barnes & noble

Barnes & Noble reportedly readying 8GB Nook Tablet

Barnes & Noble is prepping a new version of its Nook Tablet to better compete against Amazon's Kindle Fire.

The book retailer will launch an 8-gigabyte version of its tablet through Wal-Mart on Wednesday, according to The Verge.

The Nook Tablet made some noise after its launch as part of a new wave of affordable tablets better suited to competing with the higher end iPad from Apple. But while the Kindle Fire has sold well and drawn much of the attention of the consumer and media, the Nook Tablet hasn't seen the same level of adoption. … Read more

Amazon Kindle Fire climbs to top of Android pack

Three months after going on sale, we still don't know how many Kindle Fire tablets that Amazon has sold.

Sure, analysts have made estimates, but without real figures from Amazon, we're left to guess as to how the Kindle Fire is faring against devices from Apple, Samsung, and others.

Or do we? Issued just today, a new report from IHS iSuppli predicts that not only is the Kindle Fire selling well, but it's beating its Android tablet competition.

Likely led by its attractive $200 price and heavy marketing strategies, Amazon is reported to have sold just under … Read more

Barnes & Noble seeks to reverse ruling in Microsoft patent flap

Barnes & Noble is asking the U.S. International Trade Commission to reconsider its decision last week to to dismiss Barnes & Noble's "patent misuse" defense in its case against Microsoft.

A motion, filed with the agency by Barnes & Noble lawyers yesterday, asks the agency to review the ruling by Administrative Law Judge Theodore Essex, which the company says "rests on both erroneous conclusions of law and a misstatement of the facts." The bookseller argues that the ruling doesn't address its arguments or analyze them under the appropriate patent laws.

Last week's … Read more

Microsoft withdraws one patent claim against Barnes & Noble

Microsoft withdrew a patent from the list of ones that it claims Barnes & Noble violates with its Nook e-readers in the software giant's case against the bookseller before the U.S. International Trade Commission.

The software giant filed a motion yesterday to remove the so-called "522 patent," which covers the method of displaying tabs, like those in a browser. A Microsoft spokeswoman said it decided to withdraw the patent from the dispute to focus on its case.

"We removed the patent from the ITC investigation to streamline and simplify the issues to be considered at … Read more

Rumor Has It, Ep. 18: No, Samsung, we don't need a bigger Galaxy Tab (podcast)

To celebrate Mark Zuckerberg maybe possibly loosening his death grip on Facebook, Karyne and I give you a little Econ 101 lesson.

Kidding! No we don't. All I learned in Econ 101 was that there is apparently no such thing as a free lunch (then what was that pizza I just found abandoned in the kitchen and ate, hmm?) and that the more scarce a thing is, the more money it will cost.

But scarcity might explain why unvested stocks of Facebook have been some of the highest valued and most traded on SecondMarket--a market to trade stocks in … Read more

Barnes & Noble defense narrows against Microsoft patent claims

An administrative law judge has apparently eliminated one possible defense for Barnes & Noble, a week before the giant bookseller squares off against Microsoft in a hearing over a patent dispute.

Administrative Law Judge Theodore Essex today granted Microsoft's request to dismiss Barnes & Noble's "patent misuse" defense, a filing first picked up by software patent blogger Florian Mueller. (Microsoft has previously paid Mueller to conduct a study on its behalf.) The U.S. International Trade Commission, which is hearing the dispute, only revealed the ruling's heading--"Initial Determination Granting Microsoft's Motion for … Read more

Can Barnes & Noble save the bookstore?

Over the weekend, I drove to a local mall to go see a movie, but got stuck in traffic and missed the showtime--so I visited the mall's Barnes & Noble bookstore instead.

It was the first time I'd been in this particular Barnes & Noble in awhile, and I noticed several changes. For one thing, a large booth selling B&N's Nook e-readers was located so close to the front doors that it was impossible to enter the store without seeing the Nooks and overhearing a staffer explaining them to other shoppers.

Reminders of the Nook'… Read more

Report: New Nook coming this spring

The New York Times today published a long piece about Barnes & Noble taking on Amazon in the "fight of its life." Buried in the middle of the two-page article is a small mention of engineers "putting the final touches on their [Barnes & Noble's] fifth e-reading device, a product that executives said would be released sometime this spring."

No details were offered beyond that, with a Barnes & Noble spokesperson declining to comment further. But the obvious question is what is it?

Another tablet, perhaps a larger model (think iPad size but with a $… Read more

Tablet ownership nearly doubled during the holidays

The holidays were certainly prosperous for the tablet industry.

The number of U.S. tablet owners just about doubled from 10 percent to 19 percent between the middle of December and the start of January, according to a Pew Internet report out today.

Coming from a period of flat growth since the summer, tablets enjoyed a surge during the holiday season as lower-cost devices such as the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble's Nook tablet reached shoppers just in the nick of time.

But tablet vendors weren't the only ones on a holiday hot streak.

E-book readers … Read more