Kobo, the Canadian company that's challenging Amazon and Barnes & Noble in e-book readers, today announced a new model, the Kobo Vox, that it declares to be "the world's first social eReader." It's also the company's first color e-book reader and promises to offer another alternative to the likes of the Barnes & Noble Nook Color.

Priced at $200, $50 less than the Nook Color, and available on October 28th, the Vox (for "Vox Populi"—the voice of the people) is claimed as the first e-book reader that's integrated with the new Facebook Ticker, which lets you see friends’ activity (games they're playing, music they're listening to) in real time, and the upcoming Facebook Timeline, the site's upcoming revamp of user profile pages.

The integration promises to allow more sophisticated interaction with Facebook than is currently the case with Amazon's Kindles and B&N's Nooks. Both those platforms allow you to share passages and the like from books you're reading but do not offer any further melding of the reading app and Facebook, as the Vox appears to promise.

Built on the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) platform, the Vox—llike the Nook Color and upcoming Amazon Kindle Fire— also offers a curated collection of apps; 15,000 free apps in all are promised by Kobo (many more than the Nook offers now). The company says the device will also have:

• The Zinio magazine app, with 12 free issues bundled with the device.
• Newspapers from PressReader, including over 1,900 full newspapers from around the world—and seemingly, seven newspaper editions bundled with the device.
• The Rdio music-streaming service.
• Access to more music and video services in the app store.
• The Vox eReader, with freebies including three free color books, a selection of dessert recipes, Lonely Planet's Europe Essentials for the avid traveler, and Franklin and the Thunderstorm for young readers.

The Vox will feature a 7-inch screen at 1024 x 800 resolution, 8GB of internal memory, and a claimed battery life of up to 7 hours. It will come in four colors: Black, lime-green, hot-pink and ice-blue. We plan to test and report on the new device soon after it launches late this month.