Hackaday Links: July 29, 2018

Hackaday Links Column Banner

Another holy scroll for the Church of Robotron. PoC || GTFO is a semi-annual journal of hardware exploitation, and something you must read. About a year ago, No Starch Press released the first Bible of PoC || GTFO, and now it’s time for a new testament. PoC || GTFO Volume 2 is out now, covering Elegies of the Second Crypt War to Stones from the Ivory Tower, Only as Ballast. It’s still Bible-shaped, with a leatherette cover and gilt edges.

KiCad version 5 is out, and you know what that means: It’s time to start on version 6. To that end, CERN has opened up the floodgates where youyes, you can donate to KiCad development. The team is looking for 600 hours of development and 30,000 Swiss Francs or about that many US Dollars. As of this writing (last Wednesday), more than 200 people have donated, at an average donation per person of about 80 CHF.

Oh good, this is finally over. Qualcomm will not be buying NXP. Previously, Reuters reported Qualcomm would purchase the other semiconductor manufacturer for $38 Billion, the largest semiconductor deal ever. There were earlier rumors of an acquisition. The deal was struck down by Chinese regulators, and speculation rages that this is a reaction to the US/China trade war. Qualcomm now has to pay NXP $2 Billion in fees, which they could use to dig out some of the unobtanium Motorola datasheets locked away in a file cabinet.

The uStepper (or μStepper, whatever) is a neat little add-on to standard NEMA stepper motors. It bolts to the back and gives you the ability to control a stepper over a standard serial bus, with a built-in encoder. Now there’s a new Kickstarter for an improved version that uses the Trinamic TMC2208 ‘silent’ motor driver. That Kickstarter is just a draft now, but if you’re planning a 3D printer build, this could be what you’re waiting for.

17 thoughts on “Hackaday Links: July 29, 2018

  1. “Oh good, this is finally over. Qualcomm will not be buying NXP. Previously, Reuters reported Qualcomm would purchase the other semiconductor manufacturer for $38 Billion, the largest semiconductor deal ever. There were earlier rumors of an acquisition. The deal was struck down by Chinese regulators, and speculation rages that this is a reaction to the US/China trade war. ”

    What say so do the Chinese have over an American company buying a Dutch company?

    1. Simply because they do business there. Also, they probably have offices if not factories there, giving even more right to say something. And even if they can’t actually forbid the purchase / merger they can certainly bring about the same effect in other ways (e.g. threaten import bans if it goes ahead).

      1. I don’t think the PRC are going to ban every one of their citizens and companies from buying stuff from one individual company, because they didn’t like the way a merger went. That would be hugely totalitarian and undemocratic. And nowadays they’re only quite totalitarian and fairly undemocratic.

        The Americans likewise aren’t going to let China tell them what to do, particularly since current policy is for LESS trade with China.

        Seriously, what say do China have in this? It’s a good question.

      2. There was no ‘problem’ with the Qualcomm/NXP merger as such. The Chinese simply kept their silence as a passive-aggressive attack on the USA for Trump’s insane obsession with ‘punishing’ China. It was Qualcomm and NXP who set the July 25th deadline, and they who kept to it. And $2Bn is chump change to Qualcomm.

    2. This is fake news (sorry) anyway because if I’m not mistaking the merger was later approved, but at that time they already did the moves (including financial ones) to cancel it and they said that they were not interested enough to restart the proceedings.

      1. Nope. China said they were still willing to discuss the ‘remaining issues’, and had extended _their_ deadline until Oct 14th. No definite approval was explicit or implied in that.

    1. Which sale is that?
      If you’re referring to the sale to Softbank a couple of years ago then they’re Japanese, not Chinese (very different places).
      If you’re talking about the more recent sale to Chinese partners then that’s only their Arm China division (which I believe is a common method of operating in China) and does not affect the vast majority of the company

      1. Maybe all Asians are the same to him? Which reminds me on how Australians now like to constantly say they are part of ‘Asia’ in business news.
        I guess their ‘merger with Asia’ was approved by China though since I hear a lot of Chinese people moved to Australia :)

Leave a Reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.