E-Learning | News
Kno Acquired by Intel
Kno, the education software and e-textbook platform developer, has been acquired by Intel.
Kno is primarily known for its Kno Textbook platform, which offers access to a catalog of more than 200,000 electronic textbooks from major textbook publishers, including Cengage Learning,
Wiley, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, among many others. Textbooks are available for both K-12 and higher education, and the platform is accessible through the Web or through platform-specific applications, which support Android, iOS, and Windows.
The company originally made headlines back in 2010, when it had planned to release large-screen tablets purpose-built for displaying and interacting with electronic textbooks. The plan back then called for single or dual 14.1-inch, 1,440 x 900-pixel touchscreens that would be able to display full-scale textbooks, videos, and other multimedia and support notetaking, educational apps, Web browsing, and content sharing — all starting at $599. The concept generated considerable buzz at the time but was ultimately never to be.
Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel, invested $20 million in the company in back 2011 with the aim of collaborating "to address the growing interactive and 1-to-1 student learning environments by exploring opportunities to make Kno's touch-based applications available for Intel's educational platforms."
Now, with the acquisition, Kno will become a part of Intel Education, which is focused on creating integrated learning tools — hardware, applications and content.
Further details can be found in a blog post by John Galvin, general manager of Intel Education.