Quote:
Originally Posted by lionel47
Well, I like the Nook and I think some software updates could put it ahead of the pack. However, it looks like it's not going to happen.
Just a question for the developers among us:
If we wanted to create our own updates, how hard is it to integrate into the existing software. I mean, keeping the look and feel and the basic structure the same?
Also, how hard or is it even possible to create our own firmware that doesn't rely on the existing firmware? Would be still be able to browse and buy books? Get the Friday freebee?
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Greetings; I have had a Nook for less than a week so I don't have that answer yet but I am a software engineer, recently from Sony working on the PS3, and the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. The point is I have some experience writing firmware and software for consumer electronics. I was able to hack my previous ereader (the generally sweet CoolER from Britain) but they finally died so we upgraded to the Nook last weekend. Having said all of that, I am more than a little interesting in hacking at this because while some features are probably beyond the ability of the hardware, some of the things *I* want should be somewhat easy hacks. The first thing to find out is what processor runs these things, then what embedded OS and finally extract the app code from the system code. This is not a trivial process, mostly because the code is already compiled to machine code and reverse engineer that is never trivial. However, depending on how it is put together it might be possible to "wedge" some features in there if I or someone can can find the hook. However since we just dropped 300 bones on these (2 wifi units) my wife would probably kick my @ss if I tear this apart too fast
. I will be looking into it though because I read somewhere it runs embedded Linux and that is my bread and butter, so to speak.