61
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 298 posts.
62
Why open hardware needs open software
As KiCad’s lead developer, Wayne, and his team have a big vision – to build a best-in-breed PCB design tool. It’s an ambitious goal for an open-source project whose commercial counterparts have seen millions in investment. But KiCad is well on that path. An ever-increasing number of designers now use the PCB design…
63
Offline-Pedia converts old televisions into Wikipedia readers (2018)
There are villages in the Ecuadorian Andes that are so small you cannot find them on a map. Cajas Juridica is one such place, located just 13km north of the equator. But two engineering students, Joshua Salazar and Jorge Vega, and the staff of Yachay Tech University have figured out a way to give discarded….
64
The Sad Saga of Purism and the Librem 5
Today I’m going to tell you a sad tale of a device called the Librem 5 and the company behind it, Purism. As of right now, this story does not have a happy ending. I am writing this series of articles as a protest against the behavior of Purism, a company which claims that transparency and openness are their core…
65
Quantum Supremacy Using a Programmable Superconducting Processor
Posted by John Martinis, Chief Scientist Quantum Hardware and Sergio Boixo, Chief Scientist Quantum Computing Theory, Google AI Quantum Physicist...
66
Slimbook collaborates with the PowerPC laptop
We are pleased to announce our collaboration with Power Progress Community (PPC), the association behind the creation of a ordenador portátil con procesador PowerPC , in this case the NXP T2080. The PowerPC instruction set has been recently released by IBM as open source and given to the Linux Foundation.
67
Compiling my own SPARC CPU inside a cheap FPGA
Compiling a CPU, in a cheap FPGA board
68
69
Solving the Rubik’s cube with a robot hand
We’ve trained a pair of neural networks to solve the Rubik’s Cube with a human-like robot hand. The neural networks are trained entirely in simulation, using the same reinforcement learning code as OpenAI Five paired with a new technique called Automatic Domain Randomization (ADR). The system can handle situations it…
70
Prusa MINI: Smart and compact 3D printer
We still have a couple of weeks until the holiday season, but here’s an early gift for you: I’m excited to announce our brand new Original Prusa MINI, a smart and compact 3D printing workhorse with all the bells and whistles...
71
72
Lego logic gates and mechanical computing
randomwraith.com - LEGO, Beer & pastimes
73
74
New chips for machine intelligence
This note summarises details of some of the new silicon chips for machine intelligence. Its aim is to distil the most important implementation and architectural details (at least those that are currently available), to highlight the main differences between them. I’m focusing on chips designed for training since they…
75
Making My Own Glasses
A biohacking health story about making custom glasses after conflicting eye test results from two opticians and an eye doctor for a pilot’s license exam.
76
The IBM Pentium 4 64-Bit CPU
This time we will talk about one unique Intel processor, which did not appear on the retail market and whose reviews you will not find on the Internet. This processor was produced purely by special order for one well-known manufacturer of computer equipment. Also in the framework of this article I will try to assemble…
77
Unsung Beauty of Analog Devices Datasheets
Engineers build stuff. They need to put together complex systems, most often from pieces that others have built. I jokingly talk to my colleagues that software engineering is similar to plumbing - take various pieces of software and link them through an interface (API or in case of real plumbing - connectors,
78
A computer built from NOR gates: inside the Apollo Guidance Computer
We recently restored an Apollo Guidance Computer 1 , the computer that provided guidance, navigation, and control onboard the Apollo flight...
79
Real-Time Touch Controller for the Yamaha DX7 Synthesizer
George Barlow initially set out to develop a controller to be able to call up a voice preset, and then tweak from there. What he's done is essentially transformed the DX7 synth into an interactive sound designer's dream machine.
80
Tethered Jailbreaks Are Back
Earlier today, a new iPhone Boot ROM exploit, checkm8 (or Apollo or Moonshine), was published on GitHub by axi0mX, affecting the iPhone 4S through the iPhone X. The vulnerability was patched in devices with A12 and A13 CPUs. As of this writing, the iPhone XS, XS Max, XR, 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max […]
81
82
Drilling open a smart door lock in 4 seconds
The BBC asked us to have a look at some smart locks for a TV show recently. We didn’t have much prep time, but were genuinely shocked by just how easy this one was to compromise. Usually, we spend time looking at Bluetooth/RF, the mobile app, the API and then move on to hardware. This […]
83
Reverse engineering a custom CPU from a single program
or: reverse-engineering a custom, unknown CPU from a single programtl;dr: We reverse-engineered a program written for a completely custom, unknown CPU architecture, without any documentation for th…
84
85
Reverse-engineering precision op amps from a 1969 analog computer
We are restoring a vintage 1 computer that CuriousMarc recently obtained. Analog computers were formerly popular for fast scientific compu...
86
The ReMarkable Tablet: A Review
The reMarkable tablet is a 10" e-paper tablet on which you can read PDF and ePub files, and write on with the stylus that comes with the device. It has fundamentally changed how I read textbooks.
87
The BeagleBone AI is Available
BeagleBoard.org Foundation is a Michigan, USA-based 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation existing to provide education in and collaboration around the design and use of open-source software and hardware in embedded computing.
88
iPhone 11 Pro Camera Review
Testing the iPhone 11 Pro as I continue on-going work photographing The Bach Project w/ Yo-Yo Ma, a world tour where Yo-Yo is performing Bach in unconventional places around the globe. It’s been a privilege to photograph this amazing journey.
89
90
HP printers try to send data back to HP about your devices and what you print
Last week my in-laws politely but firmly asked me to set up their new HP printer. I protested that I’m completely clueless about that sort of thing, despite my tax-return-job-title of “software engineer”. Still remonstrating, I was gently bundled into their study with an instruction pamphlet, a cup of tea, a promise…