Barnes & Noble (B&N) will launch the Nook Video streaming...

spokesman told us Wednesday at the Liberty Media investor conference in New York. Nook Video, which has the backing of Disney, HBO, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Starz, Viacom and Warner, will be cloud-based and target a range of mobile devices including smartphones and tablets, the spokesman said. Nook Video will be a separate app from B&N’s e-reading software “for now, but eventually they will come together,” said the spokesman, declining to say how many titles will be available when the service starts. Nook Video also will integrate a customer’s compatible physical DVD and Blu-ray purchases and digital video collections across their devices through UltraViolet, although Disney remains a big UltraViolet holdout. “We will be very competitive with what is out there in the marketplace,” the B&N spokesman said. “We have created an ownership value proposition so we are building playback across smartphones, tablets and TVs. It will be more than just the integrated experience of the new” B&N tablets. In another development, B&N’s Nook tablets and e-readers will be available in the U.K. later this month through the 37-store John Lewis chain, as well as Dixons, Sainbury’s and several other retailers, the spokesman said. In the U.S., with Walmart and Target having dropped Amazon’s Kindle, the new Nooks are expected to sell “very well” through those retailers and “receive a lot of focus from consumers,” the spokesman said. At Target, the Nook will be merchandised in a kiosk that greatly enhances the product’s presence in the store, CEO William Lynch said at the Liberty conference. The kiosk will be located near the CE department and the size of the space it occupies will vary by Target store, Lynch told us. The Nook also may be merchandised elsewhere within the store, he said.