Hasta La Gadget!

Leaked photos have surfaced on the web purporting to reveal Barnes & Noble’s e-book reader, and the device looks a lot like Amazon’s Kindle.

In the images, the Barnes & Noble e-reader appears to have a 6-inch monochrome E-Ink display and wireless connectivity (telecom carrier undetermined). The device’s square form factor with its white frame is reminiscent of the Kindle’s design.

But what separates the Barnes & Noble e-reader from the Kindle is a secondary touch-capable LCD screen, says Gizmodo, which published the photos. Otherwise unremarkable, the e-reader will have the usual set of buttons for next page, previous page, search, home, book store, and user profile.

The e-reader is likely to be unveiled at an event Barnes & Noble plans to host Oct. 20, according to Gizmodo.

E-book readers are expected to be a hot gadget this holiday season and electronics retailer Best Buy has said it will dedicate a section for these devices. But Barnes & Noble’s e-reader will join a crowded market. In the past six months alone, companies such as Sony and iRex have announced newer models.

Barnes & Noble hopes its clout as a publisher and books retailer will give it a leg up on the competition. The company reportedly plans to sell the books it publishes at a deep discount for its e-reader customers. Pricing for the Barnes & Noble e-reader is unknown though most industry experts believe it will be lower than the Kindle ($260).

Check out Gizmodo’s gallery of photos of the Barnes & Noble e-reader.

See Also:

• LG’s Solar-Powered E-Book Reader
• Why E-Books Look So Ugly
• Why E-Books Are Stuck in a Black-and-White World
• Kindle Readers Ignite Protest Over E-Book Prices

Photo: Barnes & Noble e-reader/Gizmodo

There’s yet another e-book reader in the market and this time it is likely to be from retail book giant Barnes & Noble. The company is expected to announce its own e-book reader in time for holiday season sales next month, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Barnes & Noble hasn’t yet commented about the device. But an announcement from the company would confirm months of speculation about it. Like most of its peers, the Barnes & Noble e-reader is expected to have a black-and-white 6-inch display from E-Ink. It will also reportedly have a touchscreen and run on AT&T’s wireless network.

Barnes & Noble’s e-reader will join a crowded market. Since Amazon’s launch of the Kindle in 2007, the e-reader market has exploded with new devices. In the past six months alone, companies such as Sony and iRex have announced newer models. E-book readers are expected to be a hot gadget this holiday season and electronics retailer Best Buy has said it will dedicate a section for these devices. A few weeks ago, Barnes & Noble said it will partner with iRex, a spin-off from Royal Phillips Electronics, to integrate the former’s e-book store into the latter’s e-readers.

So far, Barnes & Noble hasn’t disclosed pricing for its upcoming reader. Sony’s touchscreen reader is priced at $300.

Separately, a Barnes & Noble representative said in a video (above) that the company will  have a color touchscreen reader, developed jointly with Plastic Logic, available next spring.

See Also:

• Bookstores Aim at Amazon With E-Readers of Their Own
• Sony’s E-Book Reader Adds Touchscreen, Wireless Downloads
• Plastic Logic E-Reader is Slimmer than Kindle DX
• Sony to Introduce $200 E-reader
• New Barnes & Noble E-book Store to Power Plastic Logic Reader

It’s not certain, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the best idea I’ve heard in a while: Barnes & Noble‘s rapidly-approaching eReader will be an Android piece, according to our source. And it really should be, according to me.

The leak came from someone who (quite convincingly!) claims to work for B&N developing mobile apps—his background knowledge of their app projects was startlingly deep, at any rate—and makes quite a bit of sense as an alternative to the brutally dumb software of current ebook readers.

Think about it. At six inches, it’s a smallish device, and we’ve seen Android on similarly-sized screens already. Wireless connectivity is built into the OS. Extraneous, inappropriate software and settings could be easily stripped out and replaced with relevant ones. A custom-designed interface could be easily dropped in. Apps—oh, sweet apps—could be a huge boon. And hey, E-Ink Android drivers have already been demonstrated on video. Not to mention the fact that B&N has conveniently skirted releasing an Android app, despite putting quite a bit of effort into iPhone and BlackBerry versions of the mobile ebook sofrware.

Simply put, this would be pretty fantastic, and it’s eminently plausible. And from the looks of it, we won’t have to wait long to find out.

Updated: 2010 really is shaping up as the year of the e-Book reader. The latest entry: iRex’s $400 DR800SG. It has an 8.1-inch stylus touchscreen, 3G Gobi chip with unlimited Verizon data, and books from Barnes & Noble’s ebook store.

B&N has about 750,000 titles, including new releases at $10. The DR800SG will also be able to download over 1,100 newspapers from Newspapers Direct, and supports the open ePub book format (along with PDF, TXT, eReader, and Fictionwise). The device has 2GB of memory, enough to store about 1500 books, but no additional memory card readers.

And while the Kindle‘s CDMA connectivity ties it to Sprint, the DR800SG’s Qualcomm Gobi chip means it will work on overseas HSDPA networks: Not only will the same product ship in Europe, but the press release promises international roaming sometime next year. Yes, the included 3G data is unlimited (no contract required), but there’s no browser—so it’d take a lot of books to freak Verizon out.

In use, your thumb turns pages using a button on the left, but since the DR800SG uses a Wacom tablet layer under the E-Ink display, you can’t use your finger to touch, just the stylus. Pages do turn quickly, though, and you can rotate text into landscape mode.

A leather cover and stylus (pictured) will be included when the DR800SG hits Best Buy in October, and Europe by mid-next year. [iRex Technologies]

The battle for dominance in the electronic books market is far from settled as new entrants continue to jostle their way in. iRex, a Netherlands-based company, has said it will launch a new e-book reader in the U.S. later this year. The e-reader will have a 8.1-inch touchscreen, stylus-based navigation and 3G wireless connectivity.

iRex has also partnered with Barnes & Noble to integrate the latter’s e-book store into its upcoming device.

Amazon’s Kindle and the Sony Reader have helped turn e-book readers into one of the hottest consumer electronics products. In May, E Ink, which almost exclusively supplies the black-and-white displays that power most e-readers, said more than a million readers use its technology.

Big retail book stores are taking notice. Earlier this year, Borders U.K. introduced a £189 ($276) e-book reader called Elonex. The Elonex will come pre-loaded with about 1,000 books and will support both the open-source ePub and proprietary Adobe formats.

In July, Barnes & Noble launched its own e-book store and said that it will power Plastic Logic’s e-reader targeted at business users. By partnering with iRex, Barnes & Noble hopes to expand its reach.

iRex was founded in 2005 as a spin-off from Royal Phillips Electronics. The company’s name stands for ‘Interactive Reading Experience,’ CEO Hans Brons told Wired.com in an interview earlier. iRex launched an e-reader with a 10.1-inch screen last year. But the company has mostly focused on business users, says Brons.

iRex’s upcoming reader will put it in competition with the larger e-book readers such as Amazon Kindle DX and the Plastic Logic e-reader. iRex hasn’t revealed how much its e-reader will cost in the U.S.

“All 6-inch displays today use first generation technology when it comes to driving the ink particles on the electronic paper,” says Brons. “We have improved on that tech and our customers can see the difference in the brightness of the screen and contrast ratio of the display.”

See Also:

• Bookstores Aim at Amazon With E-readers of Their Own
• Plastic Logic E-Reader is Slimmer than Kindle DX
• Buying Guide: How to Choose an E-Book Reader
• World’s First Color E-Book Reader Goes on Sale
• Google Boosts E-Reader Status of Smartphones with Mobile Book

Photo: iRex DR 1000s Reader (barisione/Flickr)