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μWWVB: A Tiny WWVB Station
μWWVB is a watch stand that automatically sets the time on atomic wristwatches where regular WWVB signal isn't available.
Die photos and analysis of the revolutionary 8008 microprocessor, 45 years old
Intel's groundbreaking 8008 microprocessor was first produced 45 years ago. 1 This chip, Intel's first 8-bit microprocessor, is the ancesto...
Amazon Dash Button's Wireless Audio Configuration
Update: I’ve learned a bit more and as such, see the bottom of the post for an update. I’ve been slow to update this but now that it’s seeming to be gaining a lot of traffic (lead…
Cat-proofing a cat feeding machine
Furiosa’s Cat Feeder
Wolfenstein 3D – Gameboy cartridge with co-processor
Source code and hardware schematics are available on Github: https://github.com/agranlund/wolf
Firefox Hardware Report for Web Developers
Suppose you're developing a sophisticated web game or application, and you're wondering — will it actually be able to run? What hardware should I be targeting to get the widest ...
Practical Reverse Engineering Part 5 – Digging Through the Firmware
Fifth post in the series, covering how to obtain GPL source code, disassemble MIPS binaries with tools like IDA, and search the firmware for a default WiFi p...
Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi
I'm increasingly of the view that both my time and my sanity are worth more and more as the years progress. Particularly in my independent life, it really can be that black and white - if I can't work, it costs me money. Plus, I want to be happy
UW engineers achieve Wi-Fi at 10,000 times lower power
With "Passive Wi-Fi," UW computer scientists and electrical engineers have generated Wi-Fi transmissions using 10,000 times less power than conventional methods
Intel x86 documentation has more pages than the 6502 has transistors
Microprocessors have become immensely more complex thanks to Moore's Law, but one thing that has been lost is the ability to fully understan...
Magic Leap – Separating Magic and Reality
The Goal – Explain What is Magic Leap Doing Magic Leap has a way of talking about what they hope to do someday and not necessarily what they can do anytime soon. Their patent applications ar…
Amazon EC2 Elastic GPUs
I have written about the benefits of GPU-based computing in the past, most recently as part of the launch of the P2 instances with up to 16 GPUs. As I have noted in the past, GPUs offer incredible power and scale, along with the potential to simultaneously decrease your time-to-results and your overall compute costs…
Developer Preview – EC2 Instances with Programmable Hardware
Have you ever had to decide between a general purpose tool and one built for a very specific purpose? The general purpose tools can be used to solve many different problems, but may not be the best choice for any particular one. Purpose-built tools excel at one task, but you may need to do that […]
The Untouchables – Apple’s new OS “activation” for Touch Bar MacBook Pros
Last week Joe Chilcote discovered an interesting message when imaging a Late 2016 MacBook Pro TouchBar (from here on out referred to as TBP): A critical software update is required for your Mac. To…
‘Diamond-age’ of power generation as nuclear batteries developed
New technology has been developed that uses nuclear waste to generate electricity in a nuclear-powered battery. A team of physicists and chemists from the University of Bristol have grown a man-made diamond that, when placed in a radioactive field, is able to generate a small electrical current.
New XPS 13 Developer Edition Lands in Europe, United States and Canada
Today, on the 59th anniversary of the launch of the Sputnik satellite, the 6th generation XPS 13 developer edition makes its debut in both the US, Canada and Europe. This Kaby Lake-based system co…
The new MacBook Pro is kind of great for hackers
A million hot takes have been posted about how the late-2016 MacBook Pro with USB-C is the undeniable proof that Apple doesn’t care about…
Why I don't like smartcards, HSMs, YubiKeys, etc.
This is a rant about smartcards with some digression into ranting about the integrated circuit industry.