ask why you would want the game changed at all.

Barnes and Noble and Amazon are both releasing solid products that do one thing well: read ebooks. No, they can’t surf the web well, but they can download ebooks from the web just fine, which is exactly what they are for. If you want to search the web, there is already hardware for that. Most people can even surf the web on their cell phones, for example. So this push for a game changing device may only be a play on our human nature to always want the grass on the other side of the fence, never being satisfied. This fuels our economic engine and spurs innovation, but sometimes we need to stop and appreciate what we have now and that it is pretty cool and not always dismiss the present while we are waiting for the future to arrive.