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Amazon is starting to roll out a software update for the Kindle Fire HD tablet today, bringing a new “Free Time” feature which gives parents more control over how their kids use the 7 inch tablet.

Free Time lets parents limit the amount of time kids can use different types of content and select which apps, books, and other content kids can see. The only way to exit the FreeTime mode is to enter a password.

In other words, you’ll either keep your kids away from content you’d rather they not see, or teach them to hack your passwords. Either way you’re probably going to end up with brighter kids.

If you’ve rooted your Kindle Fire HD, you might not be looking forward to this update. Amazon has a habit of rolling out tablet software updates without requiring any user intervention, and they tend to break root access. Now might be a good time to turn off WiFi until we know if you can re-root the tablet once it’s running the new software.

While announcing the software update, Amazon also noted that the Kindle Fire HD is the best-selling product across all of Amazon’s worldwide properties. That doesn’t really tell us much since the company isn’t saying how many units it’s sold. But it looks like more people are buying the new Fire HD than the cheaper Kindle Fire 2 or other Kindle readers.

via Phandroid