Valentine’s Day is two weeks from tomorrow, and like usual retailers are using that as a good excuse to sell us more stuff. Kobo is following suit with a sale on their color ereaders, but their advertising/social media department has reached a new low.
First, let’s go over the sale. Both the 7″ Libra Colour and the 6″ Clara Colour are $20 off, which isn’t a big discount by any means, but it’s a typical Kobo sale, and some of the bundle packages are marked down at Amazon as well.
Kobo Libra Colour – $209.99 ($20 off)
Kobo Clara Colour – $139.99 ($20 off)
Kobo Libra Colour Case + Stylus Bundle – $318.99 ($21 off)
Kobo Clara Colour Case Bundle – $158.99 ($20 off)
The Kobo Clara BW isn’t on sale this time, but it was just on sale last month so we can’t get too mad about it not being included this time around. The Elispa 2E isn’t on sale either, just the two color models, and none of the Kobo accessories are on sale.
Unfortunately Kobo has stooped to the level of using funky AI images to advertise this sale on reddit, and whoever is in charge must be blind to run this three-buttoned Libra Colour ad looking like the ugly three-eyed fish from the Simpsons. Kobo is going to get mocked mercilessly for this abomination:
Oh this is why mine has bricked yesterday following a software update, because they are having a valentine day sale 🙈🙈🙈
Oh, that is horrible! How could you miss how awful that looks?!
I don’t own a Kobo but even I know that no Kobo model has three buttons on the side like that.
How hard is it to take a picture of the device? Jeez. AI was not necessary.
According to their CEO’s post on Bluesky Kobo have uploaded a proper image to Reddit’s advertising platform which has subsequently “improved” the image with AI without Kobo’s consent.
This is why I dislike AI in art. It’s one thing if AI sharpens an image for greater quality, more or less. It’s another if AI unnecessarily adds something.
Plot twist: new Kobo model confirmed.))))
It would be funny and sad at the same time. Or maybe it already is?
I don’t see the problem, my Libra Colour has three buttons and they all work fine: page forward, page back and page sideways.
I texted Michael Tamblyn on Bluesky and he looked into that. Apparently Reddit uses an AI tool to scale and optimize images and it was used automatically without their consent. Kobo didn’t use AI itself, Reddit “imposed” it on its ads.
So basically, kobo gives advertising money and material to reddit, and reddit turns all of that into rubbish AI slop. Marvellous.