Barnes & Noble unveiled the latest iteration of its Nook e-reader, featuring a color touch screen and Wi-fi web browsing, as it seeks to catch up to industry leader Amazon's Kindle in the race for market share in the growing digital books arena. The new full-color touch device is dedicated to reading everything and it is built on Android. The device comes with a 7-inch VividView Color Touchscreen (16 million colors), 8GB of space, plus expandable memory. NOOKcolor enables easy shopping and book downloads in seconds over Wi-Fi. NOOKcolor also features Barnes & Noble's new NOOKfriends technology, allowing users to access Facebook, Twitter and e-mail.

Users can tap of the screen or swipe left or right yo turn book pages, choose what titles will appear on their home page, organize and view their library their way, find the right text type, size and color theme and read in portrait or landscape.

Besides the basic 8GB of internal memory, NOOKcolor has expandable memory using a microSD card. And with Barnes & Noble?s Lifetime Library, existing customers of NOOK products and software-enabled devices will instantly be able to access their personal Barnes & Noble digital libraries on NOOKcolor.

Users can also read NOOKbooks across their NOOKcolor, NOOK 3G and Wi-Fi devices (following a NOOK firmware update in late November), third-party eBook Readers powered by the Barnes & Noble NOOKbook Store, and their favorite mobile and computing devices enabled with free NOOK software. These include iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android smartphones, and Windows-based PCs, laptops or netbooks.

The e-reader also supports PDF and ePub files, as well as JPG, PNG, GIF and BMP files. With Quickoffice software, users can view Microsoft Office files including Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It can be easily connected to personal and public Wi-Fi hotspots as well as free Wi-Fi in Barnes & Noble stores to shop the Barnes & Noble NOOKbook Store and download content, surf the Web, stream music and more.

The compact device fits easily into your purse, jacket or bag at 8.1 inches (height) by 5 inches (width) by 0.48 inches (depth) and 15.8 ounces.

NOOKcolor provides access to more than two million books, enhanced books, newspapers and magazines, engaging children's books, and other interactive content in a single search. Since the launch of PubIt!, Barnes & Noble has also added titles from independent publishers and self-publishing authors.

From The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and USA TODAY to Rolling Stone, Esquire, US Weekly, National Geographic, Martha Stewart Living, Cosmopolitan and Elle, NOOKcolor customers will find a list of daily, weekly and monthly periodicals, all optimized for the device in color. Magazine reading is easy with full-color pages and Barnes & Noble's exclusive ArticleView puts the focus on the content, customized to users' favorite reading style.

Users can also enjoy a large collection of popular children's picture and chapter books in an engaging digital form through the new NOOK kids offering. Through exclusive AliveTouch technology, children can interact with words and pictures, find a favorite story, and even have some read aloud to them.

The vast majority of titles in the Barnes & Noble NOOKbook Store are $9.99 or less, including most current New York Times Bestsellers. In any Barnes & Noble store, read NOOKbooks for free through the company?s Read In Store program.

The new LendMe App enables NOOKcolor users to view LendMe books in their friends' NOOKcolor digital libraries and request to borrow a title they've been meaning to read. Users have the ability to easily lend their favorite NOOKbooks with friends through Facebook and e-mail, even using their imported Google Gmail contacts, and recommend a title, share reading status or a quote via Facebook, Twitter and e-mail.

NOOKcolor also offers many extras:

- Game on: Enjoy fun and free games on NOOKcolor, including crossword puzzles, Sudoku, chess.
- Listen to music while reading: Stream tunes from your favorite artists over Wi-Fi with Pandora internet radio?s free, personalized music service. And load your MP3 and AAC songs to enjoy music while reading anywhere using the built in 3.5mm headphone jack or speakers.
- Surf the Web: Over Wi-Fi, use a full browser to visit your favorite Web sites, check e-mail, and more.
- Fun and free in-store features: In Barnes & Noble stores, connect to free Wi-Fi to browse and read the content of complete NOOKbooks for free through Read In Store, which features enhanced performance for NOOKcolor, including instantaneous page turns.

NOOKcolor is available for pre-order for $249 and is expected to begin shipping on or about November 19. NOOKcolor, along with NOOK 3G and NOOK Wi-Fi, will also be available at Best Buy, www.bestbuy.com, Walmart and www.walmart.com, and Books-A-Million in late November.

NOOK 3G and Wi-Fi Firmware Update Next Month

For book lovers who crave a paper-like reading experience, NOOK is a full-featured dedicated E-Ink device, starting at $149. A major update coming in November will increase the page-turn speed, and deliver improved search functionality, customized Barnes & Noble Library organization, password protection and continuous reading across all NOOK devices and software. NOOK version 1.5 software will be available at no cost next month for all current and new NOOK owners via Wi-Fi or manual download at www.NOOK.com/support.