The ToyBox

Ricardo Bilton & Gloria Sin

Nook Color to receive 'major' firmware update, new magazine titles

By | March 25, 2011, 8:08am PDT

Summary: Barnes & Noble has announced several developments for its prized Nook Color e-book reader. Not only is a ton of new content on the way, but a “major” firmware update is too.

Barnes & Noble has announced several developments for its prized Nook Color e-book reader. Not only is a ton of new content on the way, but a “major” firmware update is too.Let’s start with the easy and most confirmed stuff. First up is stuff you can get now, which includes copies of such popular glossies like The Economist, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine and ESPN The Magazine, along with the “only” digital version of The King’s Speech.

Kids will get some new treats too as the children’s book section is being expanded with new interactive titles from Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer.

But more importantly, B&N will issue ”a major update to the device’s firmware” what will allow access to “exciting new applications, email and many other requested features.” Some of the apps on the way include Angry Birds, Drawing Pad, Lonely Planet Phrasebooks, Tikatok, and Wine PhD.

According to the Home Shopping Network (via CNET), all of that will be thanks to an upgrade to Android 2.2 with Adobe Flash onboard and the new Nook Store. (Don’t call it Nook App Store!)

The Nook Color is about to get a whole lot more exciting.

Related coverage on ZDNet:

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Topics

Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

Disclosure

Rachel King

Rachel King has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted in this blog.

Biography

Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive in San Francisco. Before serving as a contributing editor at ZDNet in New York City for two years, she previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish America Magazine and the New York Daily News, among others. Rachel has a B.A. in Mass Communications and History from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, where she served as art director for the student magazine, Plated.

6
Comments

Join the conversation!

Just In

RE: Nook Color to receive 'major' firmware update, new magazine titles
fdaugherty 20th Apr 2011
when is 2.2 available? this article is about a month old now.
I have to say, B&N is way ahead of Amazon on the software for their e-readers. I guess that's a benefit from using Android versus a homegrown OS like Kindle.
0 Votes
+ -
I bought a Nook Color just to see
terry flores Updated - 25th Mar 2011
As a cheap tablet, it had two greatly redeeming features for me: it fits in a jacket pocket and it takes microSD flash cards. With movies, music and books on it, it is my "airplane entertainment system".

I don't really use it for what B&N intended though. I've only bought two books from their store, and that was mainly because I had a credit with them.
The upgrade to 2.2 will be great. But rooting this thing was so easy. I've already got a bunch of great apps. Games like Angry Birds to kill time and a comic reader are fantastic on the Nook Color.
@khaos13
Rooting is easy, but it will be nice to have legitimate 2.2 with Flash and proper video drivers, just hopefully they don't lock down rooting. I currently am using Honeycomb, but I will go down to 2.2 so that I can use flash and have videos play well.
Use CM7 nightly build, 2.2 with flash and video working.
when is 2.2 available? this article is about a month old now.

Join the conversation!

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]
ie8 fix

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity

White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources
ie8 fix