Archive for the ‘nook root and hack’ tag
A Few More Things Considered no comments
A roundup of several ereader related news stories from the last few days.
Borders Not Making Their Own eReader
Reuters reports that Borders Group, Inc. CEO Ron Marshall denies that Borders will make its own ereader. He cites reasons such as the expense and time required. Marshall also makes the point that while it may still be possible to launch a successful ereader product, the window of opportunity is closing fast, with the field due to become even more crowded in the near future.
Borders announced a partnership a few days ago with Kobo to sell ebooks on the Borders website. Marshall says that Border’s ebook strategy will be “device agnostic.”
Sounds like a good idea – we really don’t need any more me-too ereader clones.
Sony Gets Exclusive Content from WSJ and MarketWatch
A few days ago Sony announced a new relationship with Dow Jones & Co. for exclusive content from the Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch to be delivered wirelessly to the Sony Reader Daily Edition. Sony will also be offering the only version of the New York Post available on ereaders.
The monthly subscription for the WSJ will run $14.99 or $19.99 for WSJ Plus. The New York Post will be $9.99 per month, and Marketwatch Today will be $10.99 per month.
Sony’s Reader Store only seems to have three other newspapers at the moment besides the Wall Street Journal, though other newspapers should be available soon.
nook gets Rooted & Hacked
Last weekend nookDevs reported that they had successfully rooted the nook ereader, and in the last couple of days they have been apparently getting apps such as a browser to work on hacked nooks.
Rooting an Android-based device gives you administrative rights and the ability to alter system files, and therefore the ability to totally control the device.
This is nothing that the average nook ereader owner will want to do; rooting a nook involves invasive surgery that voids the warranty and could very well brick your ereader. However, in very short order we should begin to see some software hacks for the nook that will be more accessible.
Third party apps for the nook’s Android operating system have been something that some fans of the nook ereader have been hoping and waiting for. Barnes & Noble has so far not commented about nookDevs’ activities. When the nook was officially announced B&N kind of sort of left the door ajar to apps, but I doubt that they would be happy with a browser that would eat up bandwidth that B&N would be paying for. But wait, the nook has WiFi as well as an AT&T connection. Perhaps a browser that would work when the nook has a WiFi connection could fly.
The latest Kindle Chronicles podcast has an interview with the 18 year old high school student behind the nookDevs website.
Kindle DX Sold Out
Estimated shipping time on the Kindle DX is now four to six weeks.
Notion Ink Pixel Qi Tablet
Slashgear has a report about the first confirmed device to use the Pixel Qi display. The tablet should be unveiled at CES in January.
The device will reportedly be based on the Nvidia Tegra T20 chipset which supports 1080p HD video. There are lots of additional bells and whistles including WiFi and Bluetooth, GPS, digital compass and camera.
Pixel Qi could well prove to be the dark horse of 2010’s several new display technologies. With the ability to switch between a transmissive display mode like a regular LCD and a reflective epaper-like mode, Pixel Qi could be used to make multifunction devices and notebooks/netbooks into very viable reading platforms.
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