Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

If you ask me, there is certain technology that should just be used in the way it was intended, but that said, I do think it is pretty interesting to see what devices are capable of aside from what the manufacturer specifies.

Anyway, the latest device to receive a little hacking attention is the Sony PRS-505 Reader.  It turns out that the PRS-505 (and possibly the other Sony Readers) run a stripped down version of MontaVista Linux and that makes tinkering possible.

So far, nothing overly exciting has come from this hack, but it was proven that the PRS-505 is capable of running homebrew code.  At this point the hack allows the user to do things like customize their fonts, icons and graphics as well as remap certain keys and play a few basic games.  Hey like I said, nothing overly exciting, but the possibility is there.

Now, assuming you have a PRS-505 and want to play around a little, the good news is that this hack does not appear to be all that difficult.  According to the how-to, which you can find over at The Register, you need to create a special SD card.

Of course, as with any tinkering, if you choose to go this route and render your Reader unusable I, as well as Gadgetell take no responsibility.  Otherwise have fun.

Read [The Register]  Via [Gizmodo]