this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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The Open Book - An open hardware reading device that's easy to build, easy to manufacture, and easy to make your own (hackaday.io)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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This is a complete reimagining of the Open Book Project, but the original mission remains:

As a society, we need an open source device for reading. Books are among the most important documents of our culture, yet the most popular and widespread devices we have for reading are closed objects, operating as small moving parts in a set of giant closed platforms whose owners' interests are not always aligned with readers'.

The Open Book aims to be a simple device that anyone can build for themselves. The Open Book should be comprehensible: the reader should be able to look at it and understand, at least in broad strokes, how it works. It should be extensible, so that a reader with different needs can write code and add accessories that make the book work for them. It should be global, supporting readers of books in all the languages of the world. Most of all, it should be open, so that anyone can take this design as a starting point and use it to build a better book.

Check out the promo video as well:
https://youtu.be/vFD9V8Hh7Yg

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Doesn't it make way more sense to just hack Kindle hardware? I remember having a Kindle years ago and torrenting books and just slapping them on there.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Kindle hardware is shit. It's built extremely cheaply, and it's not made to be repaired. I have a Kindle with a broken display, asked Amazon support if it is possible to replace it, they said it's not and they don't sell parts.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean...it does what it needs to do just fine.

Is this thing repairable?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's designed to be build-able by anyone and extensible, so it should be repairable by the average consumer. You can just hack kindle hardware as long as the device works but this project is trying to actually build something more sustainable.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

What are the chances these components are still available in 5 years?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

AFAIK you can use Kindle completely offline. Some family members do exactly this. They buy books online and upload them over USB. The main reason is that they read books in language that the Kindle store does not support.

But yeah, as far as I know the devices weren't online like ever. Maybe except some initial setup that needs an Amazon account. You can just make a burner account, set the device up and don't even bother storing credentials.

You lose some convenience like synchronization of reading progress and notes, but I'm not sure whether any of the open source options even have that kind of functionality.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

There's no need to hack anything. You can just copy ebooks directly onto any Kindle and it works perfectly fine out of the box.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

You need to be very patient to hack your Kindle, and hope for a new exploit, as they update them to the latest version (un hackable) before sending them out.