After scrapping plans to produce an unusual oversized dual-screen educational tablet device, Kno Inc., an educational startup focused on reinventing the textbook, has shifted its focus to creating educational software for the iPad. Now the company has released a beta version of the Kno app for iPad with a retail site offering more than 70,000 digital textbooks for sale at up to 50% off print list price, as well as course management, note-taking and social media functionality.
Kno CEO Osman Rashid, who also founded the textbook-rental company Chegg, said the company’s focus now is to “maintain the integrity of today’s textbook, while making it more engaging, efficient and social. This enhanced digital version gives both students and professors the confidence of knowing that the page numbers, chapters, diagrams and photographs will be exactly the same as the physical textbook, yet a lot more interactive.”
The Kno app is available for free through the Apple App Store as well as through the Kno website. The Kno iPad app offers digital versions of print texts with their original layout and design intact. The app offers quick previews of chapters, a PDF reader, easy annotations and much more.
Kno has deals to offer digital versions of print textbooks from a wide range of textbook publishers. And to promote the new app, Kno is offering a free textbook to the first 200 students who join the beta program. The company is also offering a full refund on a purchased textbooks to students who participate in giving regular feedback on using the app. For more details go to www.facebook.com/goodtokno.
Kno Inc. has received more than $80 million in funding from such venture capital firms as Andreessen Horowitz, Intel Capital, Newhouse Broadcasting and Goldman Sachs.
Babur Habib, CTO and Co-Founder, Kno, said, “The Kno app allows us to offer a huge catalog to meet the needs of many students today, while we continue to further develop better ways to interact with educational content. “
