It’s hardly a surprise, but we can now officially add Barnes & Noble to the list of companies with their own eReader. The bookseller is taking on Amazon again with the Nook.

Shipping at the end of November, the Nook will sell for $259 – roughly in line with the Kindle. It features the dual touchscreens the rumor mill predicted, along with 2 GB of internal storage (which will hold up to 1,500 books, magazines and newspapers), a microSD slot and a MP3 player.

Like every other eReader on the market, the main screen will feature E Ink technology. The color screen below is used to browse covers when shopping and navigate to different features.

It’s the features that make Nook stand out. Owners will be able to lend eBooks to friends for up to 14 days. Better still, those friends won’t have to own a Nook to borrow the book. The device will send it to cell phones and computers as well.

Downloads on the go are done via AT&T’s 3G network or Wi-Fi, but customers who take their Nook to their local B&N get an added bonus. In-store, Nook owners will be able to read any eBook in the company’s collection for free.

Granted, that’s not much of a stretch. You can do the same thing with print books in any store – but it’s something the Kindle can’t offer.

The Nook does have disadvantages, though. Primarily, Barnes & Noble’s eStore doesn’t have the depth that Amazon’s does.

Barnes & Noble was briefly taking pre-orders for the device earlier today when it prematurely launched the Nook’s website. That’s down again now, but should be back up after a 4pm ET “official” unveiling of the device in New York. 

Back in July, Amazon was starting to look like the gang who couldn’t shoot straight.

Kindle customers who had bought a copy of “1984” found the book deleted from their machine with no explanation. While it was later learned the publisher who uploaded the book did not have the appropriate rights, it set a scary precedent – that the company could ‘unsell’ something that you had legally bought.

Now Amazon is realizing what a colossal screw-up it made, calling it “stupid” and “thoughtless”. Better late than never, I suppose.

People affected by the action will receive a copy of “1984” for the Kindle (along with any annotations they made) or a $30 check or credit for Amazon products.

Gizmodo has the complete text of the note the company sent affected customers:

Hello,
On July 23, 2009, Jeff Bezos, our Founder and CEO, made the following apology to our customers:
“This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

While the Kindle DX touts a number of new features, it really all boils down to one thing: The screen.

With a reading area that measures some 9.7 inches diagonally, the latest in Amazon.com’s line of e-book readers is targeted at the company’s most voracious customers. But the larger screen (which is roughly 62 percent bigger than that of the Kindle 2’s reading area) comes at a cost – both literal and figurative.

Let’s get the literal out of the way first. The DX is expensive: $489 to be precise. (A protective cover will run you an extra $50.) That’s a $130 premium over the Kindle 2. And the price pushes the DX far out of the reach of the typical Amazon customer.

That’s a shame, because the DX rights several shortcomings of previous Kindles. The larger screen lets you see more text at once – which makes it feel more like you’re reading a book – and works better with newspaper and magazine content than the 6-inch screen on the Kindle 2.

It also has a bigger memory (with the ability to store up to 3,500 books, magazines or newspapers).

The ability to store and display PDF files is a handy one, but it’s here that the Kindle DX begins to stumble. The inability to zoom in on a document is a bit frustrating. And Amazon charges 45 cents for you to email yourself a PDF. It’s pocket change, but it feels a bit like gouging after paying so much for the device.

(Sure, you can dock your Kindle to your PC and manually transfer PDF files, but it’s a hassle – and doesn’t mesh well with the Kindle’s ‘go anywhere’ vibe.)

Last summer, Variety reported on a deal for Anthony Zuiker (right) to write the world's first transmedia novels. The "CSI" creator signed with Dutton to write (or rather, write outlines for and then supervise a novelist doing the actual writing) three suspense thrillers with significant online components.

Today comes the news that Eqal, the company founded by the creators of lonelygirl15, one of the Web's very very few hit series, will be handling all the digital components. The company will launch a website for the first book, called "Dark Chronicles," two months before its September release, featuring blogs, behind the scenes information, bonus material, and social networking components for fans. Most significantly, though, there will be "cyber bridges" on the site, intended to be opened after every five chapters of the book, that include video, audio and photo content that, we can assume, inform the mystery in the book. The "cyber bridges" can only be accessed with a code from the novel (though it's safe to assume those codes will be all over the Internet within a day of the book going on sale).

More and more TV shows are going "transmedia" -- look at the online comics, games, webisodes, etc. for shwos ranging from "Lost" to "Ghost Whisperer" to "The Office," though there's lots of debate as to whether all that content really helps the brand or just appeals to a tiny niche of hardcore fans.

In the world of novels, though, this is definitely a first. Do people really want to engage with the world of a book that deeply? Our stereotype of book readers, especially women who read suspense thrillers, is that they consume the content while sitting on a beach or in bed late at night. Do those same people want to find an Internet connection and jump online every five chapters?

On the other hand, our stereotype of TV watchers used to be that they just sit passively on the couch. That's obviously no longer true for at least a certain portion of the audience. Even if you don't consume every bit of transmedia content, millions of people like to blog, discussion message boards, or vote via text message for the "American Idol" winner.

Of course books are somewhat different, because we all read them at their own pace. It makes sense that there's tons of online discussion about "Lost" on a Thursday morning. But when (if ever) will the "Dark Chronicles" social networking components light up, given that we might all be reading different parts at different times? It will be a really interesting experiment in whether one of the oldest forms of media consumption can connect to some of the newest.