Barnes & Noble Inc.

Barnes & Noble is taking its losses and running.

In a statement released Tuesday, the retailer revealed that it's pulling out of its Nook tablet manufacturing business in the face of ongoing losses:

    " The company plans to significantly reduce losses in the Nook segment by limiting risks associated with manufacturing. Going forward, the company intends to continue to design eReading devices and reading platforms, while creating a partnership model for manufacturing in the competitive color tablet market. Thus, the widely popular lines of Simple Touch and Glowlight products will continue to be  …

An upcoming update will bring a web browser, email and update store app to Barnes & Noble’s super affordable Nook Simple Touch line of e-readers, which will begin rolling out June 1 according to a source close to the matter who wishes to remain anonymous. The 1.5.0 update was created in response to the positive critical and customer response to the recent Nook tablet update that brought Google Play to B&N’s Android-powered devices.

The Nook Simple Touch and Simple Touch with Glowlight will be receiving the over-the-air update starting next month…

After gaining 24% last Thursday, Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS  ) shares were down as much as 13% today after a new report seemed to kill the rumor that sent the stock soaring, which was that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT  ) was aiming to buy the entire Nook e-reader division.

So what: The blog TechCrunch had said last week that Microsoft was gearing up to buy the e-reader for $1.7 billion, but today business news site Insider Monkey said, "Nothing imminent is happening," quoting "a highly placed source." Shares of the bookseller bounced off their session low, but still finished

Shares in America's biggest books retailer Barnes & Noble climbed nearly 20% yesterday after a report that Microsoft is considering an offer to acquire its Nook business - B&N's tablet and e-book business and a rival to Amazon's Kindle.

The technology website TechCrunch reported that Microsoft, which already owns 17% of Nook Media, was proposing a $1bn offer to buy Nook's digital assets.

The Nook HD and Nook HD+ e-readers now have access to the full Google Play store, according to a press release Friday from Barnes and Noble. The move knocks down a major wall between Barnes and Noble’s products and their status as real, fully formed Android tablets, putting them a step ahead of competitor Amazon’s Kindle Fires.

The Nook HD and HD+ were released last fall as 7-inch and 9-inch devices, respectively, running a heavily modified, forked version of Android 4.0.

I think every publisher, no matter what their size, is wrestling with a rapidly evolving marketplace, with discoverability for their titles, with the digital transformation of the industry and a host of other issues. They're thinking about these big issues while keeping the boat afloat — working as hard as ever on the book they're publishing here and now. It often feels like everyone in the industry is now doing two jobs — their old job and their still-forming new job.

Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS)’s surprise loss during what’s usually its most profitable quarter was triggered by a 26 percent sales drop at Nook, the only segment that had been growing and is essential to aiding a shift to e-books.

The net loss of $6.06 million, which included $74 million in charges from plummeting demand for its newest Nook tablets, comes three days after founder and Chairman Leonard Riggio said he planned to offer to buy the bookstore chain’s retail assets. These results may speed up a sale …

While predicting doom for Nook, as our columnist Michael Weinstein put it, has become the favored pastime of the book and tech press of late, it’s hard not to read the news of B&N Chairman Leonard S. Riggio’s bid to purchase the chain’s retail stores and take them private—leaving the company’s foundering Nook division to fend for itself—as the beginning of the end for the little e-reader that could. (Or maybe it’s the end of the end for the little e-reader that couldn’t quite.)

On January 30th, subscribers to Publishers Weekly’s email newsletter received a special “News Alert” with a red rectangle across the top. “Simon & Schuster, Barnes & Noble in Dispute Over Terms” the headline declared. But the message itself was cryptic, offering no details about the terms involved or a clear explanation as to why there was a dispute to begin with. PW managed to get one quote from a B&N spokesperson:

The American education system should be benefiting enormously from the e-book revolution, but it isn't. Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the major children's literature and textbook publishers are screwing up.

We hear all the time that the U.S. education system is in need of major reform and that other countries are leaving us in the dust. Education reform is a big subject and can be extremely controversial. But changes in the way children's books are supplied and sold can make a difference, and those changes shouldn't be controversial at all.