Comments on: Kno Gets $46M For Tablet-Based Digital Textbook

By: Chegg Shows Textbook Rental Market Still Hot: Tech News «

Chegg Shows Textbook Rental Market Still Hot: Tech News « — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:33:18 +0000

[...] launch a two-panel tablet computer dedicated to interactive electronic versions of textbooks. Kno raised $46 million in financing earlier this month in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company says that it hopes to have its tablet [...]

By: Nameless

Nameless — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 19:06:30 +0000

The iPad gets a lot right (screen and battery life in particular), but the lack of an EMR pen digitizer ala Wacom or N-Trig kills its use case for me.

Try as they might with a capacitive stylus and palm rejection mechanisms, it just doesn’t work as well for me as a dual digitizer device-something I can only currently get out of traditional Tablet PCs. Pen comes into range, touch gets shut off for perfect palm rejection, pen also supplies a hovering cursor and pressure-sensitive input.

The Kno seems like one of the first non-Windows Tablet PC systems to offer a dual digitizer approach and take digital inking seriously. I like that. I’m just not sure if it’ll work at that size.

And don’t even think of bringing up pen-and-paper note taking. After having used OneNote on a Wacom Penabled Tablet PC, I cannot go back. It’s far more efficient for the way I work.

By: iPad4U2

iPad4U2 — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 03:31:35 +0000

Steve and his mighty iPad will summarily CRUSH this goofy eTextbook. iPad envy is everywhere. iPad could sell somewhere between 30 and 50 MILLION units next year. Boom.

By: Kno：传统教科书市场新的挑战者 | 爱范儿: 拇指资讯小众讨论

Kno：传统教科书市场新的挑战者 | 爱范儿: 拇指资讯小众讨论 — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 02:15:52 +0000

[...] D8 大会上，由新创公司 Kakai 推出的 Kno 首次亮相，近日又获得了4600万美元投资，计划年底正式推出产品。 Kno 的 logo 上有“Knowledge Now”的标语，Kno [...]

By: Hamranhansenhansen

Hamranhansenhansen — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:48:44 +0000

If you want a Courier, buy 2 iPads. It’s not hard to figure out.

By: Hamranhansenhansen

Hamranhansenhansen — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:46:52 +0000

Yeah, it is a crazy device. There’s just no way they compete with iPad. When you see someone holding one of these beasts, they literally look like Digital Moses. They are giant planks with almost no software on them.

If you want to be productive today, whether at work or in school, you get a MacBook and an iPad and you drink everyone else’s milkshake. End of story.

By: Nameless

Nameless — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:42:34 +0000

I’m glad to see that they’re getting the funding they need. The Kno will probably be the closest to the Courier I’ll ever get.

But as I keep saying, 14″ is too large for a tablet, doubly so for a booklet like the Kno. I have to put up with some small desks in certain classes that can only just manage to fit my E-295C, a sheet of paper, or a textbook. Anything else goes on my lap.

Then again, I have five too many textbooks for my five classes, two of which are huge hardcover ones. Even the Kno in that state would likely be much more portable.

I think they could get away with something a bit smaller, around 12″ for each screen, if they keep the resolution high enough and allow for zoom and pan. Part of the benefit of going paperless like that is that digital displays aren’t static.

By: gubatron

gubatron — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:58:01 +0000

If you think about it, the energy consumption of this device is ridiculous.
If it’s meant to be like a textbook, you can’t really read the two screens at the same time so you’re always wasting battery power on either one of the screens.

It almost seems like a hoax

By: Kno dual-display tablet gets funded: launch by end of 2010 - SlashGear

Kno dual-display tablet gets funded: launch by end of 2010 - SlashGear — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:22:48 +0000

[...] [via GigaOM] [...]