Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Jailbroken

Posted by timothy on from the rebel-in-the-library dept.

hypnosec writes "Amazon's latest Kindle Paperwhite is now officially jailbroken, giving users the ability to do things like turn their eReaders into weather station displays, or connect serially to a Raspberry Pi. To jailbreak the Paperwhite, the user needs to copy a file over to the root directory of the e-Reader and restart the device. The Kindle Paperwhite jailbreak is based on a previously known hack used on the Kindle Touch."

9 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. I'm jailbreaking mine. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm jailbreaking my Paperwhite so I can read ePubs!

    1. Re:I'm jailbreaking mine. by nurb432 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That would be my first, and main reason as well. Same reason i rooted my nook touch, so i could read mobi native.. Having native access to both main formats is far better than having to convert and hope... ( now that both support pdf, that became a non-issue, but the mobi/epub issue is still there )

      Having direct access to the both 'markets' for books is good too.

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    2. Re:I'm jailbreaking mine. by blahbooboo · · Score: 2

      Or just convert ePubs in a minute or so using Calibre

  2. Re:Hackable devices. by nurb432 · · Score: 2

    Or just use it like it *should* be, and not locked down to one particular vendor's file format.

    Without epub support the thing is worthless to me.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  3. e-ink by nurb432 · · Score: 2

    That is the whole point of e-ink, to provide a good readable display. LCD sucks for anything other than a quick glance of a tech book where you *need* color or a larger format. ( where is my color e-ink amazon and B&N.. ?? )

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  4. Re:Hackable devices. by dabadab · · Score: 2

    "Without epub support the thing is worthless to me."

    Drama queen too much?

    I have a K4 and I have absolutely no idea if it supports epub. I mean, it certainly does in the sense that I can send epubs to it and read that stuff on the Kindle without any problem. But the question that it supports it natively or by converting it during transfer is absolutely irrelevant for me and I guess mostly for everybody.

    --
    Real life is overrated.
  5. Paper what? by bigdavex · · Score: 2

    Isn't there a marketing danger to naming your product almost "paper weight"?

    --
    -Dave
  6. This shouldn't be news. by jmerlin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I understand why it is, but when we purchase a computer, it shouldn't be news to the world that "you can run programs on it." This industry has started a fad of creating walled gardens and severely incapacitating the things they're selling. It would be like buying a lawn mower that could only cut Monsanto grass. It would be like buying a Microwave Oven that would only work on a certain few name-brand items. It would be like buying a monitor that would only stream video from approved devices. It would be like buying a car that would only run on Exxon fuel and would only drive properly on certain roads.

    All of the above examples are absolutely absurd. So is this artificial limitation of computing devices. It needs to end, now.

  7. Re:ePub support by bhaak1 · · Score: 2

    Most of the custom framework the Kindle Touch and Kindle Paperwhite are using is based on a Java framework that is quite extendible.

    For example a popular jailbreak patch called JBPatch adds lots of stuff to the standard Kindle reading software, like hyphenation

    Theoretically it would be possible to add code that decodes epubs and thus lets you read the content.

    Practically so far there have been standalone programs developped that let you read them.

    --
    UnNetHack: NetHack Improved!