Steve Riggio is no longer the CEO of bookseller company Barnes & Noble.  He is being replaced by William Lynch, the President of BN.com.  Riggio will be the Vice Chairman of Barnes & Noble going forward. [TechCrunch]

Barnes & Noble will soon start selling the Samsung E6 e-reader for $299.  The E6 launched at CES and the company announced that the device should hit the shelves “this spring.”  The 6 inch device was mentioned, but no word on the 10-inch E10 or E61 with a QWERTY keyboard. [Engadget]

Jeff Bezos talked to The New York Times Magazine about the Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) Nook e-book reader. The Nook has the ability to lend an e-book with a friend only once.

“The current thing being talked about is extremely limited. You can lend to one friend. One time. You can’t pick two friends, not even serially, so once you’ve loaned one book to one friend, that’s it…It is ‘Sopie’s Choice,’” stated Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos.

In addition to criticizing the Nook, Bezos decided to throw in a state about the Kindle: “For every 100 copies of a physical book we sell, where we have the Kindle edition, we will sell 48 copies of the Kindle edition.”

Say what? Rumor has it that the Barnes & Noble e-book reader that will be competing with the Amazon.com Kindle will be powered by Google Android. The rumor was started by a source over at Gizmodo. The source apparently works for the mobile apps division over at B&N. Although a colored version of an e-book reader with applications sounds very appealing, I’m going to take this rumor with a grain of salt.

iRex Technologies, Verizon, and Best Buy have made a partnership. Best Buy will sell the iRex DR800SG in their stores with unlimited Verizon 3G data speeds. The DR800SG will cost $399 and have an 8.1″ touchscreen.

E-books will be downloaded from the Barnes & Noble online store. The e-bookstore also has 1,100 newspapers from Newspaper Direct. The 3G connection is powered by Qualcomm Gobi radio technology. Best Buy will be selling the DR800SG next month. The e-book reader also comes with a stylus as pictured above.

Dutch company IREX Technologies and Barnes & Noble have made an alliance.  IREX is the second e-book reader company to have partnered with Barnes & Noble with Plastic Logic being the first.  Plastic Logic plans to launch an e-book reader next year itself.

IREX said that their partnership with Barnes & Noble will not be exclusive.  IREX is already selling e-book readers in Europe, but not yet in the U.S.  Irex’s e-book reader will have an 8.1″ touch screen and 3G wireless connection.

“We will change the dynamics of the consumer market – users want to easily purchase content from a variety of sources and we allow them to read it on an IREX eReader as well as other devices,” stated Irex North American CEO Kevin Hamilton.

Tonight, Barnes & Noble launched its e-book store. The store carries over 700,000 titles. eBooks can be purchased and read through the iPhone, BlackBerry, or a desktop PC. According to Barnes & Noble, their e-book store is the world’s largest. The store offers premium titles as well as free public domain titles.

Barnes & Noble also announced a partnership with Plastic Logic, a company developing a Kindle competitor.

The books it sells will not be compatible with the Kindle.

The company ditched its previous digital book efforts nearly six years ago because of lackluster sales. Now it’s trying to play catch-up with Amazon.