Motorola Xoom, which is touted by some as the iPad killer, is hackable, it has emerged.

The newly launched tablet Xoom, which runs on the latest edition of Android the Gingerbread, or Android 3.0, was rooted by a hacker, who also put out a guideline on how to crack the device.

Rooting is a process by which an Android device is cracked to gain privileged access. It is similar to jailbreaking on Apple devices running the iOS operating system, according to Wikipedia.

Rooting is a process that allows users of cellphones, and other devices, running the Android operating system to attain privileged control (known as root access) within Android's Linux subsystem, similar to jailbreaking on Apple devices running the iOS operating system, overcoming limitations that the carriers and manufacturers put on such phones, it says.

Hacker Kaushik Dutta, who had formerly made a name for himself as a .Net virtuoso, has detailed in his website how to root Motorla Xoom tablet.

Since it’s another Google experience device, and ships with fastboot support (albeit, limited), it really does come rooted out of the box. Just needed to figure out the board kernel base, and compile up a new kernel, Dutta said in his website www.koushikdutta.com.

Dutta says Xoom can be rooted in some easy steps if one's computer has ADB - Android Debug Bridge - and fastboot installed on it.

Dutta's steps are as follows:

1. # Download the XOOM root zip.
2. # Unzip the package.
3. # Put your junk in the box.
4. adb reboot bootloader (skip the next 3 steps if you have already unlocked via fastboot)
5. fastboot oem unlock
6. # wait for reboot
7. adb reboot bootloader
8. fastboot flash boot rootboot.img
9. fastboot reboot
10. # wait for reboot
11. adb remount
12. adb push su /system/bin/
13. adb shell ln –s /system/bin/su /system/xbin/su
14. adb shell chmod 4755 /system/bin/su
15. adb push Superuser.apk /system/app/

Yep, that should do it, he says.

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