E-readers are taking over the tablet market.

NPR recently wrote an article about rooting the Nook Color called, Cheaper Than a Tablet. Yes, people are actually buying the Nook Color and rooting them, which means it’s a form of hacking them (using them in a way it’s not intended). Root just means getting to the base operating system and taking control of it. Once they have control of it, what they’re doing is re-functioning or reusing it as a tablet device that can access the Internet – and in some cases getting the Internet free such as with the Amazon Kindle – and in other cases like the Nook Color they’re able to run Android and get on Wi-Fi hotspots.

Nook Color, when you view it that way, it’s the cheapest tablet computer out there if you don’t count the recent price drop by Sprint for the Galaxy Tab. But the market is heating up and it’s not just nerds anymore. It’s not just geeks doing this stuff. It’s going more main stream. So it’s just a matter of time before the powers that be, the owners and manufacturers of these devices catch on and either start to market segment and create devices specifically for this
function, or to try to get in the middle of it, or to try to stop it. Or they may just let it ride because people are going to buy this no matter what the use.

So what about you? Are you going to buy a Nook Color and root it or an Amazon Kindle and root it? Let us know in the comments. Thanks.

Source: nookdevs.com

In the computer world, “root” refers to the top-level directory of a file system. The word is derived from a tree root, since it represents the starting point of a hierarchical tree structure. “Root” is also the name of the user who has administrative privileges on a Unix or Linux server (or in this case, Android). While most users can only access data within their own directory (i.e. “/users/~nookshare/”), the root user can access any folder on the hard drive. This allows the root user to install system software updates, modify the access privileges of other users, and perform other administrative tasks. [To skip to the directions, click here to learn how to root your nook.]

“Rooting” is defined as “getting software or hardware to root” or “getting to a spot where you have control over the system and access to change it.” When hardware platforms like Barnes and Noble’s nook comes from the store or factory, it is not rooted, you can’t access the system information. This is generally a good thing as it protects you from inadvertently destroying your new hardware, but sometimes you want more functionality out of a device than the manufacturer had in mind. If you don’t mind voiding the warranty and are willing to take some risk for some rewards, then rooting your nook in order to have the ability to run more programs may make sense to you.

What are the rewards? What are the benefits of rooting?

• Run programs like Pandora, Facebook, and Twitter apps.
• Directly access the storage on the device like a hard drive.
• Use your own AT&T SIM card to access the 3G network.

What are the downsides? What does rooting not enable you to do?

• Rooting can’t help you break DRM on the books, but you shouldn’t do that anyway.
• Rooting doesn’t allow use of the AT&T 3G for anything but access to B&N Store/content.
• You may void your warranty and risk bricking your nook if you try to update nook software.

“Kobo is a global eBook retailer backed by Indigo Books & Music, Borders, REDgroup Retail, Cheung Kong Holdings, and other leaders in technology and retail. We believe consumers should be able to read any book, anytime, anywhere, and on the device of their choice.”

Kobo is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. You can find their company profile on LinkedIn. Kobo is an ebook company that also sells an ereader. Kobo makes partnerships to help sell its ebooks in over 200 countries around the world from Canada to Australia. For a company founded in 2009, 2010 has seen a period of large growth for the company of 110 employees as Kobo began selling ebooks in the UK in February 2010 and then started selling ebooks in United States Borders book stores and in Wal-Marts in Canada in June 2010.  Also in June, Kobo released a Kobo iPhone App. They also have apps available for Blackberry, Android, and HP/Palm Pre’.  In July 2010 Kobo and Borders began selling ebooks online at Border’s ebook store. Borders owns 20% of Kobo, Inc. so it’s no wonder they have a partnership (it’s who you know, you know?).

Can Kobo ebooks be read on a nook?

Yes, because the nook supports ePub and Adobe Digital Editions, Kobo ebooks can be read on a nook.  Unsure if your ereader is supported by Kobo? Find the full list here along with instructions on how to read an ebook on an ereader other than a Kobo.

1. Read In Store – allows Nook users to access entire books while at a Barnes & Noble store
2. Basic Web browser – Use the color touchscreen to navigate.
3. Games – Play Chess against NOOK with one of three levels of difficulty. Or get puzzled with Sudoku, choosing from four levels of play.

For support information on how to update your nook, view instructions and video on how to update your nook.

Barnes & Noble announced a software update for its Nook e-reader, version 1.3, complete with new features such as a Web browser and games, on April 23 and it is available now for download.

What’s new in V1.3?

• Read in Store: While in any Barnes & Noble store you can read complete eBooks.
• Games: Play Chess and Sudoku, but where’s the Farm Town?
• Wi-Fi: Connect to more Wi-Fi® hotspots and log in with ease. Plus, Wi-Fi® to nook”s home menu for faster access.
• Web browser (Beta): Connect to Wi-Fi® and explore the Web on nook”s E-Ink® display. Use the color touchscreen to navigate.
• Updated home screen: From the home menu (located on the color touch screen), get direct access to existing features including Wi-Fi® settings and Audio.
• Additional improvements to optimize nook’s performance.

“We’ve also made additional reading and device performance enhancements including improved page turn speed, faster access to previously opened e-books, enhanced color touch-screen navigation and more,” Paul Hochman, manager of Content and Social Media at BarnesandNoble.com, wrote in an April 23 posting on the Nook and BN eReader blog. “The new features and additional enhancements are available with the updated Nook software now available via manual download at www.nook.com/update.”

Hochman’s allusion to faster book access and page-turn speed seems to be a reference to early reviews for the Nook, some of which claimed that slowness and some unpolished features represented the biggest drawbacks for the device. Some readers are still complaining, stating that the update didn’t address core problems like merging B&N Content and My Documents into a single searchable location.  Having half a series in one menu section and half in another section just because of where the ebook happened to be purchased users find annoying.

Barnes & Noble’s announcement comes at a time when the bookseller finds itself in strengthening competition against not only Amazon.com and its bestselling Kindle e-reader, but also Apple’s iPad, whose ebooks application is considered a viable threat to traditional ereader devices. In addition to selling the Nook through its Website and bookstores, Barnes & Noble now sells nooks at Best Buy. Amazon, which plans on selling the Kindle at Target stores starting on April 25.

Both Barnes & Noble and Amazon have issued e-reader applications for the iPad, hoping to extend their brands even onto a device meant to take their market share. Barnes & Noble’s ebook store is “device agnostic” — meaning owners of the iPad or Sony’s Reader can download titles from the site.

Frozen Screen Issue

The new update should also stop the screen from freezing. “We’re fixing the problem,” Anthony Astarita, vice president of digital products, said in an interview in his New York office on April 16. “Like any consumer product, you have issues that do come up. No product is 100 percent perfect.”

Hundreds of Nook owners have posted complaints online, including on nook’s blog, “It freezes almost daily,” Stacey Hendricks, a student at University of Louisiana at Lafayette, said in an e-mail to Bloomberg. “Assuming Barnes & Noble doesn’t whip this situation into shape pronto, I’ll likely be switching over to the iPad.”

Gloria Spink’s first Nook displayed garbled text. Barnes & Noble sent her a replacement last month. That one repeatedly froze, forcing her to open the device and remove the battery to unlock it, she said in a telephone interview.

“I said, ‘Enough and I want my money back,’” said Spink, a 63-year-old assistant buyer for Boyd Gaming Corp. in Las Vegas. “I returned the Nook and bought a Kindle online that same day.”

This response to the freezing will determine the Nook’s success, said Mike McGuire, a San Jose, California-based analyst for Gartner Inc., a technology research firm. “With hardware it’s not that there was a problem, it’s how you recover.”

So when will be able to play Farmville on the nook?

For comparison, Barnes and Noble’s nook uses the open source operating system, Android, and Apple‘s iPad uses iPhone software for its OS.

Barnes and Noble’s nook already was capable of playing MP3′s in the background while you read a book, but recently a few nook device owners have hacked it to run the Pandora music application in the background. Pandora is an application that plays music over the Internet without the need to own or store the music locally, which would be required to play it the normal way on the nook ebook reader.

“It wasn’t that hard,” says Robbie Trencheny, a 18-year-old student who is also the team leader at nookDevs, a wiki and an online forum for Nook enthusiasts. “Once we had rooted the Nook (on Sunday), it was only a matter of time until we could put an app on it.”

The nook does not come with an Internet browser, but the nookDevs group has got a browser to run on the nook. This means the nook is capable of browsing the internet once hacked. The team also got an Android twitter client called Tweet, Google Reader and a Facebook application running on the Nook (probably one already developed to run on other Android mobile devices).

The move opens the door to running apps on the e-reader — something that Barnes & Noble does not support officially, but could lead to increased sales. This is a tactic many manufacturers have taken in the past and it has been successful for them to remain hands off, although some, like Apple, have had a heavy hand and so most of their innovation comes from within themselves.

“Rooting” the Nook involves hacking its system files to get full access to the device’s Android operating system. The Nook comes with access to 3G connectivity provided by AT&T that is ostensibly to used for downloading books wirelessly from the Barnes & Noble e-book store. Nook users aren’t charged for the 3G access.

How to Hack the Nook eBook Reader

But unlike jailbreaking Apple’s iPhone, rooting the Nook isn’t just about tinkering with the software. Instead, Nook customers have to adjust the hardware by taking a screwdriver to get to the device’s insides. Nook’s Android OS is on a microSD card that needs to be connected to a computer to change a file on it. Once that’s done, the power of Nook’s Android OS is available to its users.

To run Pandora, Trencheny first searched for the .apk file associated with the app. “It’s a file extension that Android uses and every app has it,” he says. Once that file is wirelessly downloaded onto the 3G-enabled Nook, users have to run a command in the terminal shell of the device. With a few more steps described on the nookDevs wiki, they can get Pandora installed on the Nook.

There are a few more steps to get it operational. The Nook’s touchscreen won’t cooperate with the Pandora app so users have to use a VNC remote control software to get past the app’s initial login screen. Once that’s done, Pandora works perfectly with the Nook touchscreen and can run in the background as you browse books, says Trencheny.

If all that sounds a little rough for someone who just likes to pick up an e-reader and read, then there’s a fix in the works, assures Trencheny. NookDevs is working on creating a software unlock so users won’t have to open up the Nook. They are also trying to open a marketplace just for Nook apps. This is one place where Barnes and Noble might want to intercede or at least beat them to the punch as iTunes marketplace has proven, apps are where the money is.

And while Pandora is the first to make it to the Nook, the procedure for adding other apps is the similar, says Trencheny. “We can run multiple apps if we want to,” he says. This is something even the iPhone can’t do and what gives mobile devices like the Nook who run the Android operating system an advantage. This is what makes the Droid phone even stand a chance against the iPhone.

NookDevs members haven’t heard any complaint, so far, from Barnes & Noble. “We have looked through the end user license agreement and, as far we can tell, there is nothing in there to get us into trouble,” says Trencheny. “We are not abusing the 3G or breaking the DRM rights on the books.” That is good news for technology enthusiasts everywhere.

Read the full story on Wired.

Android was initially developed by Android Inc., a firm later purchased by Google, and lately by the Open Handset Alliance (OHA). OHA is a business alliance of 50 firms including Google, HTC, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Samsung, LG, T-Mobile, Nvidia, and Wind River Systems to develop open standards for mobile devices. It was established on November, 5 2007, led by Google with 47 members including mobile handset makers, application developers, some mobile carriers and chip makers. Nokia, AT&T, and Verizon Wireless are not members of the alliance, however Verizon has since launched two Android based phones, the Motorola Droid and the HTC Droid Eris. Althought AT&T is not a member, its 3G service is used with the nook™, which runs the Android operating system.

Android, the flagship software of the OHA, is based on an open source license and will compete against other mobile platforms from Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, Palm, Research In Motion, and Symbian. It allows developers to write managed code in the Java language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries. The unveiling of the Android distribution was announced the same day OHA was founded (November, 5 2007) with a consortium of 47 hardware, software, and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. Google released most of the Android code under the Apache License, a free software and open source license.

Because Android is open source there is the possibility that developers will begin to create software that will allow Barnes & Noble’s nook™ eBook reader to be used in ways it was not originally intended. Some of the first applications may be a web browser, interactive games, or more sharing capabilities between other nook™ users or to other users on the Internet. As in the case with Apple’s iPhone, where there is a market and the ability, programs will be written.