Last week, both Barnes & Noble and Borders announced new digital initiatives.
According to the press release, Barnes & Noble has created a new study application for students of higher education called NOOKstudy. The application is currently being tested at several universities and will be available to all higher education students during the fall 2010 semester. The application is free and can be downloaded to PC’s and Mac’s. It enables students to download e- books and e-textbooks, take notes, tag content, search through both the textbook and annotations, and manage all of their digital content, including: lecture notes, syllabi, slides, handouts, trade books, and other course documents. Marketed as a study aid, the NOOKstudy may prove to be a convenient tool and interface through which students can organize, download, and read e-textbooks and other digital content.
As mentioned in a previous posting, NOOKstudy will be also be integrated with Blackboard Learn.
Also last week, Borders launched an e-book store that is powered by Kobo. According to an article from RetailingToday.com, Blackberry and Android reading apps will also be available.
