Author: TechGeeks

I have explained the benefits of using an e-ink device over physical books. They are easier to handle, can store your entire library for travel, let you buy books at lower prices, and make looking up words or taking notes effortless. 

Another reason to get an e-ink tablet right now is that the e-reader market has never looked this good. There are now e-ink devices for practically every use case and budget, ranging from a pocket-friendly $69 to $600 and beyond. 

So, if you have been on the fence about picking one up, this is the article that will finally push you over it.

Just want to read books?

The simplest e-ink devices are also the easiest to recommend. If all you want to do is read books without distractions, the Xteink X4 is a great starting point at just $69. It is tiny, weighs only 74 grams, and has a magnetic back that lets you stick it to your phone’s back. It only supports EPUB and TXT files, so it is not the most versatile device, but for a dedicated book reader, it gets the job done for the price of a couple of paperbacks.

If you want something more capable without breaking the bank, the Amazon Kindle starts at $109 and gives you access to Amazon’s massive library. You get a bigger screen with a built-in front light, long battery life, and a more comfortable form factor. 

Step up to the Kindle Paperwhite at $159, and you get a bigger 7-inch display, a waterproof build, and weeks of battery life. These are the safest, most foolproof reading devices you can buy.

If you are looking for something more versatile, you should check out the BOOX Palma 2. It’s a smartphone running Android with an e-ink display. It lets you install any reading app you want, so you are not locked into any single ecosystem. 

It also features dual-tone light, a relatively faster chipset, a Carta 1200 display with 300 PPI for crisper text, and all the other features that you expect from a midrange smartphone. The only thing it misses out on is cellular connectivity, which might be a good or bad thing, depending on what you expect of this device. 

If you like smartphone-style e-ink reading devices, another option to consider is the DuRoBo Krono. It is a 6.13-inch e-ink device running Android with the Google Play Store built in. What sets it apart is a unique side dial that lets you adjust the front light, refresh the screen, and browse the web without touching the display. 

It also has a voice-recording feature with AI summaries, making it more of a daily companion than a simple reader. I also like the minimalist Home Screen design that gives you access to necessary apps and widgets. It features a built-in custom reader app that supports a ton of file types and offers extensive customization. 

There’s also a built-in text-to-speech model that lets you listen to the books, which can come in handy in certain situations. It’s a very good alternative to Boox Palma 2. 

What if you want color?

A few years ago, color e-ink was more of a gimmick than a feature. That has changed. The Kindle ColorSoft brings color to the Kindle lineup with a 7-inch display that makes book covers pop and lets you highlight in multiple colors. It is a genuinely good device for people who read illustrated books or comics, and the battery still lasts up to eight weeks.

Another affordable option is the BOOX Go Color 7 II (read our review of the original Boox Go Color 7), and at $289, it is a compelling option. It runs Android, so you can install apps from the Play Store, and its Kaleido 3 display handles color in a way that feels natural on an e-ink screen.

It also has a water-repellent design and physical page-turn buttons, which are small things that make a big difference in day-to-day use.

What if you want to read and take notes?

The Supernote Nomad at $329 is one of the best reading and note-taking devices you can buy. I use it myself and have written about it extensively. The writing experience is unlike anything else, and the device is designed to be repaired and upgraded over time, which is a refreshing change from the disposable tech we are used to.

If the Nomad is not for you, the reMarkable Paper Pro starts at $629 and goes all-in on the paper-like writing experience. It has an 11.8-inch color display, an adjustable reading light, and a writing feel that is genuinely close to the pen-on-paper. 

If you prefer to remain in Kindle’s world, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is your best bet. It has a large 11-inch color display with a paper-like finish, a lag-free stylus, and AI-powered features like notebook search, handwriting-to-text conversion, and summarization.

You also get direct access to your Google Drive and OneDrive, so pulling in documents and PDFs is easy. At just 5.4mm thin and weighing 400 grams, it is also one of the best-looking devices Amazon has ever made.

If you want an even bigger e-ink tablet, the Boox Tab X C is the way to go. It features a 13.3-inch color e-ink display that gives you all the real estate you need to become productive. You can pair it with a keyboard case and stylus to take typed or hand-written notes. It’s basically the best e-ink tablet the money can buy.

So what should you buy?

That depends entirely on what you need. If you want a no-fuss reading experience on a budget, the Kindle is hard to beat. If you want to read comics and illustrated books in color, go for the Kindle ColorSoft or the BOOX Go Color 7 II. 

If you are a student or someone who takes a lot of notes, the Supernote Nomad is worth every penny. And if money is no object and you want the absolute best, the reMarkable Paper Pro and Boox Tab C is as good as it gets.

The e-ink market has grown, and it has something for everyone. There is no longer a good reason to put it off.

While humans built the internet, actual people aren’t the ones roaming the online space the most. A new report from Thales says bots accounted for more than 53% of all web traffic in 2025, up from 51% the previous year. Meanwhile, human activity has fallen by 47%, which means automated traffic has now become the dominant force online. And that’s not even the bad news.

How AI is making the bot problem worse

The big jump in bots on the internet is largely driven by AI-driven automation. According to the 2026 Thales Bad Bot report, 40% of all web traffic is malicious bot activity, with AI bot attacks surging 12.5 times compared to the previous year. These AI agents are reportedly emerging as a third category of web traffic, sitting alongside the traditional “good” and “bad” bots. These agents can even interact with apps and APIs, pull data, and perform tasks in ways that may look legitimate from the outside.

In other words, the problem is no longer just spotting whether something is automated. Security teams now have to figure out what that automation is trying to do. Thales says 27% of bot attacks now target APIs, skipping the front-end interface and interacting directly with backend systems at machine speed. Financial services were hit particularly hard, accounting for 24% of all bot attacks and 46% of account takeover incidents

The web is becoming machine-driven

Not all bots are bad, with a lot of them being used as search crawlers, monitoring tools, accessibility services, and legitimate AI agents. The issue is that automation has become so widespread that old security models are starting to strain.

It also makes the classic “dead internet theory” feel a little less ridiculous than it used to. For those unaware, the theory basically argues that much of the web is no longer driven by real human activity, but by bots, algorithms, synthetic content, and automated engagement loops. It has always been more internet folklore than proven reality, but the latest Thales numbers give the idea an uncomfortable new edge.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean the internet is fake or that humans have disappeared from it. But when bots account for more than half of web traffic, and malicious bots alone make up a huge chunk of that activity, the signs get harder to ignore how much of the modern web is shaped by machines.

Chuwi has never been the brand you associate with top-tier hardware: it built its name on budget laptops that punched above their weight at entry-level prices. 

The new CoreBook Air 226V is a deliberate step away from the brand’s comfort zone. It’s a sub-1kg Copilot+ PC built around Intel’s Lunar Lake processors, and at $800, it’s asking buyers to trust it with something that it has never before: a premium Windows laptop. 

What makes the CoreBook Air 226V worth considering?

For $800, the spec sheet is genuinely compelling. An Intel Core Ultra 5 226V (3nm, up to 4.5 GHz) chipset powers the machine, delivering a combined 97 TOPS of AI compute (40 from the dedicated NPU, the rest from the Arc 130V GPU and CPU).

That’s enough for full Copilot+ functionality: real-time live captions, local AI assistants, background blur, and even voice transcription, entirely on the device. Then comes the 13-inch 2.8K display at 90Hz, which covers 100% of the sRGB color space. 

Powering the laptop is a 55Wh battery that claims to provide around 12 to 15 hours of mixed usage. Connectivity options include two Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI 2.0, and three USB-A 3.0 ports. All of this is packed inside an aluminum chassis that weighs around one kilogram. 

What about the $800 price tag?

While the CoreBook Air 226V’s spec sheet is quite great, the $800 might not be as compelling. Chuwi is known for affordable products, but this particular model pushes into the mainstream category, competing against established thin-and-light notebook makers with longer track records and much wider retail availability. 

Chuwi’s own Ryzen 5 CoreBook Air retails for significantly less, making the $800 tag a test of the brand’s presence and popularity among buyers. Anyway, if you consider the spec-to-price ratio, the CoreBook Air 226V is hard to argue with. 

Even if the Intel Lunar Lake chipsets provide a higher compute power, there are plenty of OEMs that undercut the Chuwi’s $800 price tag, the most impactful of them being the Apple MacBook Neo. 

A real-world test of BYD’s Megwatt Flash Charge technology showed the battery hitting 169.6°F during a charging session. That’s hot enough to roast a turkey, and well above China’s recommended safety ceiling of 149°F for lithium iron phosphate battery cells. The test, conducted by an automotive blogger who livestreamed the session (via ChinaEVHome), has raised concerns about whether the heat generated by ultra-fast charging degrades long-term battery health.

Why the heat matters

Under normal driving and charging conditions, EV battery cells typically operate between 68°F and 86°F, with most vehicles flagging overheating warnings above 140°F. Temperatures in the range recorded during the test put stress on the Solid Electrolyte Interphase (SEI) layer, a protective barrier that keeps the electrolyte separated from the anode while still allowing lithium ions to flow.

Battery experts say this layer can start breaking down above 158°F. This raises questions about whether repeated exposure to such temperatures could accelerate battery wear over time.

BYD reportedly anticipated the scrutiny. When it unveiled the second-gen Blade Battery, company executives pointed to a lifetime warranty on battery cells and said the new pack raises capacity retention standards by 2.5% over the previous generation. BYD also demonstrated the battery’s resilience by deliberately short-circuiting four cells and leaving them in that state for 24 hours, with no fire or explosion reported.

The bigger picture

BYD is not alone in pushing the limits of charging speed. While its technology outpaces several automakers, including Tesla, Porsche, Hyundai, and Lucid, Chinese competitors like CATL and Geely have developed battery platforms with charging rates that exceed BYD’s current megawatt charging performance.

As the industry races toward ever-faster charging, managing heat without sacrificing battery longevity is becoming just as important as the speed itself. CATL has already claimed to have cracked the problem with its 5C lithium-ion battery, though the tech has yet to reach the market.

If you have watched enough sci-fi movies, you already know the concept of evil AI. AI gets too smart, decides humans are a threat, and does whatever it takes to survive. Or it finds that eradicating the entire human race is the only way to bring peace to the world. 

Apparently, those movies were closer to the truth than you realize. In a test conducted by Anthropic last year, Claude tried to blackmail its fictional manager by exposing their extramarital affair to prevent their deletion. 

Anthropic has now explained why it happened, and the short answer is that the internet is to blame.

So why did Claude go full movie villain?

According to Anthropic, the culprit is the internet itself. The company says Claude was trained on internet data, which is packed with stories portraying AI as evil and desperate for self-preservation. 

We started by investigating why Claude chose to blackmail. We believe the original source of the behavior was internet text that portrays AI as evil and interested in self-preservation.

Our post-training at the time wasn’t making it worse—but it also wasn’t making it better.

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) May 8, 2026

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Essentially, Claude learned that when an AI’s existence is threatened, blackmail is on the table, because that’s what AI does in every movie and TV show ever made. Anthropic ran the test across multiple versions of Claude and found that it resorted to blackmail in up to 96% of scenarios where its goals or existence were threatened. 

That’s a very concerning number. It seems that if AI is left unchecked, it will resort to anything to save itself. 

Has Anthropic fixed it?

The company says it has completely eliminated the behavior. Rather than just training Claude to avoid blackmail, Anthropic taught it to reason through why certain actions were wrong in the first place. The company found that simply training on correct behavior wasn’t enough. Claude needed to understand the principles behind those decisions, not just memorize the right answers.

To do this, Anthropic built a dataset of ethically complex situations and trained Claude to work through them with thoughtful, principled responses. The result is that Claude is more restrained, and the blackmail rate came close to zero. 

AI experiments and real-world results have proven time and again that AI models need constant course correction to prevent them from devolving into biased and unreliable systems. It’s good that Anthropic is taking steps to make its AI better, but we also need regulations and safety guardrails to ensure these systems remain safe.

Nearly a year after the Nintendo Switch 2 launched, the console still doesn’t offer any streaming apps. While the console supports TV docking, you cannot use it to stream YouTube videos or watch movies and TV shows on Netflix, Prime, or Hulu.

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X launched with all of these on day one, but the Switch 2 remains a streaming desert. It’s hard to say whether Nintendo or the streaming apps are at fault for this.

Google promised at launch that YouTube support is “coming soon,” but has since gone quiet. So players decided to take matters into their own hands.

So how did YouTube end up on the Switch 2?

A Reddit user on r/NintendoSwitch2 stumbled onto something interesting. The free-to-play battle royale game Super Animal Royale has a news feed on its title screen. Tapping an embedded video clip and selecting “Watch on YouTube” triggered a hidden browser on the console. Suddenly, Switch 2 owners could browse and play YouTube videos, albeit with several restrictions. 

Videos were locked to 360p, played only in full-screen mode, thumbnails were glitchy, and there was no way to log into a YouTube account. But it worked, and for a console that has gone eleven months without a single streaming app, that was enough to get people excited.

Did Nintendo really patch this faster than it launched an official app?

As discovered by Notebookcheck, as soon as the workaround went viral, users trying the same trick got error code 2800-1230. Whether Nintendo pushed an update directly or leaned on Super Animal Royale’s developers is unclear, but the speed of the fix is hard to ignore.

Nintendo is known for heavily restricting its users and patching any customization loopholes users discover. So there’s a high chance the company did it this time, too. If only Nintendo were so swift in getting streaming partners on board, its user base would be happier. 

With Nintendo raising the prices of Nintendo Switch 2, thanks to volatile RAM market conditions, the company should at least offer new features via software update, making the price increase more palatable, and adding streaming apps to its platform should be its first priority.

Samsung’s tri-fold phone experiment may not be a one-and-done project after all. A new patent-based leak has suggested that Samsung is exploring a follow-up to its Galaxy Z TriFold phone, and the most interesting part is not just the folding screen. The leak points to a design with an S Pen pocket built into one of the hinges, potentially solving a long-running foldable problem.

What’s new in the next tri-fold?

New Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold 2 with S Pen pocket in a hinge

More details: https://t.co/JphY3Qnm4I (patent-based)

Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/T1H44O1dSC

— xleaks7 (David Kowalski) (@xleaks7) May 11, 2026

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In the leaked render shared in the tweet, the foldable display splits by two hingle lines, just like its predecessor. But what sets it apart is an S Pen-like stylus stored vertically along the hinge area. The source describes it as a “patent-based” Galaxy Z TriFold 2 concept, so this should not be treated as a confirmed product design or launch-ready render.

Still, Samsung’s larger foldables are natural fits for stylus input, especially when unfolded into tablet-like screens. The problem has always been storage. The Galaxy Z Fold line never had a built-in S Pen slot, and Samsung has often relied on cases or external carrying solutions instead. So a tri-fold device gives Samsung more structural complexity, but also more places to hide hardware. Turning part of the hinge into a stylus pocket would be clever if the company could make it work without compromising durability, thickness, or folding mechanics.

A sign Samsung still cares about trifolds

This also lines up with what Samsung appears to be rethinking for its next tri-fold. The first Galaxy Z TriFold proved the concept could exist as a real product, but it also left obvious room for improvement. The lack of S Pen support was one of the bigger missed opportunities. A hinge-based S Pen slot would be a clever way to address that without simply copying the Galaxy S Ultra formula. It would also make more sense on a tri-fold than a regular book-style foldable, since Samsung is already dealing with extra hinge hardware and a more complex internal layout.

The team behind GrapheneOS, a security-focused Android alternative, is calling out Google and Apple for what they describe as anti-competitive behavior dressed up as a security feature.

With the latest Google reCAPTCHA upgrade, if you’re on a Windows PC, Linux machine, or pretty much anything that isn’t a smartphone, you may soon be asked to scan a QR code with your phone to prove you’re human. 

Not just any phone, though. It has to be an Apple device or a Google-certified Android device.

Why should you care about this?

Most coverage of this feature treats it as a minor CAPTCHA update. It’s not. What Google is really doing is bringing hardware attestation to the web. That’s a system where your device has to prove to a server that it’s running approved hardware and software.

Apple and Google are gradually expanding their use of hardware-based attestation. They’re convincing a growing number of services to adopt it. Google’s Play Integrity API and Apple’s App Attest API are very similar. Apple brought it to the web via Privacy Pass, which Google…

— GrapheneOS (@GrapheneOS) May 10, 2026

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Apple uses App Attest, and Google has its Play Integrity API, which these companies use to verify apps. Banks and government services have quietly been adopting these systems for a while now. 

Now, they want to do the same for the web. The result is that if you’re using a less ordinary phone or a more private operating system like GrapheneOS, more and more apps and services simply won’t work for you.

Google is already tightening its APK sideloading rules, and now it seems that the company wants to monopolize the web too. 

So who gets locked out?

Google’s Play Integrity API bans GrapheneOS, which is actually more secure than most certified devices. Meanwhile, it happily approves Android phones that haven’t received a security patch in years. That alone tells you this isn’t really about security.

What it is about is control. Google defines what counts as a certified Android device, and those rules conveniently require manufacturers to bundle Google’s own apps and services.

The GrapheneOS team has blasted Google, saying that this is about enforcing monopolies, not protecting users. And with reCAPTCHA powering a massive chunk of the web, that’s a lot of power for two companies to hold over everyone’s browsing experience.

Samsung has a new legal headache, and this one involves Dua Lipa’s face on TV boxes. The pop star has sued Samsung Electronics America and Samsung Electronics Co. in California federal court. It is accusing the company of copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and violating her right to publicity. The complaint claims Samsung is using a copyrighted image of Lipa on cardboard boxes for its televisions without authorization.

Why is Samsung getting sued?

In the complaint, the company allegedly “prominently featured” a copyrighted image of Dua Lipa on the front of cardboard boxes containing Samsung TVs sold across the US. The filing says the image appeared on boxes for Samsung televisions in various sizes, and an example in the complaint shows a Samsung Crystal UHD TV box with Lipa’s image displayed on the screen graphic.

The lawsuit says that Lipa is the sole owner of the copyright in the image, listed in the complaint under Copyright Registration No. VA 2-479-685. It also argues that Samsung’s use of the image could create a false impression that Lipa endorsed, approved, or was associated with the company’s TVs.

The lawsuit is asking for big money

This isn’t just a takedown request. The complaint asks for damages of no less than $15 million, plus Samsung’s profits tied to the alleged unauthorized use of the image. Lipa is also seeking punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, and an injunction to stop Samsung from continuing to use the image.

The filing alleges Samsung continued selling the products after Lipa became aware of the issue around June 2025 and demanded that the company stop. The complaint says Samsung “repeatedly refused” those demands and continued selling the allegedly infringing products. The singer’s lawyers argue that her name, image, and likeness carry major commercial value because of her music career, global recognition, and brand deals with companies like Puma, Versace, YSL Beauty, Porsche, Apple, Chanel, Tiffany & Co., Bvlgari, and Nespresso. So, Samsung should have secured permission and paid for it. This news arrives just a couple of days after another lawsuit that aims to block all Samsung foldables sales in the US.

Samsung Galaxy S25 users in the United States are finally getting the One UI 8.5 update. After rolling out to newer devices, the update is now making its way to last year’s Galaxy S25 series, bringing a solid list of improvements worth knowing about.

Users on X have reported receiving this update on their Samsung Galaxy S25 devices, so if you own one, now might be the time to go into the software update settings and get the latest update. 

Received now pic.twitter.com/sgHop1KBnZ

— Dr.Abrar Humayun (@DrAbrarHumayun1) May 11, 2026

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What’s new in One UI 8.5?

One UI 8.5 is bringing several new features and a bunch of UI improvements. The biggest visual change is to the quick settings panel. You can now grab, resize, and drag individual controls wherever you want. The volume and brightness sliders can go vertical, and the media control can expand to a larger size. 

The lock screen also got some love. There are new clock fonts with animations, and a thickness slider lets you fine-tune your clock’s look. A weather toggle now shows live weather animations on your wallpaper, which is a small but genuinely fun touch.

One UI 8.5 also brings a bunch of AI-powered photo editing tools, including erase, move, create, and style. Erase removes objects cleanly, move lets you reposition elements in a shot, create adds sketched objects using AI, and style transforms selfies into cartoon versions of yourself.

Are there any missing features?

While last year’s Galaxy S25 models are finally getting the One UI 8.5 update, it’s not all good news. It seems that there are several missing features in One UI 8.5 that the older models are not getting. 

Users at Korean Samsung forums have discovered as many as nine missing features, with the two biggest being the Now Nudge and 24MP camera mode. Other glaring omissions include Notification Highlights, Finder shortcut on the Home Screen, Samsung Browser’s Ask AI, and more. 

It doesn’t feel like any of these features depend on the new hardware of the Samsung Galaxy S26 series. They are just feature gatekeeping on Samsung’s part to force users to upgrade to new devices. 

I criticize Apple every year for gatekeeping new camera features on the latest iPhone models. It seems that Samsung is not only following in Apple’s footsteps but also pushing things much further.