Later On

Very interesting. Take a look:

The video is from an NPR article by John Kalish that delves further into hacking e-book readers, which begins:

What if you could buy a tablet with a slightly smaller screen than the iPad for half the price or even less? Hackers have been turning e-book readers into tablets for cheap Internet on the go.

In fact, San Francisco hacker Mitch Altman doesn’t read e-books on his Kindle at all. He only uses its Web browser to access maps and restaurant listings when he’s traveling.

The Amazon Kindle has 3G data connectivity so that readers can download e-books anywhere there is cell service. As many Kindle owners know, the device can connect to Google and Wikipedia to look up things mentioned in e-books, too. That connectivity is all the opportunity hackers need to turn an e-book reader into a tablet.

“This is something that is starting to get around in geek and hacker circles, and it’s a relatively cheap way to have Internet anywhere you go,” Altman says.When Altman says it’s cheap, he’s referring to the fact that the 3G Kindle costs a mere $190 and there is no charge for the 3G Internet. Of course, there’s a trade-off here: the Kindle doesn’t have a touch screen, so you have to use scrolling buttons to navigate around the screen, which Altman has found cumbersome. But for $60 more, he could’ve gotten the Nook Color. . .

Continue reading.