It's lighter than an ebookwise, but I'm not sure it's smaller. (But yes, less bulky. And eink is much, much better for reading.)
Not sure how useful the wifi will be; so far, there's only confirmation that it lets you buy books from BN, not actually browse any other websites.
The "loaning" hasn't been described in detail; their support page just says, Q. Can I lend eBooks from my nook? A. Yes. With our new LendMe™ technology, you can now share from nook to nook. But it doesn’t stop there. Starting Nov. 30th, you can lend to and from any device with the Barnes & Noble eReader app, including PC, Mac OS®, BlackBerry®, iPhone™ and iPod® touch. All you need to know is your friend’s email address. You can lend many of your eBooks one time for a maximum of 14 days. When you use our LendMe™ technology, you will not be able to read your eBook while it is on loan, but you always get it back. ------------- So, one-time loan, for up to 14 days. If that's "once per book," it's fairly pointless. (And it's unclear how you will be "unable to read your book" in the meantime, especially if you copied it onto your main computer before loaning it out.)
However, loaner tech is a big step up, and it's what ebook publishers need to work on--ways to allow legal, easy loaning, giving and re-selling of ebooks. Because until they can make digital files act more like physical ones, they're going to continue to see lots of downloading & filesharing, which people will continue to think of as the same mental niche as buying from a garage sale or used book store--in either of those cases, the original author gets no royalties.
no subject
Not sure how useful the wifi will be; so far, there's only confirmation that it lets you buy books from BN, not actually browse any other websites.
The "loaning" hasn't been described in detail; their support page just says,
Q. Can I lend eBooks from my nook?
A. Yes. With our new LendMe™ technology, you can now share from nook to nook. But it doesn’t stop there. Starting Nov. 30th, you can lend to and from any device with the Barnes & Noble eReader app, including PC, Mac OS®, BlackBerry®, iPhone™ and iPod® touch. All you need to know is your friend’s email address. You can lend many of your eBooks one time for a maximum of 14 days. When you use our LendMe™ technology, you will not be able to read your eBook while it is on loan, but you always get it back.
-------------
So, one-time loan, for up to 14 days. If that's "once per book," it's fairly pointless. (And it's unclear how you will be "unable to read your book" in the meantime, especially if you copied it onto your main computer before loaning it out.)
However, loaner tech is a big step up, and it's what ebook publishers need to work on--ways to allow legal, easy loaning, giving and re-selling of ebooks. Because until they can make digital files act more like physical ones, they're going to continue to see lots of downloading & filesharing, which people will continue to think of as the same mental niche as buying from a garage sale or used book store--in either of those cases, the original author gets no royalties.