Barnes & Noble Takes on the Kindle

by Vanessa Quirk

Barnes & Noble has come up with one of those ideas that’s so obvious, it’s genius. While it may not be the first company to try break into Amazon’s monopoly on electronic book readers (Sony’s Readers are – rather unsuccessfully – attempting that feat already), B&N has figured out how to combine the best existing features into one eReader. Since the Sony Reader Touch has an LCD touchscreen (great in theory, but not so much after an hour of eye-strain inducing, glare-filled reading) and the Kindle has a terrific (but slow moving) E-Ink screen, the B&N Athena will have two screens: one large, E-ink panel for reading and one smaller, multitouch LCD panel (much like the iPhone’s) for fast browsing. Plus, unlike any other device out so far, this LCD screen will be in COLOR. Seems like this could be the one to beat!