By Tom Garry, in Salford

Mary Earps said she felt “very honoured and humbled” to receive “the ultimate all-round sporting accolade”, after being named as the BBC’s Sports Personality of the year ahead of runner-up Stuart Broad to continue women’s sport’s strong recent run in the event.

The ongoing saga of the BlackCat/AlphV ransomware gang continues, with a news report that the crew has shut down its servers after a controversial hack of an American healthcare services provider. Bleeping Computer says the gang’s data leak blog shut on Friday and the sites it uses to negotiate ransom payments closed today. This comes […]

Ransomware is behind the cyber attack on the city of Hamilton, Ont., the municipality’s city manager says. Marnie Cluckie told reporters Monday afternoon that the attack, which was detected the evening of Sunday, Feb. 25, was the result of ransomware. She wouldn’t say what strain of the malware the city has been hit with, how […]

Highly efficient SoCs offer up to 10 CPU cores, 32 GPU cores, 64GB of 400GB/s RAM.

However, the comparative Win 11 AMD tests were on an unpatched (L3 cache, CPPC2) PC.

Administrative innovations in south-west Asia during the 4th millennium BCE, including the cylinder seals that were rolled on the earliest clay tablets, laid the foundations for proto-cuneiform script.

The post Study: Cylinder Seals and Sealing Practices Stimulated Invention of Writing in Ancient South-West Asia appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

The identification of a new hominin group called Denisovans was one of the most exciting discoveries in human evolution in the last decade.

The post Several Denisovan Populations Introgressed into Modern Humans Multiple Times: Study appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

When NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Uranus in 1986, it provided scientists’ first close glimpse of this ice-giant planet.

The post Voyager 2’s Flyby of Uranus in 1986 was During Anomalous Solar Event, New Study Suggests appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

I am one of millions of vapers in the UK, but growing evidence of the impact these e-cigarettes have on the environment means it may be time to quit, says Graham Lawton

People with cancer may have understandable reasons to follow Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson in declining chemotherapy, but the odds aren’t in their favour, warns Elle Hunt

Genetic analysis of a bird flu virus detected in a person in Missouri who didn’t previously have contact with animals offers more details on the case, but experts say there isn’t substantial evidence to suggest human-to-human transmission is happening

Genetic testing on samples collected during the earliest days of the covid-19 outbreak suggests it is likely that the virus spread from animals to humans at the Huanan seafood market

People who went from using social media for at least 2 hours a day to just 30 minutes a day reported no improvement to their sleep or emotional well-being

Our metabolism's response to food is highly idiosyncratic and there are hints that tailoring our diet to these personal differences can deliver health benefits

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched a "Nominees for the People" forum to crowdsource 4,000 positions in the Trump administration to Make America Healthy Again.

Despite his own isolationist musings, the first picks of President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration hail from a decidedly more traditionalist wing of the Republican Party.

Social media commentators claimed Jill Biden refused to look at Vice President Harris as they were seated together at Arlington Cemetery for a Veterans' Day Remembrance.

More than 20 people are believed to have died in one South African province after consuming food from local shops. Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi said the majority of deaths have been children aged between six and nine. “The first uniform approach across the province was to adopt a mechanism of... Continue Reading

Pension veterans say there was more going on behind the scenes than scrutiny of costs

Sources say Harper’s name has been in the mix for at least 10 months

The Dallas Cowboys quarterback got another opinion on his hamstring and decided that surgery would be the best way to address the injury.

Myah Saakwa-Mante, a 20-year-old British university student, was caught at Los Angeles International Airport and arrested after allegedly attempting to smuggle T-shirts soaked with methamphetamine.

Dallas Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban returned to the Bluesky social media platform with a post after weeks of contentious X posts.

Just like Eli Manning in 2004, Deion Sanders said he would tell NFL teams his son, Shedeur Sanders, won't play for them if it's not the right fit.

Since winning the election last week, President-elect Trump has begun evaluating and rolling out his Cabinet picks, with dozens of names jockeying for some two dozen positions.

Jessica Simpson sparked rumors this week with a cryptic post about making new music and having put up with "everything I did not deserve."

Fox News host Sean Hannity says the "decentralization of power as our founders intended is very much on its way to DC."

President-elect Trump announced on Tuesday that Kristi Noem is his pick for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

The Canadian women's soccer team was implicated in a drone scandal this past summer. But, an investigation determined drone use against opponents, predated the Paris Olympics.

Apple is making Siri smarter as part of updates that also promise improvements to Maps, Music and Photos.

Tech giant to pay $35.44 billion for social networking firm in surprise deal.

Prepare yourself for the challenges of creating cutting-edge A&D autonomous tech. Download the e-book to explore how autonomy is transforming the aerospace & defense industry.

Download this free whitepaper now!

In physical books, yellowing pages are usually a sign of age. But brand-new users of Amazon’s Kindle Colorsofts, the tech giant’s first color e-reader, are already noticing yellow hues appearing at the bottoms of their displays.

Since the complaints began the trickle in, Amazon has reportedly suspended shipments and announced that it is working to fix the issue. (As of publication of this article, the US $280 Kindle had an average 2.6 star rating on Amazon.) It’s not yet clear what is causing the discoloration. But while the issue is new—and unexpected—the technology is not, says Jason Heikenfeld, an IEEE Fellow and engineering professor at the University of Cincinnati. The Kindle Colorsoft, which became available on 30 October, uses “a very old approach,” says Heikenfeld, who previously worked to develop the ultimate e-paper technology. “It was the first approach everybody tried.”

Amazon’s e-reader uses reflective display technology developed by E Ink, a company that started in the 1990s as an MIT Media Lab spin off before developing its now-dominant electronic paper displays. E Ink is used in Kindles, as well as top e-readers from Kobo, reMarkable, Onyx, and more. E Ink first introduced Kaleido—the basis of the Colorsoft’s display—five years ago, though the road to full-color e-paper started well before.

How E-Readers Work

Monochromatic Kindles work by applying voltages to electrodes in the screen that bring black or white pigment to the top of each pixel. Those pixels then reflect ambient light, creating a paper-like display. To create a full-color display, companies like E Ink added an array of filters just above the ink. This approach didn’t work well at first because the filters lost too much light, making the displays dark and low resolution. But with a few adjustments, Kaleido was ready for consumer products in 2019. (Other approaches—like adding colored pigments to the ink—have been developed, but these come with their own drawbacks, including a higher price tag.)

Given this design, it initially seemed to Heikenfeld that the issue would have stemmed from the software, which determines the voltages applied to each electrode. This aligned with reports from some users that the issue appeared after a software update.

But industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggested in a post on X that the issue is due to the e-reader’s hardware. Amazon switched the optically clear adhesive (OCA) used in the Colorsoft to a material that may not be so optically clear. In its announcement of the Colorsoft, the company boasted “custom formulated coatings” that would enhance the color display as one of the new e-reader’s innovations.

In terms of resolving the issue, Kuo’s post also stated that “While component suppliers have developed several hardware solutions, Amazon seems to be leaning toward a software-based fix.” Heikenfeld is not sure how a software fix would work, apart from blacking out the bottom of the screen.

Amazon did not reply to IEEE Spectrum’s request for comment. In an email to IEEE Spectrum, E Ink stated, “While we cannot comment on any individual partner or product, we are committed to supporting our partners in understanding and addressing any issues that arise.”

The Future of E-Readers

It took a long time for color Kindles to arrive, and the future of reflective e-reader displays isn’t likely to improve much, according to Heikenfeld. “I used to work a lot in this field, and it just really slowed down at some point, because it’s a tough nut to crack,” Heikenfeld says.

There are inherent limitations and inefficiencies to working with filter-based color displays that rely on ambient light, and there’s no Moore’s Law for these displays. Instead, their improvement is asymptotic—and we may already be close to the limit. Meanwhile, displays that emit light, like LCD and OLED, continue to improve. “An iPad does a pretty damn good job with battery life now,” says Heikenfeld.

At the same time, he believes there will always be a place for reflective displays, which remain a more natural experience for our eyes. “We live in a world of reflective color,” Heikenfeld says.

This is story was updated on 12 November 2024 to correct that Jason Heikenfeld is an IEEE Fellow.

A super-hurricane is barreling toward Florida, gaining strength from a number of sources.

Thank you for the auspicious writeup It in fact was a amusement account it Look advanced to more added agreeable from you By the way how could we communicate

helloI really like your writing so a lot share we keep up a correspondence extra approximately your post on AOL I need an expert in this house to unravel my problem May be that is you Taking a look ahead to see you

Xbox hardware sales dropped 29 percent, but that barely made a dent.

Microsoft works to make Recall "secure and trusted" after security complaints.

I've spent a week with Apple Intelligence—here are the takeaways.

From the busy cities to ocean waters, our need to illuminate the world has had some strange and tragic consequences