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Cybook upgrade—plus Sony Reader in Canada
May 7, 2008 | 12:06 pm
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By David Rothman
Bugged by delays in seeing new pages on your Cybook Gen3, after your press a button?
Then download a just-announced fix (password protected). I’ll also be curious to see if the new firmware lets you read DRM-protected library books in Mobipocket format.
More new wrinkles on the way
A full list of improvements–thanks, Bookeen!—appears ahead. Plus, future goodes are coming: a “new directory view,” “improved Mobipocket, PDF, HTML & TXT support,” “new user interface features” and “user interface translations.” I’m rooting for the ability to switch buttons around, so the raised button in the middle of the diamond can move me a page ahead.
Also of interest to hardware fans: The official availability of the Sony Reader in Canada, although you can get only the silver model.
OK, now here’s the information on the Cybook fix:
The first Cybook Gen3 firmware upgrade is now available [version 1.1, build 685].
What’s New
- Improvement: new button management (faster and buffered key detection).
- Improvement: new event management (previous versions could miss events).
- Improvement: reduced power consumption.
- Improvement: Table support in Mobipocket files.
- Bug fix: large covers in PRC files.
- Bug fix: Asian characters are now displayed properly in PRC files.
- Bug fix: PDF viewer memory management (to be continued).
- Bug fix: TrueType font detection (“Fonts” directory).
- Bug fix: various user interface items (to be continued).
- Bug fix: detection of MP3 playback frequencies.
- New: in the “Library”, a lock symbol is visible when a read-only SD card is inserted.
How to Download
- Download the upgrade file by clicking on the “Download” button.
- Extract the content of the downloaded zip file.
- You should get a file “update_kernel”; this is the firmware upgrade utility.
- Copy the file “update_kernel” to the root of an SD card.
How to Install
- Make sure your Cybook has enough power to operate.
- Switch off your device.
- Insert the card into your Cybook.
- Switch on your device.
- When the boot image is visible (Cybook & Bookeen logotypes), press the “Enter” key and keep it pressed for a few seconds until the screen flashes.
- When the screen flashes, you can depress the key; the upgrade process is launched.
- Only the needed sections are updated. The upgrade should complete after a couple of minutes.
- When the upgrade is completed, the Cybook starts normally.
- Delete the file “update_kernel” from the SD card and from your computer. This file will not be useful anymore.
- Congratulations! Your Cybook has been upgraded with software version 1.1.
What’s Next
- New directory view.
- Improved Mobipocket, PDF, HTML & TXT support.
- New user interface features.
- User interface translations.
(Bookeen and Sony info via MobileRead.)
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Comments:
David, I already left a message on the Cybook web site about this, but there are a couple of points about the upgrade process you posted that seem to be confusing a few people.
How to Install
Step 5: … press the enter key. It never really says which key is the enter key. However, experience has shown that they are talking about the big button on the face of the device. The one in the middle of the navigation square.
Step 6: … you can depress the key. This should read: you can release the key.
Remembering that Bookeen is a French company, there may have been a mixup in the translation on this word. I can easily see how one might translate depress to mean de-press or to let up on the key.
I’ve tried this on a MAC and I can’t even get the Cybook to recognize my SD card. I’ve tried using the disk utility to format the card as FAT-16 and UNIX but all that happens, in either case, when I press the enter button is that the initialization process freezes (I admit I only held it down for maybe 10 or 15 seconds).
Any suggestions.
Bob
Thanks, Michael. Having pasted the information in from the Bookeen site, I’m eager to make sure people have the correct details. Keep us up to date. Thanks. David
Bob,
Bookeen specifically states that they need cards to be formatted as Fat32.
Also, the file you download can not be directly placed on the card. It is a zip file (ie its compressed). The actual file you copy to the SD card is inside the zip. If you have OSX 10.3 or later just double-click on the zip to open it. The file to copy and paste is the update-kernel file inside the zip. If you don’t have 10.3 or later look for a program like stuffit that can read zips.
Michael,
Thanks for the reply. I did do the unzip but though I had some recollection of reading that the card had to be FAT32, I was unable to find any reference to it on the web. Basically though, what this means is that I’ll have to buy a new, preformatted sd card.
Again, thanks,
Bob