New York (ip-192.com): As competition heats up, Borders is jumping into the eReader market with the announcement of Kobo. With a price tag of $150, Kobo is significantly cheaper as Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook, which currently sell for about $260. Borders will also compete with Google Editions, a "buy anywhere, read anywhere" service that is device independent and displays content stored in the cloud on mobile devices, netbooks and computers (ip-192.com reported here).
The new eReader, scheduled to arrive on June 17, comes pre-loaded with 100 free books; including Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace," Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," and H. G. Wells "The Island of Doctor Moreau". A complete list of books included is available here. While the reader will feature Bluetooth, it will not have wireless connectivity via Wi-Fi or 3G.
Toronto, Canada based Kobo Inc. introduced Kobo at the CTIA in March. Like the Kindle and Nook, the device uses an electronic ink screen that mimics the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Devices that use e-paper technology do not draw electricity from the internal battery while displaying text and images since light reflected from the screen makes the content visible. E-paper displays can be read in direct sunlight without the image appearing to fade.
Borders said that Kobo will be available in stores in August. The company plans to have more than 1 million titles available for download via its new e-bookstore, which is scheduled to open in June.
[...] software powered by Kobo (ip-192.com reported here), a Canadian based e-book reader, allows customers to read books on a variety of different devices [...]