Kobo Announces New Device Lineup

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On Tuesday, Kobo unveiled a new lineup of eReading devices. The new Kobo Aura 6” E Ink eReader, the Google-certified Kobo Arc 10HD, and two Kobo Arc 7 tablets are set to launch this fall.

Details about the availability of the new devices at ABA member stores, including timing, ordering, and demos, are being worked out, and the American Booksellers Association expects to have specific information to share over the next couple of weeks. Kobo program participants should watch for announcements via e-mail and in Bookselling This Week.

In other Kobo news this week, the company said that popular magazines and a new dedicated kids’ store with safe-search features and accounts for kids will be available in North America starting in September via its free eReading apps for iOS and Android.

In addition, Kobo revealed a new partnership with Pocket, a San-Francisco based company that lets users save and consume interesting web content they discover on a variety of devices.

“Through [this] partnership, we are able to help our readers go beyond the book, and curate content from almost any source — to read later,” said Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis. “We are excited to partner with a company that shares our mission to provide Readers with the best reading experience and encourages people to read and read more often.”

Using Pocket, readers can save and view the articles they want to read later from their browser and more than 400 other popular apps like Twitter, Flipboard, Pulse and Zite. When Kobo readers find an interesting article, they can save it to Pocket then view it as easily as they view any book content on their eReader, either online or offline.