Month: January 2022

Chip shortage has Canon telling customers how to skirt its printer toner DRM

Lack of chips produces “no negative effects on print quality,” Canon says.

Chip shortage has Canon telling customers how to skirt its printer toner DRM

Enlarge (credit: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg)

For years, printers have been encumbered with digital rights management systems that prevent users from buying third-party ink and toner cartridges. Printer companies have claimed that their chip-enabled cartridges can “enhance the quality and performance” of their equipment, provide the “best consumer experience,” and “protect [the printers] from counterfeit and third-party ink cartridges.”

Left unsaid is the fact that requiring first-party cartridges also ensures a recurring revenue stream. It’s an old business model—Gillette sold its razor handles cheaply to sell more razors, for example—and it's one that printer companies have enthusiastically embraced. Lexmark, HP, Canon, Brother, and others all effectively require users to purchase first-party ink and toner.

To enforce the use of first-party cartridges, manufacturers typically embed chips inside the consumables for the printers to “authenticate.” But when chips are in short supply, like today, manufacturers can find themselves in a bind. So Canon is now telling German customers how to defeat its printers’ warnings about third-party cartridges.

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Elon Musk says he’s hiking “full self driving” by another $2,000

In 2019, the option cost $6,000; on January 17, it becomes $12,000.

The Model Y still includes a steering wheel for Tesla owners who want to drive for themselves.

Enlarge / The Model Y still includes a steering wheel for Tesla owners who want to drive for themselves. (credit: Tesla)

Tesla's highly controversial "full self driving" feature is getting yet another price increase. CEO Elon Musk used his Twitter feed last Friday to announce the price hike, telling his millions of followers, "Tesla FSD price rising to $12k on Jan 17."

Price increases have been a fairly constant theme with the driver-assistance system. In the wake of Uber's well-publicized IPO in 2019, Tesla got ridehailing fever, with Musk claiming that a self-driving Tesla could earn $30,000 a year in income, working the streets while its owner is asleep or at work.

"If you buy a Tesla today, I believe you are buying an appreciating asset—not a depreciating asset," Musk said. (Although the company's EVs do command strong prices in the used car market, they are still, in fact, subject to depreciation, according to a search on Autotrader conducted this morning.)

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3D-printed OLEDs could soon lead to DIY screens

Process used two types of printing to make 64-pixel panel.

This 64-pixel OLED panel was 3D printed.

Enlarge / This 64-pixel OLED panel was 3D printed.

Laptops and phones with OLED displays boast rich colors at high contrasts—but they come at a premium price. Researchers from the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities (UMN) say they've found a potential solution to that price barrier by using a 3D printer that could eventually lead to people making their own OLED screens at home.

In a study published in Science Advances on Friday, the researchers used a custom-built printer that fits on a table and "costs about the same as a Tesla Model S," Michael McAlpine, a University of Minnesota professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and senior author of the study, said in a statement accompanying UMN's announcement.

While OLED panels are typically made in large microfabrication facilities by big companies like LG Display, the research could eventually result in hobbyists being able to make cheap OLED panels in their own workshops, according to the university.

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Anzeige: Onlineseminare zu Game Development und VR

Mit dem Siegeszug von Virtual Reality hat 3D-Softwareentwicklung den Bereich Spieleprogrammierung längst hinter sich gelassen. Die Golem Akademie bietet sechs virtuelle Workshops zu diesem Themenfeld. (Golem Akademie, Technologie)

Mit dem Siegeszug von Virtual Reality hat 3D-Softwareentwicklung den Bereich Spieleprogrammierung längst hinter sich gelassen. Die Golem Akademie bietet sechs virtuelle Workshops zu diesem Themenfeld. (Golem Akademie, Technologie)

Honor Magic V is a foldable phone with three 50MP cameras, 12GB RAM, and 66W fast charging

Chinese phone maker Honor is launching its first smartphone with a foldable display. When folded, the Honor Magic V works like a standard smartphone with a 6.45 inch cover display. But open the tablet up like a book and a tablet-sized 7.9 inch OLED display is revealed. The Honor Magic V goes on sale in China […]

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Chinese phone maker Honor is launching its first smartphone with a foldable display. When folded, the Honor Magic V works like a standard smartphone with a 6.45 inch cover display. But open the tablet up like a book and a tablet-sized 7.9 inch OLED display is revealed.

The Honor Magic V goes on sale in China January 18 with prices starting at 9,999 CNY (about $1570). There’s no word on if or when you’ll be able to buy one outside of China.

That said, the phone is the latest indication that companies want to take on Samsung in the foldable space that the South Korean company has dominated up until now, and it looks like a pretty solid alternative to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold series for folks who can actually get their hands on Honor’s new phone.

Under the hood, the phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor and 12GB of RAM, and Honor will offer models with 256GB or 512GB of storage.

The phone has a 4,750 mAh battery and support for 66 watt fast charging, a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, a USB-C port, and three rear cameras:

  • 50MP primary
  • 50MP ultrawide
  • 50MP color spectrum

The phone also has two front-facing 42MP cameras, one for each version of “front.” There’s a selfie camera in the cover display for use when the phone is folded and another in the interior display for when it’s unfolded.

And it’s certainly those screens that make this phone stand out. The inside screen is a 7.9 inch, 2272 x 1984 pixel OLED display with a 90 Hz refresh rate, 381 pixels per inch, up to 800 nits brightness, and a roughly 10:9 aspect ratio (or the equivalent of two 20:9 displays side-by-side).

The Honor Magic V cover display is a 6.45 inch, 2560 x 1080 pixel OLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate, 431 pixels per inch, and a 21:9 aspect ratio and up to 1000 nits brightness.

Honor says it’s also used a “waterdrop” style hinge that allows for a flatter fold than you get on most competing foldables, with les of a gap between the screens when folded.

The Honor Magic V will ship with Android 12 software and Honor’s MagicUI 6 user interface which has been enhanced for foldables with some additional multitasking features. It’ll be interesting to see if and when it receives an update to Android 12L, the upcoming version of Android that Google is designing specifically for foldables, tablets, and other large-screen devices.

via Honor (YouTube), GSM Arena, xda-developers, and The Verge

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ECS Liva Q3 Plus mini PC with Ryzen Embedded now available for $242 and up

The ECS Liva Q3 Plus is a tiny computer that measures 2.9″ x 2.9″ x 2.1″ but which is a full-fledged PC capable of driving up to two 4K displays thanks to Mini DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 ports and an AMD Ryzen Embedded processor. First unveiled about half a year ago, the ECS Liva […]

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The ECS Liva Q3 Plus is a tiny computer that measures 2.9″ x 2.9″ x 2.1″ but which is a full-fledged PC capable of driving up to two 4K displays thanks to Mini DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0 ports and an AMD Ryzen Embedded processor.

First unveiled about half a year ago, the ECS Liva Q3 Plus is now available for purchase for $242 and up.

The little computer is available in two different prices/configurations at the moment:

According to a LinkedIn post from ECS, the higher-spec model should also be available from Amazon, but it’s currently listed as out of stock.

Both configurations feature the same compact chassis, LPDDR4-2400 memory, eMMC storage, and support for WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.1. And both have the same selection of ports including:

  • 1 x HDMI 2.0
  • 1 x mini DisplayPort 1.2
  • 1 x Gigabit Ethernet
  • 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
  • 1 x USB 2.0 Type-A
  • 1 x microSD card reader (up to 1TB)
  • 1 x power input

The key difference, aside from the memory and storage, is the processor. Both chips are first-gen Ryzen Embedded processors with AMD Zen CPU cores and Radeon Vega graphics, but the V-series chip packs a lot more punch. Here’s a comparison:

Chip Cores / Threads Base / Max freq GPU L2 + L3 cache TDP
Ryzen V1605B 4 / 8 2 GHz / 3.6 GHz Radeon Vega 8 @ 1.1 GHz 6MB 12 – 25W
Ryzen R1505G 2 / 4 2.4 GHz / 3.3 GHz Radeon Vega 3 @ 1 GHz 5MB 12 – 25W

The V1605B also supports 16 PCIe Gen 3 lanes and up to four displays, compared with 8 lanes and 3 displays for the R1505G, but those factors aren’t really much of a difference for the ECS Liva Q3 Plus, which doesn’t supports PCIe storage or more than two displays.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Ryzen R1000 and V1000 series chips are both first-generation Ryzen processors and, as such, they’re not officially supported by Windows 11. When it comes to Ryzen Embedded processors, Microsoft only supports Ryzen V2000 series chips at the moment.

That said, the ECS Liva Q3 Plus does have TPM 2.0 support and should work with Windows 10 or many GNU/Linux-based operating systems.

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