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Tired of waiting for a sunlight viewable tablet with a Pixel Qi display? You can sort of build your own tablet for outdoor use by taking an eReader with an E Ink touchscreen and loading a full-fledged GNU/Linux operating system on it.
That’s what MobileRead forum member MarkGibek did when he installed Debian on the Kobo Mini eReader. The result is a 5 inch touchscreen tablet that you can use to surf the web, play games, or you know, read eBooks.
It’s just not very fast, screen refreshes can be distracting, and there’s limited support for software and no support for multitouch… yet.
Here’s a roundup of tech news from around the web.
- Turn a Kobo Reader into a Debian Linux tablet with an E Ink screen
It’s tough to find a computer with a low-power, sunlight viewable E Ink display. But it’s pretty easy to find an inexpensive eReader with an E Ink display. And now you can run Debian Linux on some of Kobo’s eReaders. Just don’t expect to get a lot of work done… those things have pretty slow processors. [MobileRead via The Digital Reader] - Apple iWork, iMovie, and iPhoto are now available for free on new iOS devices
Apple introduces new iPhones today and promised that iOS 7 would hit the streets September 18th. But the company also announced that it’s setting some older software free… sort of. You’ll need to buy one of Apple’s newest iOS devices to get free iWork, iMovie, and iPhoto apps. [Engadget] - Toys R Us taking pre-orders for a $150, 8 inch Tabeo e2 tablet for kids
The latest Tabeo tablet has an iPad mini-like 8 inch, 1024 x 768 pixel display, a 1 GHz processor, 5 hours of battery life, and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean software. [Toys R Us] - 3DMark benchmark launches for iOS
Expect to see a lot of benchmarks comparing the iPhone 5S to the latest Android phones and tablets. [Android Community] - Roku app now lets you stream videos from an Android phone, tablet to your TV
Sure, the Google Chromecast doesn’t support streaming local videos from your Android phone to your TV anymore. But you can do it with a Roku box and the official Roku app for Android. [Android Central] - Radxa Rock development boards with RK3188 quad-core chips coming soon for $69 and up
Dev boards with ARM-based chips are a dime a dozen these days, but this is one of the first models to feature a Rockchip RK3188 quad-core processor. It could come in handy whether you’re trying to design an embedded system, or if you’re just unsatisfied by the limited port selection on most Android TV boxes with that chipset. [CNX Software]
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It seems like waiting for Pixel Qi may not be an option anymore since Pixel Qi is no longer trying to get into consumer hardware. Guess it’s waiting for Mirasol now.