Kobo

Kobo is a brand of e-readers, tablets, and e-books produced by Kobo Inc., a Canadian company that operates an online bookstore and digital reading ecosystem. Kobo devices and applications are designed for reading a wide range of electronic books and support features such as bookmarking, highlighting, notes, and adjustable typography. The Kobo Store offers titles in multiple languages and exports to devices including the Kobo e-readers, iOS and Android apps, and desktop software. Kobo e-readers primarily use the EPUB format with Digital Rights Management (DRM) through Adobe ADEPT; the platform also offers compatibility with library loans via OverDrive.

Founded in 2009 under the name Shortcovers, the company evolved into Kobo and launched standalone e-readers in 2010. Indigo Books & Music acquired a controlling stake and later sold the brand to Rakuten, a Japanese e-commerce company, in 2012. Since then, Kobo has operated as part of Rakuten's digital content portfolio and remains a major competitor to Amazon's Kindle in several markets.

Kobo also refers to the subunit of the Nigerian naira, with 100 kobo equal to 1 naira. The term is used in pricing and everyday transactions, though the smallest denominations have become less common in circulation in recent years.

KoBoToolbox is a free, open-source data collection platform used by humanitarian and development organizations. It provides online and offline forms, data collection, and data analysis capabilities, with support for exporting data to common formats. KoBoToolbox originated with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and is widely used to gather field information in crisis and post-disaster settings.