Barnes & Noble Nook torn down and rooted -- but still respected
By Nilay Patel 
posted December 14th 2009 1:11AM
posted December 14th 2009 1:11AM
Barnes & Noble might be pitching the Nook to the literary set, but it turns out the Android-based dual-screen reader is pretty hacker-friendly as well: both the OS and filesystem are stored on a microSD card. That means the newly-formed crew at nookdevs has already managed to root what they describe as the "generic" Android 1.5 build that's hidden under the Nook's navigation UI, and they say the device can do "everything a rooted Android phone can do." That's certainly intriguing, especially since the Nook has a data-only AT&T 3G modem and WiFi to go along with that capacitive touchscreen and E Ink display -- can you say "potential"?
[Thanks, Andy]
[Thanks, Andy]
Potential!
@yulebellow apparently Barnes & Noble tears up the books it is now not selling and places those pieces of paper inside the Nook's casing
@yulebellow Ben Heck must do something with this.
@Wassa
"Ben Heck has fused his nook with a custom double JooJoo Courier Tablet with the Nooks' E-ink display on the outer shell for reading and design patterns, it quad boots or virtualizes Android, iPhone OS, OSX, and Windows 7, and has free 3G to stream all the 1080p content you could possibly want (provided you're in coverage area)."
...look for that tomorrow
@yulebellow
C'mon..
You know he'd embed a SNES in it...
Mr Heck FTW
So...from what I understand...free tethering?
@B3astofthe3ast
I think so, yeah. That's insane. Surely they'd notice excessive amounts of data coming from the device..... Right?
@Ozymandias No, I just do a lot of 'reading' yep lots and lots of 'books'.
@B3astofthe3ast
I doubt it, even if you hacked it to work, the nook doesn't have a browser, so any data access outside of shopping at the B&N store would set off alarm bells.
black and white android?
if the processer were faster, this would be a hackers dream come true.
i mean it already is, but sometimes that dream isnt very responsive
@Karate Tortoise scary pic man
@cswright bring. it. on.
:)
@glenskey
ah shit man
The world's largest cellphone.
@parabola
http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2009/03/022995.htm
ORLY?
This guy begs to differ.
@Smorkiepol9 Nearly as large as my old touchscreen sony ericsson.
I knew this was coming. I am surprised by how quickly it happened. Glad to know I will have the power of h4xors out there helping me ready any format I want.
i would buy one if i could use it as an android tablet, absolutely
Where's the fun in this? I miss the good old days where we tried to install Linux on odd new hardware, instead of it being pre-installed
@EGOvoruhk
The good old days were stupid and antiquated. The good old days were 800x600.
Now, we don't have to shed as much blood and tears to get the device to do what we want because of linux being preinstalled. Trust me, its a blessing.
@Avaviel What you talking about? The good old days were 80 character green screens! Long live CP/M!
@Avaviel "The good old days were stupid and antiquated. The good old days were 800x600."
And now they're 600x800. Look how far we've come!
Great, just what att's network needs.
At least it won't ship in any real numbers til Q1.
Well with free high speed internet, i'll be watching ebay for busted screen nooks... just transplant that mini pci-e modem and sim card and your set... that and figuring out the login and password...
AT&T is gonna start crying once this gets out
I can't believe the OS runs on an SD card, now that its rooted, I can imagine many uses! Google maps, web browser!
@Hydra
Except for the e-ink refresh rate scrolling in Google Maps!
These guys can get their hands on a Nook, tear it apart, root the OS... but they can't manage to figured out how to use a blur tool in an image editor?
@nak Why did they need to cover those parts at all?
@Dr Yusuf AlKindi So B&N and ATT wouldn't cut off the device.
@nak
Maybe they're worried someone might figure out how to use the unblur tool.
On an unrelated note:
Yay for Engadget's already expanded replies, now I don't have to click the damn link.
@fisher
Three cheers for crippling your system and working back to where you started. Now they just need to bring back highlighting the highest ranked comments again.
@fisher
What I don't get, though, is the whining about the font. I mean, people aren't sending mass complaints to newspapers about their serif font yet they read it every day. People don't seem to have difficulties reading the newspaper, so what's the difference?
The difference is, this isn't a newspaper. It's a website, and the standard theory goes that for the web you use sans-serif fonts. There's debate around the matter, sure, but I agree that serif should not be used for body text on any website.
@Nick Meijer
Sans-serif is more readable for body copy on screen. Oldstyle (serif) is more readable for print body copy.
i wonder if these guys tossed that sim card into an ATT phone to see if it's just live or if it at least has 3G or Edge in an always active account state. knowing ATT they have a huge bulk of sim numbers tied to these devices just on active wide open data accounts. Plus with so many accounts I highly doubt if someone figured out a free data tethering on this they would some how shut it off.
You have to wonder if hacking this thing would lead to the end of free 3g data on e-readers, the Carriers won't tolerate network bandwidth hogs. Even if the actual percentage of those utilizing such methods will be small, it will be made a big deal in the tech and gadget circles and probably make a big enough splash to catch their attention. I can already read WSJs error laden article making a mountain out of a mole hill.
Go to this nookdevs site and right on the top, nice big Kindle ad!! Order now!!!
I was reading something else and they tried the Sim card in a phone and it didn't work. I think ATT wasn't dumb enough to let people get FREE access with a hack like this. If anything they would see it getting access to sites you shouldn't be at and just BAN that SIM card as being hacked.
@JBDragon It seems likely that the SIM numbers on the Nooks might just have a simple whitelist access control on them. So you can only access the B&N IP addresses.
Assuming that the infrastructure is there for white-listing everywhere in general.
Does anybody know if the Nook has touch key control?
I KNEW there was a reason that I still wanted this thing.
Can't waaaait, can't waaaait... January 15th can't come fast enough!
Though I have a feeling that AT&T would cut someone's Nook off if they catch it tethering.
@(Unverified)
I am sure ATT&T lives to cut off nooks
Seems that B&N opted for some pretty nice hardware. The Samsung processor in this thing is the same that's used in the Acer F900. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSOheP9fYMk
Also, in their rush to get this out they made it a hackers dream. OS on a SD? No flashing needed! Awesome. I can't wait till some smart folks come with the hacks.
Buy it now.
I bet that the sd card slot was just part of getting this thing rushed into production.
Production lot two or three will probably have the OS on a chip soldered to the pc board. Cheaper to manufacture.
Unlikely, but I wonder if they will upgrade from EXT3 to EXT4 in the future for improved performance.
The data plan may only allow the protocols or ports the book browser and downloader use, which may not be HTTP or port 80. All other TCP ports may be blocked.
"Free 3G" problem solved.
This seems to explain the units sluggish response. There sure does not appear to be any RAM in there, so it seems like its running straight off the SD cards. Yikes.