The Kno, a Tablet for the College Market - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

The Kno, a Tablet for the College Market - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com: "The Kno, a Tablet for the College Market
By MIGUEL HELFT
The Knokno.com

The success of the Kindle and iPad has sparked a slew of tablet-wannabes. Some are imitators, while others are trying to bring new ideas to the tablet and e-reader concepts.

The Kno, a dual-screen device aimed at the college market, falls in the latter category. The tablet/e-reader, which was first shown in public on Wednesday at the D8 technology conference in Southern California, allows students to view textbooks on its digital screens much as they would appear in their analog versions, with text, color images and graphics.

Kno, which is short for knowledge, was founded by Osman Rashid, who also founded Chegg, a fast-growing Silicon Valley start-up that allows students to rent textbooks. When I wrote about Chegg last year, I asked Mr. Rashid about the wisdom of starting a book-renting business in a world that was quickly embracing digital books. He said he had an answer to that but could not tell me yet. Kno, he hopes, is that answer.

“Students want to replicate this analog experience in a digital format,” Mr. Rashid said, while he demonstrated the Kno prototype on stage at D8.

The device has two, 14-inch screens, which are big enough to display two facing textbook pages without requiring students to scroll up and down to see the entire pages. It will also have a stylus that will allow students to take notes. It weighs about 5.5 pounds, with each slab of the tablet a little thicker than half an inch.

In addition to the ability to view textbooks, the Kno gives students a desktop full of tools to organize their college lives, like calendars and folders for each of their courses where they can view textbooks but also store notes and videos and highlight passages in the books.

Mr. Rashid said the company had deals with several large textbook publishers, including Pearson, McGraw Hill Education, Cengage Learning and Wiley, to make their texts available on the Kno.

The device is built on its own Linux-based operating system and supports a full browser, raising the question of whether students may end up using it to check in with their Facebook friends rather than listen to their lectures. It is powered by a NVidia Tegra processor and supports Flash.

It is hard to judge the Kno at this point, because it is a work-in-progress. Several of the features do not yet work. And during the demo, the device appeared to be slow. But then again, it is a prototype.

Kno plans to release a test version in the fall and begin selling it broadly before the end of the year. Mr. Rashid said the Kno would cost less than $1,000, but otherwise did not discuss pricing.

After the presentation, I played with the Kno for a few minutes. It felt very large and heavy, especially when compared with the thin iPad. But Mr. Rashid said to compare it not with an iPad, but rather with with a 20-pound backback containing textbooks, notebooks and a laptop, often a heavy, 15-inch or 17-inch device preferred by students.

The company is backed by venture capitalists and recently received an investment from Andreessen Horowitz. Marc Andreessen, who co-founded Netscape, joined the company’s board.

“The fact that they are targeting the textbook market is key,” Mr. Andreessen said in an interview by phone. The device, he said, “is no heavier or clumsier than a single textbook. And over time, all the components are going to get lighter.”

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