Tag Archives: limitations

B&N Nook’s LendMe feature has its limitations

Barnes & Noble recently unveiled their entrance into the e-reader business with their announced of Nook, a two dual-screen WiFi/3G enabled wonder, really.  One of its selling features is what B&N calls LendMe, or the ability to virtually lend a book you purchased on the device with friends and family who also own a Nook, an iPhone/iPod touch, other cellular devices, or a PC/Mac.  The person who receives the lent book has fourteen days until it expires to read it.  So is there a catch?  Well, it’s not so much a “catch” than it is a set of rules that always seems to follow around DRM-encrypted stuff.  Those rules are as follows: Once you lend a book to someone, you can never lend that same book ever again; during the fourteen day lending period, you cannot read the lent book that you purchased in the first place; lastly, every book sold in the B&N e-reader store will not have the ability to be lent out (it’s up to the publisher’s discretion).  Though these rules are rather lame, having the ability to lend a book is better than not having it, right?

[Via Engadget]