Stick It to Jeff Bezos by Turning Your Defunct Kindle Into the World’s Worst Typewriter
Amazon is ending support for pre-2012 Kindle and Kindle Fire devices on May 20, rendering them unable to download content or be restored, prompting some users to repurpose the devices. One creative solution involves jailbreaking a Kindle and turning it into a typewriter using a Raspberry Pi and a thermal printer. The project, created by Roni Bandini, highlights both the potential for device repurposing and criticism of planned obsolescence.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
If you’re the owner of a Kindle, you may have seen the news that on May 20, Amazon is unilaterally ending support for a whole bunch of pre-2012 Kindle and Kindle Fire devices. If you own one of these devices, you’ll no longer be able to purchase new titles, download any new material, or reset/restore them—attempting to do the latter will lock you out of the device completely. (If you’re unsure whether your Kindle is on the chopping block, there’s a list of affected models you can consult.) Understandably, this news went over like a lead balloon on the internet—many people own affected models that still work just fine, but will nevertheless be rendered pretty damn useless by Amazon’s embrace of forced obsolescence.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Gizmodo.
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