Kno for Sale?

It appears that Kno, which last year unveiled eponymous single- and dual-screen tablets designed specifically for the education market, is exploring selling off the hardware side of its business. According to this All Things Digital post, the abruptly crowded tablet market—with more than 80 such devices released or announced at CES 2011 in January—convinced Kno execs to tilt all the company’s focus toward its software and services rather than actual devices.

Kno is said to have two consumer electronics manufacturers interested in its hardware business. Although the Kno touchscreen tablets were slated for release toward the end of 2010, only a few hundred preorders were actually filled before Kno recently ceased shipping. The company [ web site states, “You now need an invitation to get a Kno. There aren’t enough to go around.”

The devices’ price tag of $599 for the single-screen and $999 for the dual-screen had raised some doubts about their viability for the higher ed market, so it will be interesting to see what a buyer does with the hardware.

Once any sale is complete, Kno would reportedly use its software, which includes annotation and highlighting capabilities, to serve students via the iPad and tablets employing the Android mobile OS. The company has a “wide range” of existing textbook distribution partnerships with colleges and universities upon which to build, and one of its founders Osman Rashid, co-founder of the textbook-rental company Chegg.

Update on Kno and Other Tablets

The School Library Journal had a recap and video clip from CES this year focused on the Kno. The Kno was unveiled last year as a tablet designed specifically for education. Initially something of a disappointment, the company has come a long way. Kno is a spin-out of Chegg, the textbook rental company. While textbook rentals have existed on a number of college campuses for more than 40 years, it is really Chegg's entry to the market less than 3 years ago which has led to the dramatic adoption of rental as a standard business model across the U.S. textbook market. With preliminary content from some of the largest textbook publishers, it will be interesting to watch where Kno goes in the coming year and how the company will chose to work with educational institutions and the college store community. The School Library Journal provides some additional updates on the device.

The journal also has another story on tablets and CES this month. The piece covers a range of the devices and discusses their implications for education and text.

Kno announces pricing for tablets and begins accepting preorders

Earlier today, Kno announced the pricing for its single and dual-screen tablet devices and said that a limited number of devices will ship before the end of the year. As a reminder, the Kno Tablets were designed for higher education and include: 14-inch LCD screens to display full textbook pages; the ability to highlight and annotate; multitasking capabilities; support for stylus, touch, and keyboard input; and data backup in the cloud.

A posting on the All Things Digital website says that company will work with some college bookstores and the device will be aimed at 10 college campuses initially. This semester beta testing occurred at several campuses and Cengage Learning, McGraw Hill, Pearson, and Wiley provided select digital resources for the testing. The Kno website includes videos of a few students describing their experiences with the device and the company says that the student responses have been “overwhelmingly positive for both the single and dual screen devices.”

Students will be able to purchase textbooks through the Kno bookstore that will be accessible on the tablet. The store includes thousands of titles and the list can be viewed on Kno’s website. Currently the device has built in apps for reading, taking notes, and the web but additional apps are in development. A page on Kno’s website invites developers to help them design their development platform and build their app store. Apps for collaboration, specific subjects, educational games, and productivity tools will be available.

In addition, according to the New York Times, Kno plans to make its software available for laptops and potentially other tablets in the future.

These developments will certainly be ones to watch in the month’s ahead.

Kno announces second tablet for education

According to a posting on Wired’s Gadget Lab, Kno Inc., has announced that it will release a second touchscreen tablet this year. Kno’s first tablet includes two 14-inch screens while the second tablet includes just one 14-inch screen. Detailed specs have not been released but it is expected to incorporate similar functionality as the dual screen device.

Osman Rashid, CEO and Co-Founder of Kno Inc., commented on the new device, “Even though the Kno pays for itself in 13 months, the smaller up front investment of the single screen version will allow more students to use our learning platform."

The dual screen device is being piloted on a few campuses this fall and both devices are scheduled to ship by the end of the year.

Pictures of the new device can be found on Wired’s website.

Video demo of Kno Tablet

Last week we talked about the new Kno Tablet that was unveiled at the All Things Digital Conference. Here is a video demo that shows some of the impressive capabilities.

Kno Movie from Kno, Inc. on Vimeo.

Kno Tablet unveiled

As expected, the Kno Tablet was unveiled earlier this week at the D8: All Things Digital Conference and it is impressive. Of particular interest, Kno has already partnered with four higher education publishers (Cengage Learning, McGraw Hill, Pearson, and Wiley) and pilots will begin this fall. Here is a list of some of the highlights:

• Two 14 inch touchscreens that open like a book to allow the device to display 95 percent of textbooks
• There will be an online store that is linked to the device for the purchase of materials
• It has WiFi and Bluetooth
• It weighs 5.5 pounds
• It supports all document-creation formats and PDFs
• It will include a stylus
• Operating system is Linux based
• Pre-orders will begin in October and it will ship in time for the holidays

In addition, here is a link to an article on CNET and another on All Things Digital. The videos on each link are worth a watch.

This brings us pretty close to having a commercially viable multi-function device for e-textbooks that was designed with textbooks in mind. The road ahead could get bumpy for college stores.