Day: December 7, 2021

Microsoft’s Minimal Mouse May Maximize Masochism

December 7, 2021 by 53 Comments

So it seems that Microsoft has a patent in process for a folding mouse.  It looks a whole lot like their Arc mouse, which is quite thin and already goes from curved to flat. But that’s apparently not good enough for Microsoft, who says mice in general are bulky and cumbersome to travel with. On the bright side, they do acknowledge the total lack of ergonomics in those tiny travel mice.

Microsoft filed this patent in March of 2021 and it was published in early November. The patent describes the use of an expandable shell on the top with these kerf cuts in the long sides like those used to bend wood — this is where the flexibility comes in. The patent also mentions a motion tracker, haptic feedback, and a wireless charging coil. Now remember, there’s no guarantee of this ever actually happening, and there was no comment from Microsoft about whether it will become a real rodent someday.

And now, the rant. Microsoft considers this mouse, which again is essentially an updated Arc that folds in half, to be ergonomic. Full disclosure: I’ve never used an Arc mouse. But I respectfully disagree with this assessment and believe that people should not prioritize portability when it comes to peripherals, especially those that are so small to begin with. Like, what’s the use? And by the way, isn’t anyone this concerned with portability just using the touch pad or steering stick on their laptop anyway?

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Six GameBoy Pokemon games

Bridging Game Worlds With The ‘Impossible’ Pokémon Trade

December 7, 2021 by 13 Comments

Transferring hard-earned Pokémon out of the second generation GameBoy game worlds into the ‘Advance Era’ cartridges (and vice versa) has never been officially supported by Nintendo, however [Goppier] has made these illicit trades slightly easier for budding Pokémon trainers by way of a custom PCB and a healthy dose of reverse engineering.

Changes to the data structure between Generation II on the original GameBoy (Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal) and Generation III on the GameBoy Advance (Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, LeafGreen and Emerald) meant that trades between these cartridges was never a possibility – at least not through any legitimate means. In contrast, Pokémon trades are possible between the first and second generation games, as well as from Generation III and beyond, leaving the leap from Gen II to Gen III as an obvious missing link.

Modern players have already overcome this limitation by dumping the cartridge save files onto a PC, at which point any Pokémon could be added or subtracted from the save. Thus, this method relies on self-control as well as the right hardware. [Goppier]’s solution is arguably far more elegant, and requires very little extra hardware. A simple PCB with ports for older and newer GameBoy Game Link Cables is the physical bridge between the generations. An ARM Cortex microcontroller sits between these connections and translates the game data between the old and the new.

The microcontroller is required to translate the data structure between the generations, and seems fit for purpose. Not only does the Pokémon data require conversion, but a few other hacks are needed before the two generations will talk nicely to each other. Pokémon on the GameBoy Advance brought in new features such as representing player movement in the trading rooms (i.e. you can see the other player moving on your screen), which also had to be addressed.

The concern over the legitimacy of trades within the Pokémon community is a curious, yet understandable, byproduct of the multiplayer experience. As an example, modern players have to be wary of ‘hacked’ Pokémon, which can often introduce glitches into their game world following a trade. Apart from these issues, some Pokémon players simply desire genuine Pokémon as part of fostering a fair and enjoyable gaming experience.

This literal bridge between Gen II and Gen III game worlds brings the community tantalizingly close to a ‘legitimate’ means of transferring their Pokémon out of ancient cartridges and into modern games. Could Nintendo one day officially sanction Gen II to Gen III trades with a similar device? Crazier things have happened.

We love our GameBoy hacks here on Hackaday, so why not check out this project that replaces the battery-backed SRAM in your GameBoy games with FRAM?

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Cracking The Spotify Code

December 7, 2021 by 4 Comments

If you’ve used Spotify, you might have noticed a handy little code that it can generate that looks like a series of bars of different heights. If you’re like [Peter Boone], such an encoding will pique your curiosity, and you might set out to figure out how they work.

Spotify offers a little picture that, when scanned, opens almost anything searchable with Spotify. Several lines are centered on the Spotify logo with eight different heights, storing information in octal. Many visual encoding schemes encode some URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) that provides a unique identifier for that specific song, album, or artist when decoded. Since many URIs on Spotify are pretty long (one example being spotify :show:3NRV0mhZa8xeRT0EyLPaIp which clocks in at 218 bits), some mechanism is needed to compress the URIs down to something more manageable. Enter the media reference, a short sequence encoding a specific URI, generally under 40 bits. The reference is just a lookup in a database that Spotify maintains, so it requires a network connection to resolve. The actual encoding scheme from media reference to the values in the bars is quite complex involving CRC, convolution, and puncturing. The CRC allows the program to check for correct decoding, and the convolution enables the program to have a small number of read errors while still having an accurate result. Puncturing is just removing bits to reduce the numbers encoded, relying on convolution to fill in the holes.

[Peter] explains it all in his write-up helpfully and understandably. The creator of the Spotify codes stopped by in the comments to offer some valuable pointers, including pointing out there is a second mode where the lines aren’t centered, allowing it to store double the bits. [Peter] has a python package on Github with all the needed code for you to start decoding. Maybe you can incorporate a Spotify code scanner into your custom Spotify playing mini computer.