The South American Power Outage That Plunged 48 Million Into Blackout

A massive power outage in South America last month left most of Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay in the dark and may also have impacted small portions of Chile and Brazil. It’s estimated that 48 million people were affected and as of this writing there has still been no official explanation …read more

Forget The Walkman: It’s The Headphones

Forty years ago this month, a product was launched in Japan that would have such a huge impact on the consumer electronics market that we are still using its descendants today. The story goes that one of the Sony founders would listen to music while traveling for the business, and …read more

Hacking Shelters And Swimming Pools

How would you survive in a war-torn country, where bombs could potentially fall from the sky with only very short notice? And what if the bomb in question were The Bomb — a nuclear weapon? This concern is thankfully distant for most of us, but it wasn’t always so. Only …read more

Tuning Into Atomic Radio: Quantum Technique Unlocks Laser-Based Radio Reception

The basic technology of radio hasn’t changed much since an Italian marquis first blasted telegraph messages across the Atlantic using a souped-up spark plug and a couple of coils of wire. Then as now, receiving radio waves relies on antennas of just the right shape and size to use the …read more

Counter-Strike At 20: Two Hackers Upend The Gaming Industry

Choices matter. You’ve only got one shot to fulfill the objective. A single coordinated effort is required to defuse the bomb, release the hostages, or outlast the opposition. Fail, and there’s no telling when you’ll get your next shot. This is the world that Counter-Strike presented to PC players in …read more

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Nixiewatch Looks Stylish In Aluminium

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By Lewin Day | July 23, 2019

Nixie tubes are a perennial favorite, with their burnt orange glow bringing a smile to the face of even the most jaded maker. Due to their power requirements they’re usually seen in desktop clocks, but [RemcoK3] decided to whip up a Nixiewatch, with stylish results.

Packing twin Nixie tubes, the …read more
Desk-Sized CNC Engraver Does The Job

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By Lewin Day | July 23, 2019

CNC machine tools are highly useful for when you want to take a CAD design and make real parts as quickly and as easily as possible. Typically, they’re employed in large-scale industrial settings, but CNC machines come in all shapes and sizes. It’s possible to build a useful machine that’s …read more
Probability-Based Drummer Leaves The Beats Up To Chance

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By Erin Pinheiro | July 23, 2019

Drum machines may seem like one of the many rites of passage for hardware makers, they’re a concept you can implement simply or take into the extreme making it as complex as you want. [Matt’s] DrumKid is one of them, and its long development history is wonderfully documented in the …read more
The Great Moon Hoax — No Not That One!

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By Al Williams | July 23, 2019

Humans first walked on the moon 50 years ago, yet there are some people who don’t think it happened. This story is not about them. It turns out there was another great conspiracy theory involving a well-known astronomer, unicorns, and humanoids with bat wings. This one came 134 years before …read more
DIY Teensy Looper Multiplies Music

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By Kristina Panos | July 23, 2019

If you’re into electronic music, chances are good that you like to roll your own. While step one is usually to build something, anything that makes sound, a natural step two is to build a looping device to extend and play with those sounds.

[Cutlasses] has finished version one of …read more
The V Programming Language: Vain Or Virtuous?

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By Ben James | July 23, 2019

If you stay up to date with niche software news, your ears may recently have twitched at the release of a new programming language: V. New hobby-project programming languages are released all the time, you would correctly argue; what makes this one special? The answer is a number of design …read more
I Love The Smell Of ABS Plastic In The Morning

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By Bryan Cockfield | July 23, 2019

One lesson we can learn from the Vietnam War documentary Apocalypse Now is that only crazy people like terrible smells just for fun. Surely Lt. Col. Kilgore would appreciate the smell of 3D printers as well, but for those among us who are a little less insane, we might want …read more