While Amazon.com got a big head start on the electronic book market, Barnes & Noble has been aggressively nipping at its heels. Today the giant bookstore chain took another major step with its e-book strategy, opening its own online eBookstore along the lines of Amazon’s Kindle store. Barnes & Noble said its e-books can be read on the iPhone and iPod touch, and BlackBerry smartphones. It also announced an exclusive partnership with the upcoming Plastic Logic eReader.

Barnes & Noble is offering 700,000 electronic book titles, though more than 500,000 of those are free public domain books scanned by Google (Amazon currently offers more than 300,000 Kindle titles). B&N is adopting Amazon’s e-book pricing model, with new releases and bestsellers priced at $9.99.

Amazon has successfully used the Kindle electronic reader to build a market for e-books. Barnes & Noble doesn’t have a comparable device, but it’s now hooking up with Kindle rival Plastic Logic. Barnes & Noble will power the eBookstore for Plastic Logic’s 8.5 x 11-inch wireless eReader, scheduled for launch in early 2010. Both B&N and Amazon are making e-books available on the iPhone and other smartphones.

Barnes & Noble this spring bought e-bookseller Fictionwise, maker of the popular eReader application for the iPhone, and unveiled its own Barnes & Noble iPhone app last month.

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and Flashback: Apple unveils Halo  

More than any other video game, the blockbuster "Halo" trilogy has been responsible for giving Microsoft’s Xbox franchise a place in the console industry. But prior to Bungie Studios’ acquisition by Microsoft, "Halo" was originally intended for the Mac, and it was unveiled by Apple’s Steve Jobs ten years ago this week at Macworld Expo New York. Marking the anniversary, gaming blog Kotaku dug up this video of Halo’s public debut. It’s very cool, and slightly weird, to see the game in this context. Enjoy.

Thanks for the tip, @jameyt

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