Kindle 3 hidden features include 2 games, image viewer, screenshot grab
The latest generation Kindle may be one of the best e-readers available at the moment (read our review ), but it also has a few hidden features you may want to check out.
Elliot Hartley has been investigating exactly what Amazon put on the Kindle 3 that it decided it didn’t want you to see, and the list is surprisingly long.
Did you know, for example, that there are two games you can play by pressing a few keys on the keypad? The first is Minesweeper accessed by holding down “SHIFT + ALT + M”. Once in that game a further game can be accessed called GoMoku just by pressing “G”. For those that don’t know, GoMoku is a strategy board game other wise known as Five in a Row . If you want to get back to Minesweeper from GoMoku just press “M”.
Away from the games the other big hidden feature is an image viewer. This is accessed with the following steps provided by Elliot:
- Plug your Kindle 3 into the computer with the USB.
- Open the Kindle drive that is now in your displayed with your removable drives, in the root (i.e. not in another folder) create a folder called “pictures” within that folder you can create a number of other folders (think of them as collections), then add your images/pictures to this (or these) folders. I’ve only tried Jpegs and they work fine.
- Once finished safely unplug the Kindle and then press “alt” and “z” on the homescreen, this will refresh the screen and add your new folders.
- Click on the folder/collection and Image Viewer should launch.
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Once in the viewer the following control options are available:
- f = full-screen
- q = zoom in
- w= zoom out
- e = reset zoom
- c = actual size
- r = rotate
- nav controller = pan
Finally there’s a few hotkeys everyone should know about:
- alt + shift + G = screenshot
- alt + G = screen refresh
- alt + home = Kindle Store
- alt + top row of letters on keyboard = numbers 1-9
and while reading a book:
- alt + B = add and remove bookmarks
- shift + Sym = Turn text to speech on and off
- set cursor down the page to start text to speech from there
- right arrow on nav controller = skip to next chapter
- left arrow on nav controller = skip to previous chapter
If you have any more tips for hidden functionality on the Kindle please let us know.
Read more at GeoPlanIT
Matthew’s Opinion
It seems that jailbreaking your Kindle only reveals more fonts, where as a bit of investigation work opens up a both extra functionality and some really useful key shortcuts. That top row acting as numbers is going to come in really handy for entering WiFi network passwords, and when performing searches.
Having a couple of free games is also nice, and it’s not like Minesweeper isn’t popular. It’s just strange that Amazon chose to hide them and the image viewer rather than advertising them as experimental features just like the web browser.
Ultimately the more functionality an e-reader has the more chance it has of surviving alongside the onslaught of tablets that will arrive next year. Kindle does have a few advantages though, especially when you’re sitting by the pool .
