There’s something sacred about dimming the lights, cueing up a movie, and transforming your living room into a full-blown cinematic escape. And if there’s one brand that nails big home-theater energy from compact components, it’s Sonos. The whole-home audio brand lets you build an immersive array piece by piece—starting with a soundbar, then adding satellites, then a sub—and every addition makes the space sound smarter, fuller, better.
And right now, you can get that system started with a great deal on the Sonos Beam Gen. 2, which offers Dolby Atmos compatibility for surround sound performance and makes dialogue so clear you almost don’t need the closed captions on when watching stuff (almost). Need a new TV to go with that soundbar? Walmart has those on sale, too (listed below). But hurry, these prices end this week, or when stock runs out.
Let me introduce you to the sonic spine of your streaming setup. Compact yet commanding, the Sonos Beam slips beneath your TV and unleashes a 3D Dolby Atmos soundstage from a simple one-cable HDMI eARC hookup, creating a sense that the walls have pulled back to make room for more story. Dialogue cuts through clearly, effects whip past your shoulders, and it all syncs wirelessly with your other Sonos gear. No fiddly subwoofer required (though you can add one later). Compact enough for smaller setups that just need enhanced intelligibility yet powerful enough for movies and sports, the Beam Gen. 2 is small, sleek, and seriously smart.
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Network infrastructure has become a performance constraint in large-scale AI training, and Broadcom has spent the past three years building an AI networking portfolio that aims to solve this problem.
Over the last several months, the company rolled out Tomahawk 6 switches for scale-out networking and Jericho 4 for inter-data-center connectivity. Today, Broadcom is taking the next step with Thor Ultra, an 800G Ethernet network interface card purpose-built for AI backend networks.
Thor Ultra represents a clean-sheet NIC design, not an evolution of Broadcom’s previous Thor 2 product. While Thor 2 was a 400G NIC serving multiple markets including enterprise, Thor Ultra is a new architecture focused exclusively on AI scale-out deployments. The NIC implements Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) 1.0 specifications and introduces hardware-accelerated capabilities to modernize RDMA.
“This is not the last piece of the puzzle, I would say, but a very important piece of what we have been working on for the last three years and delivered over the last three to four months, which is a complete portfolio,” Hasan Siraj, head of software products and ecosystem at Broadcom, told Network World. “The key message for you is this NIC is fully compliant with Ultra Ethernet features right at 800 gig, and there is nothing else in the industry that can cater to this.”
Scale-out vs. scale-up: Understanding the market segmentation
Thor Ultra targets a specific networking domain that differs fundamentally from GPU-to-GPU interconnects.
Within a single rack, GPUs connect through technologies like NVLink in what Broadcom terms “scale-up” domains. These typically span 72 to 256 XPUs that directly access each other’s memory. Thor Ultra addresses “scale-out” connectivity, the rack-to-rack networking required to create clusters spanning hundreds of thousands of XPUs. This positions it against Nvidia’s Ethernet offerings (Spectrum-X switches and BlueField NICs) and InfiniBand solutions rather than competing with NVLink.
“When you need to get out of that rack and you need to connect multiple of these racks together, you need to scale out. This is where this NIC gets used,” Hassan explained.
The NIC ships in two SerDes configurations. The 100G version provides eight 100G lanes. The 200G version offers four 200G lanes. Both deliver 800G aggregate bandwidth through 16 lanes of PCIe Gen 6. The dual configuration strategy accommodates both current 100G ecosystems and emerging 200G deployments.
Traditional RDMA protocols carry design limitations from their origins two to three decades ago. They lack multipathing support, cannot handle out-of-order packet delivery and rely on Go-Back-N retransmission. Under Go-Back-N, a single dropped packet forces retransmission of that packet plus every subsequent packet in the sequence.
These limitations become critical at scale. Network congestion increases packet loss. Go-Back-N amplifies the problem by flooding already-congested links with redundant retransmissions. Thor Ultra implements four architectural changes to break these constraints.
Packet-level multipathing. The NIC divides its eight 100G lanes into separate network planes. Packets from a single message can be distributed across all planes for load balancing. Standard RDMA requires all packets in a flow to traverse a single path, preventing this optimization.
Out-of-order data placement. Thor Ultra writes packets directly to XPU memory as they arrive, regardless of sequence. The NIC does not buffer packets awaiting in-order delivery. Instead, it tracks packet state and places each into its correct memory location immediately.
Selective acknowledgment and retransmission. Thor Ultra replaces Go-Back-N with selective acknowledgment. When packets 3 and 6 are missing from a sequence of 1 through 8, the NIC sends a SACK indicating exactly which packets arrived and which are missing. The sender retransmits only packets 3 and 6.
Programmable congestion Control. The NIC implements a hardware pipeline that supports multiple congestion control algorithms. Two schemes are currently available: receiver-based congestion control (receivers send credits to senders) and sender-based approaches (senders calculate round-trip time to determine transmission rates). The programmable pipeline can accommodate future UEC specification revisions or custom hyperscaler algorithms.
Performance and power
Thor Ultra consumes approximately 50 watts. This compares to 125-150W for products like Nvidia’s BlueField 3 DPU. The power difference stems from architectural choices rather than process technology.
DPUs target multiple use cases including front-end networking (requiring deep packet inspection and encryption), storage offload and security functions. They incorporate ARM cores, large memory subsystems and extensive acceleration engines. Thor Ultra strips out everything not required for AI backend networking.
Overall, Broadcom projects 10-15% improvement in job completion time through the combination of efficient load balancing, out-of-order delivery and selective retransmission. The company argues this improvement justifies the network investment.
“We believe we can achieve at least 10 to 15% improvement in job completion time, which, if you look at when you’re building a cluster, whether you talk about an 8,000-node cluster, or 100,000-node cluster, the network is about 10-15% of the cost,” Hassan said. “So, the network can pay for itself with this kind of innovation.”
Thor Ultra is sampling now with availability in PCIe and OCP 3.0 form factors. Broadcom expects roughly equal volume between both formats over the next two years. The company offers three additional consumption models beyond standard cards. Customers can purchase discrete chips for custom board designs, and XPU or GPU manufacturers can integrate Thor Ultra as a chiplet. Broadcom will license the design as intellectual property.
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As UAP researchers and tech enthusiasts, we’re always seeking tools and resources to enhance our investigations and stay ahead of emerging technologies. Check out this resource that fellow researchers have found valuable.
Nokia Bell Labs has a lot to celebrate. The research giant marked its 100th anniversary in May at its venerable campus in Murray Hill—part of New Providence, N.J.—where major technological developments have occurred, such as the Bellmac-32 microprocessor and thesatellite Earth station known as the Horn Antenna, which helped prove the big bang theory.
The company also held a groundbreaking ceremony on 4 September for its new headquarters in New Brunswick, N.J., about 32 kilometers south of Murray Hill and 10 km from IEEE’s Piscataway office.
Construction of the 10-story, 34,374-square-meter building is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2027. The Health and Life Science Exchange 2 building, known as HELIX 2, is the second of three planned edifices being constructed in the city’s new innovation district, which is designed to attract research labs, workspaces, and office suites for startups.
Attendees at the ceremony included Thierry E. Klein, the Bell Labs solutions research president, and Peter Vetter, the Bell Labs core research president. Both men are IEEE Fellows. New Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy, was there too, as were New Brunswick Mayor James Cahill and other state and local officials.
“Today’s groundbreaking marks a new and exciting chapter in Bell Labs’ long history in New Jersey,” Klein said. “As we build and move into the HELIX, this continues our legacy of excellence, pioneering spirit, and commitment to breakthrough research on the East Coast. The location offers unique advantages that will accelerate our innovation capabilities and provide greater proximity to academic centers of excellence and fantastic new startups and ventures.”
The new location, he said, “will give access to a vibrant and urban environment that will help us attract the next generation of talent. Access to universities such as Princeton, Rutgers, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and the Stevens Institute of Technology is incomparable. This is not just a move for the next two, three, four, or five years; this is going to be home for Bell Labs for a very, very long time.”
A hub of innovation
Nokia Bell Labs could have relocated its headquarters anywhere in the world, Murphy noted, but it chose to remain in New Jersey.
“Our illustrious history of innovation in New Jersey could be summarized in two words: Bell Labs,” the governor said. “For over a century, Bell Labs has transformed our state, our nation, and the world. This is literally an iconic and globally unique institution. We break ground and start to establish a new foundation for quantum physics, generative artificial intelligence, and optical communications. Through partnerships, joint ventures, and spinoffs, Nokia Bell Labs will facilitate new products and companies that will [continue to] drive the innovation economy in New Jersey.”
To ensure New Jersey would be at the forefront of innovation, the governor in 2018 announced his intent to establish 12 innovation hubs throughout the state as a way to attract entrepreneurs, startups, and early-stage companies. The first hub—the HELIX 1 building, adjacent to Nokia Bell Labs’ new headquarters—is expected to open next year and include Rutgers’s medical school and translational research institute.
New Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy, at the podium addresses attendees at the groundbreaking ceremony. Nokia
New Brunswick is no stranger to innovators, Cahill noted. The Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company is headquartered in the city and got its start in a local wallpaper factory. The Johnson brothers and Thomas Edison often ate at a nearby drugstore lunch counter, where they discussed advancements in manufacturing, the mayor said. Edison’s laboratory was in Menlo Park. Cahill also said that Albert Einstein, who worked at Princeton University and lived in the town, was often spotted strolling the streets of New Brunswick, about 30 km away.
State-of-the-art research facilities
The new Nokia Bell Lab offices will cater to the needs of research scientists and specialists in focused areas, Klein said.
“It’s an efficient, modern, and low-carbon facility providing sustainable power, heating, and cooling capabilities,” he said. “Our researchers will have access to the best facility possible. That is our dream.”
This is not the first time Bell Labs has moved its headquarters, Vetter noted. The primary R&D activities were set up in New York City in 1925. They moved to Murray Hill in 1941. Some of the biggest innovations were developed there during the following decade, including the transistor and the cellular network.
“I want to think that our move will again be a catalyst for breakthrough innovations to happen in the decade after we move in and will be in a variety of areas such as 7G, AI, quantum computing, and quantum network security,” Vetter said.
“As we build and move into the HELIX, this continues our legacy of excellence, pioneering spirit, and commitment to breakthrough research on the East Coast.” —Thierry Klein
“We also need to make sure the research goes into the real world,” he said. “We like to say that if somebody has a problem in the real world and you solve it in the lab but you don’t make that leap of technology into the real world, the problem still exists.
“It’s not just research or breakthrough technologies,” he added. “It’s also creating the companies that will commercialize these technologies and lead the next century of innovation.”
Administered by the IEEE History Center and supported by donors, the Milestones program recognizes outstanding technical developments around the world.
Watch for The Institute’s article on the Nokia Bell Labs Milestone achievement ceremony in November.
🛸 Recommended Intelligence Resource
As UAP researchers and tech enthusiasts, we’re always seeking tools and resources to enhance our investigations and stay ahead of emerging technologies. Check out this resource that fellow researchers have found valuable.
Nokia Bell Labs has a lot to celebrate. The research giant marked its 100th anniversary in May at its venerable campus in Murray Hill—part of New Providence, N.J.—where major technological developments have occurred, such as the Bellmac-32 microprocessor and thesatellite Earth station known as the Horn Antenna, which helped prove the big bang theory.
The company also held a groundbreaking ceremony on 4 September for its new headquarters in New Brunswick, N.J., about 32 kilometers south of Murray Hill and 10 km from IEEE’s Piscataway office.
Construction of the 10-story, 34,374-square-meter building is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2027. The Health and Life Science Exchange 2 building, known as HELIX 2, is the second of three planned edifices being constructed in the city’s new innovation district, which is designed to attract research labs, workspaces, and office suites for startups.
Attendees at the ceremony included Thierry E. Klein, the Bell Labs solutions research president, and Peter Vetter, the Bell Labs core research president. Both men are IEEE Fellows. New Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy, was there too, as were New Brunswick Mayor James Cahill and other state and local officials.
“Today’s groundbreaking marks a new and exciting chapter in Bell Labs’ long history in New Jersey,” Klein said. “As we build and move into the HELIX, this continues our legacy of excellence, pioneering spirit, and commitment to breakthrough research on the East Coast. The location offers unique advantages that will accelerate our innovation capabilities and provide greater proximity to academic centers of excellence and fantastic new startups and ventures.”
The new location, he said, “will give access to a vibrant and urban environment that will help us attract the next generation of talent. Access to universities such as Princeton, Rutgers, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and the Stevens Institute of Technology is incomparable. This is not just a move for the next two, three, four, or five years; this is going to be home for Bell Labs for a very, very long time.”
A hub of innovation
Nokia Bell Labs could have relocated its headquarters anywhere in the world, Murphy noted, but it chose to remain in New Jersey.
“Our illustrious history of innovation in New Jersey could be summarized in two words: Bell Labs,” the governor said. “For over a century, Bell Labs has transformed our state, our nation, and the world. This is literally an iconic and globally unique institution. We break ground and start to establish a new foundation for quantum physics, generative artificial intelligence, and optical communications. Through partnerships, joint ventures, and spinoffs, Nokia Bell Labs will facilitate new products and companies that will [continue to] drive the innovation economy in New Jersey.”
To ensure New Jersey would be at the forefront of innovation, the governor in 2018 announced his intent to establish 12 innovation hubs throughout the state as a way to attract entrepreneurs, startups, and early-stage companies. The first hub—the HELIX 1 building, adjacent to Nokia Bell Labs’ new headquarters—is expected to open next year and include Rutgers’s medical school and translational research institute.
New Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy, at the podium addresses attendees at the groundbreaking ceremony. Nokia
New Brunswick is no stranger to innovators, Cahill noted. The Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company is headquartered in the city and got its start in a local wallpaper factory. The Johnson brothers and Thomas Edison often ate at a nearby drugstore lunch counter, where they discussed advancements in manufacturing, the mayor said. Edison’s laboratory was in Menlo Park. Cahill also said that Albert Einstein, who worked at Princeton University and lived in the town, was often spotted strolling the streets of New Brunswick, about 30 km away.
State-of-the-art research facilities
The new Nokia Bell Lab offices will cater to the needs of research scientists and specialists in focused areas, Klein said.
“It’s an efficient, modern, and low-carbon facility providing sustainable power, heating, and cooling capabilities,” he said. “Our researchers will have access to the best facility possible. That is our dream.”
This is not the first time Bell Labs has moved its headquarters, Vetter noted. The primary R&D activities were set up in New York City in 1925. They moved to Murray Hill in 1941. Some of the biggest innovations were developed there during the following decade, including the transistor and the cellular network.
“I want to think that our move will again be a catalyst for breakthrough innovations to happen in the decade after we move in and will be in a variety of areas such as 7G, AI, quantum computing, and quantum network security,” Vetter said.
“As we build and move into the HELIX, this continues our legacy of excellence, pioneering spirit, and commitment to breakthrough research on the East Coast.” —Thierry Klein
“We also need to make sure the research goes into the real world,” he said. “We like to say that if somebody has a problem in the real world and you solve it in the lab but you don’t make that leap of technology into the real world, the problem still exists.
“It’s not just research or breakthrough technologies,” he added. “It’s also creating the companies that will commercialize these technologies and lead the next century of innovation.”
Administered by the IEEE History Center and supported by donors, the Milestones program recognizes outstanding technical developments around the world.
Watch for The Institute’s article on the Nokia Bell Labs Milestone achievement ceremony in November.
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OpenAI will soon allow “erotica” for ChatGPT users who verify their age on the platform. In an X post on Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company will add support for mature conversations when it launches age-gating in December.
“As we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our ‘treat adult users like adults’ principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults,” Altman writes. Earlier this month, OpenAI hinted at allowing developers to create “mature” ChatGPT apps after it implements the “appropriate age verification and controls.”
Along with the addition of “erotica”, OpenAI also plans on launching a new version of ChatGPT that “behaves more like what people liked about 4o.” Just one day after making GPT-5 the default model powering ChatGPT, OpenAI brought back GPT-4o as an option after people complained the new model was less personable.
Altman said OpenAI made ChatGPT “pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues,” adding that the company realized this change made the chatbot “less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems.” OpenAI has since launched tools to “better detect” when a user is in mental distress.
OpenAI also announced the formation of a council on “well-being and AI” to help shape OpenAI’s response to “complex or sensitive” scenarios. The council is comprised of a team of eight researchers and experts who study the impact of technology and AI on mental health. But, as Ars Technica points out, it doesn’t include any suicide prevention experts, many of whom recently called on OpenAI to roll out additional safeguards for users with suicidal thoughts.
“Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases,” Altman writes in his post on X.
🛸 Recommended Intelligence Resource
As UAP researchers and tech enthusiasts, we’re always seeking tools and resources to enhance our investigations and stay ahead of emerging technologies. Check out this resource that fellow researchers have found valuable.
Any ebook reader will let you cram a Beauty and the Beast-sized library’s worth of books in your pocket, but so will your phone. An ebook reader offers a more book-like reading experience, with fewer distractions and less eye strain, and many include extra features, like adjustable frontlighting. Some really are pocketable. Others are waterproof or offer physical page-turning buttons, while a few even let you take notes.
I’ve been using ebook readers for nearly a decade, and I’ve gone hands-on with dozens, from the Kindle Paperwhite to lesser-known rivals like the PocketBook Era. Whether you want something your kid can throw against the wall or a waterproof, warm-glow Kindle that won’t ruin your spa ambiance, these are the best ebook readers for everyone.
Dimensions: 7 x 5 x .3 inches/ Weight: 211 grams / Screen area and resolution: 7-inch screen, 300ppi resolution / Storage: 16GB / Other features: IPX8 waterproofing, Bluetooth audio support
If you mostly buy ebooks from Amazon, you’ll want a Kindle, and the 12th-gen Kindle Paperwhite is the best choice for most people. Starting at $159.99, it’s cheaper than the Kobo Libra Colour — my top non-Amazon ebook reader, which I’ll dive into later — while offering many of the same features. Those include a spacious 7-inch 300pi display with rich contrast levels and an adjustable warm white frontlight, which make for a clear and enjoyable reading experience. The latter also conveniently improves sleep by cutting down on blue light that interrupts melatonin production.
That warm white frontlighting is an advantage over the cool white of the $109.99 base-model Kindle, and unlike the base Kindle, the Paperwhite has IPX8 water resistance. The $199.99 Signature Edition Paperwhite also has an auto-adjusting frontlight and no lockscreen ads. It has wireless charging, which is a rare feature to find in an e-reader.
Amazon dominates the US ebook market, so Kindle owners have access to advantages owners of other ebook readers don’t. Much of Amazon’s hardware strategy depends on offering cut-rate discounts to pull you into its content ecosystem. If you have Prime and buy a lot of Kindle ebooks, the Paperwhite is the best choice because its ebooks and audiobooks are often on sale at Amazon, and Prime members get more free content through Prime Reading. Rivals like Kobo offer sales, too, but it’s hard for them to offer discounts as steep as Amazon.
There are downsides, though. The Paperwhite has lockscreen ads unless you pay $20 extra to get rid of them. It’s also too big to hold comfortably with one hand. Perhaps the Kindle Paperwhite’s biggest flaw, though — which it shares with all Kindles aside from Fire tablets — is that it’s not easy to read books purchased outside of Amazon’s store. Kindle ebook formats are proprietary and only work on Kindle. Unlike Kobo and other ebook readers, Kindles don’t support EPUB files, an open file format used by pretty much everyone except Amazon. So, for example, if you often shop from Kobo’s bookstore (or Barnes & Noble or Google Play Books or many other ebook stores), you can’t easily read those books on a Kindle without using a workaround. There are ways to convert and transfer file formats so you can read on the Kindle and vice versa, but it’ll take a couple of extra steps.
However, if you don’t buy your books elsewhere or you don’t mind shopping from Amazon, you’ll be more than happy with the Kindle Paperwhite.
Dimensions: 5.69 x 6.34 x 0.33 inches / Weight: 199.5 grams / Screen area and resolution: 7-inch screen, 300ppi (black-and-white), 150ppi (color) / Storage: 32GB / Other features: Physical page-turning buttons, waterproofing, Kobo Stylus 2 support, Bluetooth audio support
The Kobo Libra Colour is an excellent alternative to Amazon’s ebook readers, especially for readers outside the US or anyone who doesn’t want to tap into Amazon’s ecosystem. Kobo’s latest slate offers many of the standout features found on the 12th-gen Kindle Paperwhite — including waterproofing, USB-C support, and a 300ppi display — along with a few perks that make it more helpful and enjoyable to use.
The color display is the most obvious. The Libra Colour uses E Ink’s latest Kaledio color screen technology, which provides soothing, pastel-like hues that still pop in direct sunlight. It’s not as sharp as reading in monochrome — the resolution drops to 150ppi when viewing content in color — but it’s a nice touch that makes viewing a wider range of content more pleasant. Book covers and comics, while still muted, have an added layer of depth, even if the colors are nowhere near as vivid as that of a traditional LED tablet or as vibrant as the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition.
However, unlike the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition, the Libra Colour works with a digital pen — the Kobo Stylus 2 (sold separately) — which lets you highlight text in various colors or take notes using Kobo’s integrated notebooks. You can also take advantage of some of the more advanced capabilities found in the Kobo Elipsa 2E, allowing you to solve math equations, convert handwriting into typed text, and insert diagrams. This lets the Libra Colour function as a mini notebook of sorts, though I wouldn’t use it as a primary note-taking device since the seven-inch display can feel cramped to write on.
The color display is only part of the appeal, though. The Libra Colour doesn’t have the lockscreen ads on the base Paperwhite — and packs physical page-turning buttons, which feel more intuitive to use than tapping either side of the display as you have to do on Amazon’s modern e-readers. The speedy e-reader also supports more file formats, including EPUB files, and makes it much easier to borrow books from the Overdrive library system.Until recently, Kobo offered support for the bookmarking app Pocket, which was another big selling point as it let you read saved articles offline. While the app is no longer available, Kobo recently replaced Pocket with Instapaper, which you can download in a free update.
However, at $229.99, the Libra Colour costs $70 more than the entry-level Paperwhite — and that’s without Kobo’s $69.99 stylus, which is required for performing certain tasks. That gap widens further when the Paperwhite is on sale, which happens more often than the Libra Colour. The Kobo can’t easily tap into Amazon’s vast library of ebooks, which can be frustrating if you’ve amassed a collection of Kindle titles over the years. It can be done, but you have to convert file formats using third-party apps, which is tricky and can take time.
But if those things don’t matter or apply to you, the Kobo Libra Colour will give you the best digital reading experience of all the e-readers on our list. It’s my personal favorite.
Dimensions: 6.2 x 4.3 x 0.32 inches/ Weight: 158 grams / Screen area and resolution: 6-inch screen, 300ppi resolution / Storage: 16GB / Other features: USB-C support, Bluetooth audio support
The base-model Kindle ($109.99 with ads) is the best cheap ebook reader. Its 300ppi resolution makes text clearer and easier to read than the lower-resolution screens on other ebook readers in its price range. Plus, it has USB-C for relatively fast charging.
Reading on its six-inch screen feels a little more cramped than it does on the larger displays of the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Libra Colour. However, the flip side is that its small size makes it pocketable, light, and easy for small hands to hold. Combined with its relatively affordable price, the Kindle is also the best ebook reader for kids — especially the Amazon Kindle Kids Edition which costs $20 more. The kid-friendly version shares the same specs but is ad-free with parental controls, a two-year extended replacement guarantee, and a case. It also comes with six months of Amazon Kids Plus, which grants kids access to thousands of children’s books and audiobooks for free. After that, though, you’ll have to $79 per year (or $48 with Amazon Prime).
The base Kindle doesn’t have extra conveniences like the waterproofing you’ll find in the entry-level Kobo Clara BW and Paperwhite. You also don’t get the physical page-turning buttons found on Barnes & Noble’s entry-level e-reader, the Nook GlowLight 4e (though the Kindle is a lot snappier than the Nook). And because it’s an Amazon ebook reader, you’re also locked into the Amazon ecosystem and have to pay extra to remove ads. But if you can do without that, the Kindle delivers the essentials for under $110.
The best ebook reader for taking notes
Kobo Elipsa 2E
Pros
Cons
Intuitive note-taking features
Great e-reader
Adjustable warm light
Useful note-taking capabilities, including handwriting-to-text conversion
Dimensions: 7.6 x 8.94 x 0.30 inches / Weight: 390 grams / Screen area and resolution: 10.3-inches, 227ppi resolution / Storage: 32GB / Other features: Handwriting to text conversion, magnetic stylus, Bluetooth audio support
Of all the large ebook readers I tested, the Kobo Elipsa 2E stood out the most because it’s a good e-reader with solid note-taking abilities. You can write directly on pages just as on a physical book. The Kindle Scribe lets you annotate book pages as well, but it’s complicated involving resizable text boxes that mess up the page formatting and prevent you from doing basic things like circling words. In contrast, taking notes on the Elipsa 2E feels far more intuitive and natural.
The Elipsa 2E offers other helpful note-taking tools and capabilities. Like the Kobo Libra Colour, it’s capable, for example, of solving math equations for you. You can also insert diagrams and drawings, and it’ll automatically snap them into something that looks cleaner and nicer. You can also sync your notes with Dropbox or view them online and convert handwriting to typed text. The Kindle Scribe offers the latter capability, too, but again, Kobo does it faster and better within the original notebook document as opposed to on a separate page. The only thing missing from the Elipsa 2E is the Scribe’s note-summarization feature, but that’s a trade-off I am okay with given how much easier it is to take notes.
Finally, the Kobo Elipsa 2E comes with twice the storage (32GB) for the same price as the base Kindle Scribe. You can step up to the 32GB Kindle Scribe for $20 more or upgrade to 64GB for $40 extra. Yet given the Scribe’s limitations, I still recommend saving the money and buying the Kobo Elipsa 2E instead.
Note-taking capabilities aside, the Kobo Elipsa 2E is also a good e-reader with the same strengths and weaknesses as other Kobo devices. There’s support for a wide range of file formats, but you can’t easily read Kindle books without converting them first. Its 227ppi display is also slightly less sharp than the 300ppi screen found on the Kindle Scribe and the Kobo Libra Colour. However, the 10.3-inch screen balances things out a bit and makes text easier to read, so it’s not a noticeable drawback. Plus, the Elipsa 2E comes with an adjustable warm light for nighttime reading. That’s a feature rival e-readers with more advanced note-taking capabilities — including the $409.99 Onyx Boox Go 10.3, which lets you insert links to notes — lacks.
Other ebook readers that didn’t make the cut
There are some other ebook readers my colleagues and I have tested that I didn’t feature above but are still worth highlighting. Here are the most notable:
The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition is the first Kindle to feature E Ink’s color screen technology and it stands out from other color e-paper devices with customizations. It offers improved contrast, more vibrant colors, and faster screen refreshes. With a $279.99 price tag, it’s the most expensive Kindle model currently available that doesn’t support a stylus for note-taking, and it includes premium features like wireless charging that are convenient but not really necessary for a device with months of battery life. If you want a color screen and want to stick with Amazon, the Colorsoft Signature is your best option. – Andrew Liszewski, Senior Reporter
Amazon recently introduced a more affordable alternative to the $279.99 Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition above called the Kindle Colorsoft. It’s $30 cheaper and delivers a nearly identical reading experience. As expected, Amazon excluded some features to hit the lower price point. Let’s run through them. There’s no wireless charging, which I can live without. Storage is halved to 16GB, which is enough for me as I primarily read ebooks. But if you’re buying a color e-reader, chances are high that you’ll want excess storage space for graphic novels, and 16GB may not cut it.
The biggest drawback for me, as a bedtime bookworm, is the lack of an auto-adjusting front light that can make nighttime reading much easier (however, its brightness and color temperature can be manually adjusted). At this price, I expect it, especially since Kobo’s $159.99 Clara Color includes one. And, given that the Colorsoft Signature Edition costs just $30 more, complete with a front light that adjusts when the room gets dim, 32GB of storage, and wireless charging, I’d opt for that instead if you’re in Amazon’s ecosystem. Unless the standard Colorsoft goes on sale for less, it’s not a great value at its regular price.
If you’re looking for a non-Amazon alternative that’s more affordable than the Kobo Libra Colour, the Kobo Clara Colour — the successor to the Kobo Clara 2E — is worth a look. At $159.99, the ad-free e-reader costs more than the Kobo Clara 2E, but I think it’s worth the extra $10. It continues to offer the same six-inch display and IPX8 waterproof design, but the e-reader now offers color. It’s also noticeably faster — something I was happy to see, considering the occasional lag on the Clara 2E sometimes got on my nerves. You don’t get the Clara Colour’s physical buttons or stylus support, but that’s a fair tradeoff at this price point. The company recently announced a white version with a slightly larger 1,900mAh battery compared to the black model’s 1,500mAh (notably, without a price increase), which Kobo says can last over a month on a single charge.
In 2023, Barnes and Noble released the Nook Glowlight 4 Plus. If you own a lot of digital books from Barnes and Noble, this could be a good Kindle alternative. Otherwise, I’d still recommend the Kobo Libra Colour to everybody else. The $199.99 Nook Glowlight 4 Plus is a good e-reader with a lot to offer, including a lovely 300ppi screen, waterproofing, physical page-turning buttons, and even a headphone jack. However, it’s just not as snappy, which makes setting it up, buying books from the device itself, and navigating the interface a slow ordeal. It didn’t help that the screen sometimes froze, too, which meant I had to restart the device while in the middle of a book.
Despite all the advantages of E Ink display technology, your smartphone is probably still a more convenient device for reading given how pocket-friendly it is. The Boox Palma 2 is a smartphone-sized E Ink device that’s just as easy to slip into a pocket, but with more capabilities than an e-reader. Its 6.3-inch E Ink display is great for reading books, but the $279.99 Palma 2 also runs Android 13 so you can install productivity apps like email and messaging — assuming you’ve got access to Wi-Fi, of course, because the compact e-reader lacks cellular connectivity. If you already have the original Palma, the sequel isn’t worth the upgrade. But if you’re looking for a smaller alternative to Kindles and Kobos, the Palma 2 could be worth the splurge. – Andrew Liszewski, Senior Reporter
The $409.99 Onyx Boox Go 10.3 is another ad-free ebook reader you can use to take notes. It’s excellent as a note-taking device, and it offers an impressively wide range of writing tools and more prebuilt notebook templates than Kobo’s Elipsa 2E. Jotting down notes using the built-in notebook felt more akin to writing on paper as well, and its slim design makes the device feel more like a traditional notebook. Like all Boox devices, it also provides quick access to the Google Play Store, so you can download multiple reading apps — including both Kindle and Kobo apps. The slate’s crisp 300ppi display is sharper than that of the Kobo Elipsa 2E, too, which is a plus.
However, in comparison to the easy-to-use Elipsa 2E, the Go 10.3 lacks a front light and comes with a steeper learning curve. Notes you take on a Kindle or Kobo device won’t transfer over (and vice versa), and you can’t annotate books in either app using the Boox. I also felt like access to Google Play can be a double-edged sword as it grants easy access to distracting apps, including games, streaming services, and TikTok. It’s too slow to use the latter, but it’s fast and comfortable enough that I found myself playing around with the Word Search app far too often. For me personally, I need my e-reader to be devoid of such distractions — it’s one of the biggest things that distinguishes it from a tablet, after all. But if you’ve got more self-control than I do, the Go 10.3 could be worth a look.
In April, Boox introduced the Go Color 7 Gen II, which retails for $279.99. This water-resistant e-reader offers a 300ppi display that drops to 150ppi when displaying color content, much like its Kobo and Kindle rivals. However, similar to the Kobo Libra Colour, this ad-free model offers physical-page turning buttons and supports note-taking. A stylus isn’t included, so you’ll need to spend an extra $45.99 for Boox’s pressure-sensitive InkSense pen if you want to take notes. And, like other Boox devices, it runs on Android, giving you access to a wide range of apps and online bookstores through the Google Play Store.
While I appreciated not having to sideload my Kindle and Kobo library, along with greater flexibility to fine-tune color settings, I ultimately prefer the Kobo Libra Colour. In my testing, the Go Color 7 Gen II felt frustratingly sluggish by comparison to the Libra Colour, which is disappointing given the Boox costs $50 more. Responsiveness is a core part of the reading experience for me, so I’d only recommend Boox’s model to readers who value having Android app flexibility over performance.
What’s coming next
Amazon recently announced three new versions of its note-taking Kindle Scribe: the $629.99 Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, which features a color screen; a $499.99 monochrome model with a front light; and an entry-level version without one for $429.99. All three offer a thinner design and a larger 11-inch display, along with a new AI-powered search tool that makes it easy to quickly summarize documents. Amazon has also updated the homescreen with a Quick Notes section and redesigned the stylus so it’s bigger and rounder, which should lend itself to a more intuitive writing experience. Read our hands-on impressions.
The new Boox P6 Pro is the company’s latest smartphone-sized e-reader.It comes with a color E ink screen and goes for around $463 in China, with Boox selling a cheaper black-and-white version for roughly $393. Both configurations come with LTE connectivity and stylus support, run a version of Android 13 out of the box, and feature a 16-megapixel camera for scanning documents. They also offer 128GB of storage that can be expanded up to 2TB using the SIM card tray, which conveniently doubles as a microSD slot.The P6 Pro recently launched in China, but Boox hasn’t shared details regarding a US launch date. Read our initial IFA impressions.
Update, October 14th: Adjusted pricing / availability and added new details regarding Amazon’s latest Kindle Scribe models and the Boox P6 Pro. Andrew Liszewski also contributed to this post.
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Equatys, the U.S.-based Viasat and Emirati satellite operator Space42’s shared space infrastructure joint venture for direct-to-device services, has gained its first mobile network partner as it seeks to challenge SpaceX’s growing lead in the emerging market.
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The once-popular feature was removed several years ago.
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5CA is a customer service support company that works with Discord. Recently, the chat platform said the vendor had been breached as part of a “security incident” where 70,000 government ID photos may have leaked. Now, 5CA says in a post on its website that it was “not hacked.”
According to Discord, “this incident impacted a limited number of users who had communicated with our Customer Support or Trust & Safety teams,” and “of the accounts impacted globally, we have identified approximately 70,000 users that may have had government-ID photos exposed, which our vendor used to review age-related appeals.” The company said that (emphasis Discord’s) “this was not a breach of Discord, but rather a breach of a third party service provider, 5CA, that we used to support our customer service efforts.”
However, on its website, 5CA shared its own statement, which I am including in full below (with emphasis 5CA’s):
We are aware of media reports naming 5CA as the cause of a data breach involving one of our clients. Contrary to these reports, we can confirm that none of 5CA’s systems were involved, and 5CA has not handled any government-issued IDs for this client. All our platforms and systems remain secure, and client data continues to be protected under strict data protection and security controls.
We are conducting an ongoing forensic investigation into the matter and collaborating closely with our client, as well as external advisors, including cybersecurity experts and ethical hackers. Based on interim findings, we can confirm that the incident occurred outside of our systems and that 5CA was not hacked. There is no evidence of any impact on other 5CA clients, systems, or data. Access controls, encryption, and monitoring systems are fully operational and, as a precautionary measure, are under heightened review.
Our preliminary information suggests the incident may have resulted from human error, the extent of which is still under investigation. We remain in close contact with all relevant parties and will share verified findings once confirmed.
We’ve asked 5CA to confirm if it handled government ID photos and if it could share more information about the “human error” that may have been involved. We’ve also asked Discord if it can confirm which company was in possession of the photos of government IDs that may have been accessed.
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New Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy, at the podium addresses attendees at the groundbreaking ceremony. Nokia
