Reverse Engineer Finds Kindle's Hidden Features

bensafrickingenius writes "CNET's Crave site has an interesting article on Amazon's Kindle eBook reader, and the extensive reverse-engineering that fans of the device have accomplished. The site specifically points out the work of Igor Skochinsky at the Reversing Everything website. His work on the Kindle's Root Shell has revealed some fascinating goodies: 'Among the ones uncovered and described on his blog are a basic photo viewer, a minesweeper game, and most interesting, location technology that uses the Kindle's CDMA networking to pinpoint its position. There also are some basic location-based services that call up a Google Maps view to show where you are and nearby gas stations and restaurants.'"

Re:Tracking Hardware?!?!?!

[argiedot]

It's interesting, yes, but not too different from a normal GSM phone. They can triangulate your position with that too to a certain degree, and police have actually used that method to find a dead man whose phone was still on. Then when they got clear they played some other tricks. I think this was in the UK but I cannot dig up the link right now.

eBook readers are all wrong

[charlie763]

Okay, I's like to explain what makes ebook readers so bad and what needs to be done to fix them. Most Slashdotters will recall the days of the internet appliance (remember the i-opener?). What made them so bad is exactly what makes ebook readers so bad: they are only slightly less costly than computers, but are not nearly as useful. The internet appliances were essentially full computers with low specs because they only needed to browse the web. This made them almost as expensive as real computers. Their functionality was limited. They were proprietary and one had to purchase a service plan from a specific vendor. Now we see the same thing happening with ebook readers. They are as complex as computers and are just as expensive. They have limited functionality. They are proprietary. Here is the device I would like to see. A Bluetooth/USB ePaper display. Let a person's smart phone, computer render everything and tell the display what to do. The display wouldn't have to implement all sorts of complex file formats, the external device will take care of it. A display like this could be useful beyond ebooks. You might want one sitting next to your desk or in the server room displaying information. You might attach a keyboard to it with extra battery power and processing power. Maybe a bluetooth keyboard with extra battery power for charging your smart phone and ePaper display, allowing your smart phone to handle all the processing. The main point is that someone needs to produce a simple ePaper display around which others may innovate.

Re:Tracking Hardware?!?!?!

[orclevegam]

I think the important thing is that the kindle tracking is a pull, not push system. That is, the kindle unit can triangulate itself, and the firmware has a hidden routine for doing that and then pulling up your location on google maps, but it's not like it's an active tracking signal that anyone can lock onto. For this thing to be used to track someone without their knowledge extra software would have to be installed that constantly relayed to an outside source with the kindles own triangulated position. As a bonus this would likely do bad things to the kindles battery life, so just keep an eye out for sudden drops in battery life following any updates.

Re:"Fiona"?

[froon]

Nice catch [wikipedia.org] there. Fiona is the daughter of the Primer's developer though, not the main character.

Actually, they are aimed at the wrong market

[Shivetya]

The market that can use these devices is any area where manuals must be referenced or should be referenced throughout the day. Think car repair. No way can anyone know everything about any car out there. Build a more sturdy form of these machines (grease/solvent/drop resistant) and let it load books on the fly from a local server. Instead of having to have bulky stations fixed throughout the center, let alone paper manuals or such, they can now follow the worker...

e-books need a business use first, then after people get used to using them at work they will want that functionality at home and that is when the sales will take off.

Besides, ironing out usage issues in a business environment is much better than a consumer market where control isn't available.

Another good Reason To Stay With Traditional Books

[Anonymous Coward]

At least my books don't secretly track my position. I mean really, this is way over the top.

...location technology that uses the Kindle's CDMA networking to pinpoint its position.

Re:Cellphone CDMA location

[insignificant1]

Are they really "triangulating" using cell towers? Or are they doing something like finding a rough area for the phone by which the cell the phone is associated with and which towers can see the phone? So if towers X, Y,and Z can see your phone, but X has strongest signal, you are probably in a certain area and closest to tower X.

Triangulation, technically, is using the angles to a target from two known locations to determine the target's location. I don't know if the base stations have the ability to tell what the angle to a cell phone is; I thought they only had signal strength information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulate [wikipedia.org] for more info

Re:Cellphone CDMA location

[Tintivilus]

Are they really "triangulating" using cell towers?... Triangulation, technically, is using the angles to a target from two known locations to determine the target's location.

Actually it's trilateration -- using the distances to three points, rather than the directions. The basic effect is the same and most people don't really care about the gorey details. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateration [wikipedia.org]