Nook Color Rooted: Hands On

December 12, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 72 Comments

Nookdevs have released information on how to root your nook color. So naturally, I had to run out and get one. Who doesn’t want a multitouch android tablet for $250? The instructions for rooting are extremely simple. You really only need microSD card and a Linux/Windows/Mac computer to connect to. After rooting, your nook will work exactly as it did before, but you can now install android applications on it. Many applications are built for a phone that has more physical buttons, so I have run into some issues, but over all, the applications that work tend to work well.

Join me after the break for more thoughts, a video of it in action, and a few pictures.

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Permanent Root Exploit Found For G2

November 10, 2010 by Chris Nelson 9 Comments

The g2 has finally been rooted. Even though a temporary root exploit was found shortly after the phones release, a NAND lock prevented modifying the non-volatile RAM for a permanent root. Some controversy surrounded the g2 when it was erroneously thought to have a rootkit protecting the OS. Supposedly the rootkit would watch for changes to the file system and then reset the phone to default settings when any unauthorized changes were made. On the other hand a NAND lock functions by fooling the operating system into thinking there isn’t any memory available, essentially “locking” the memory in key areas. Once it was discovered to have the NAND lock it was only a matter of time before the g2 was permanently rooted. NAND locks have become a popular (and unsuccessful) deterrent employed by device makers to stop the jailbreaking comunity. While this exploit is nothing groundbreaking it is another notch in the belt for the jailbreaking community and a welcome benefit to g2 users.

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New Nook Says: No Root For You!

August 15, 2010 by Mike Szczys 47 Comments

That is a blurry image of a Barnes & Noble Nook eReader stuck in an infinite reboot loop. This is the result of trying to downgrade the firmware to 1.0 in preparation to soft-root the device. So after a few failures the device will recover itself, right? It doesn’t look that way. No problem, don’t you just pop it open and re-write the OS to the SD card inside to do a hardware root? Nope, it looks like the newest hardware revision has replaced that convenient SD card with a memory chip.

For now it’s a brick, but we’re sure there will soon be a way to fix this. A bit of solder, some wires, and a reflash should work much in the same way an EEPROM recovery does. That is, if you have an original image to work with.

So for now, be careful not to attempt to root your nook if the serial number starts with 1003.

[Thanks Ken]

DroidX Gets A Custom Recovery Image

August 11, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 18 Comments

[Birdman] has managed to push a custom recovery image to the DroidX. This previously impossible action opens the doors to all kinds of fun hacking. While you can’t just drop a custom Rom on the phone right now, this is the first step in making that happen. You can find the directions in the post, but they’ve got a while to go before they become as easy as something like a jailbreak.

[via phandroid]

Nexus One As USB Host

June 8, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 11 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-bLOc1qnMM]

[Sven Killig] Has managed to get his Nexus One into USB host mode. This allows him to plug in all kinds of peripherals such as web cams, keyboards, even a displaylink unit. This is fantastic as it really opens up the possibilities of this device. You can see that he now has an amazingly functional and portable system running. He mentions that it is pretty stable unless he runs big programs, we wonder if he has added any RAM to it. It is worth noting that the Droid can be USB host as well.

I Am Root! – Alex EReader

April 27, 2010 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

The Alex eReader has been rooted. This little handheld was the belle of the ball at CES 2010 when it came to eReaders. Now that is has been released into the wild it takes its place next to the heavy hitters that have already seen root access. If you’re unfamiliar, this device boasts a six-inch e-ink display and a 320×240 LCD touchscreen interface. Now that you can make it do your bidding, what are your plans for the $350 tablet? Let us know in the comments.

[Thanks Richard]

NES Lovers Grew Up And Now They’re Coding For Palm

January 27, 2010 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

In case you missed it back in June, the Palm Pre was rooted by extracting the Root ROM from a Palm tool used to reset a device with damaged software. A lot has been learned from examining the code inside that ROM but we’re most amused by one thing in particular. If you grew up in the 80’s there’s a pretty good chance you know the Konami Code by heart. So did the developers of WebOS, the firmware running on the Palm Pre. By inputting the familiar (UpUpDownDownLeftRightLeftRightBA) set of gestures the handset enters Developer mode for connection to the SDK which was leaked last summer but is now in open release.