Wired Gadget Lab: Hack Your TouchPad to Run Android, Win a Prize
Quote:
A hardware-modification web site is offering a $1,500 cash bounty for the first person to successfully port a full version of the Android operating system over to HP’s TouchPad.
Hacknmod.com offers a tiered bounty system for would-be TouchPad hackers: Just getting Android to run on the TouchPad without taking full advantage of the tablet’s hardware will win you a cool $450. But the more you’re able to integrate the system software into the device, the more cash you’ll earn. Get the Wi-Fi, multitouch capability, audio and camera up and running, and you’ll add another $1,050 to the pot.
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Stability is always a key with community-made ports. WebOS is linux underneath, so in theory the original drivers could be re-used IF HP were willing to okay it, else the community would be hacking their own. So maybe the audio works, but you get random bursts of static. One way to avoid those issues would be to not boot android,
but run an emulation layer, a la the Motion Apps' Classic emulator that ran old garnet programs on WebOS when it first debuted. I might prefer that route myself. There is a lot to admire about WebOS, especially on the surface. I've often wished HP would turn it into an Android UI.
Anyway, I wish them well. I normally have no impulse control when it comes to deals, and barely managed to talk myself out of a $100 touchpad. I might be kicking myself in a few month when Amazon unveils their entries and they predictably aren't quite what I was hoping for.