Rakuten Kobo Touch eReader Launched In Japan

Japanese online retail giant Rakuten has announced its Kobo Touch eReader to be available for the Japanese audience by late July, at a price of around $125. This launch from the Japanese company sets it up in direct competition with Amazon’s Kindle eReader, which could possibly see an year-end release in Japan, clearly giving the Kobo Touch an upper hand in terms of pricing and availability. Hiroshi Mikitani, Chairman – Rakuten, expects the device to help the native publishing and content generation industry to develop rapidly. By the end of 2012, Rakuten aims to provide 50,000 titles for its readers to choose from.

[caption id="attachment_36545" align="aligncenter" width="615"]#-Link-Snipped-# Image Credit: www.geeky-gadgets.com[/caption]

This Kobo Touch eReader using EPUB data format was developed by Canadian company Kobo, which was acquired by Rakuten in January. The company will market the device through its Ichiba online shopping mall, as well as a number of electronic retailers across Japan.

Almost a day ago, Rakuten had also announced its acquisition of Spanish video streaming service wuaki.tv

Source: #-Link-Snipped-#