Make your own Kindle killer

If you are an electronic hobbyist then you might be interested in creating your own e-book reader. You can build your own reader if you are not satisfied with Amazon.com’s Kindle or any other e-book reader in the market. This is exactly what Kumar, a Malaysian embedded Linux developer, did. He custom-built an e-book reader using the “electronic ink” that is currently being used by Amazon.com’s Kindle and Sony Reader. And what makes it the Kindle killer is the added features like a fully functional web browser.

As mentioned the custom-built e-book reader was developed using the prototype kits from E Ink. E Ink’s prototype kits can allow developers and hobbyist to create their own readers using the paper-like display technology that is being used in the most popular readers today. You will have to pay the price of $3000 though for experimenting and making a custom-built e-book reader. The platform was based mostly on open source hardware and software since it is designed for developers. The motherboard is the open source Gumstix which a 400MHz Marvell processor. It also has a Bluetooth transceiver, a serial port, USB and a card reader. It is preinstalled with Linux though some developers are using Windows CE and also trying to run different operating system. The prototype also offers open source display drivers that developers can tinker with. The prototype kits are availablein 5″, 6″, 8″ and 9.7″ displays.

Source: Wired Blog Network

*picture taken from source