If your first-generation Chromecast was acting a little wonky this week, don’t worry. Contrary to fears online, the 2014 device hasn’t been excommunicated by Google. In a statement to Ars Technica, a rep for the search giant explained that the issue, which was keeping the devices from being able to stream video from services like Netflix, was temporary and should now be resolved. That said, the OG Chromecast hasn’t officially been supported since 2023, so it’s not clear how much longer they will remain operational. Google be Google, after all.
After resisting for years, this week, Mozilla finally relented and brought Web Serial to Firefox. While there’s been some debate about the wisdom of letting the Internet directly talk to hardware gadgets, anyone who’s flashed Meshtastic or configured their Betaflight-powered drone from the browser can attest to how convenient it is. In the announcement, Mozilla acknowledges that “most folks won’t use this API”, but points out that the “community of builders and tinkerers” (that’s us!) is sure to be excited about the news. They’ve even teamed up with Adafruit to ensure their web-based microcontroller workflows are compatible in Firefox 151 and beyond. If you give it a shot, let us know how it goes.
Speaking of hardware support, the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) recently picked up a couple of big-name sponsors. As reported by It’s FOSS, this week, Lenovo, Dell, and HP have signed on as Premier-level sponsors to the tune of $100,000 per year. For those unfamiliar, LVFS offers a central repository where hardware vendors can upload firmware updates. On the client side, fwupd can be used to pull these updates down automatically without having to hunt around on each vendor’s website. The experienced players don’t need a service like LVFS, but it’s certainly one of those quality-of-life improvements that make the desktop experience a bit more accessible.
While on the subject of getting hardware working, we hear that more PlayStation 5 consoles can now run Linux. Last month, a software solution for booting the operating system on PS5 consoles running the relatively ancient 3.x and 4.x firmware was released, but now developer Andy Nguyen has gotten it working on firmware 5.x and at least some versions of 6.x. That’s still considerably behind Sony’s latest release, but it does open things up for more consoles to get in on the action.
In space news, the successful first flight of Starship V3 has understandably dominated the headlines for the last few days, but SpaceX wasn’t the only commercial launch provider with good news this week. On Friday, Blue Origin announced they had completed the investigation into the failure of its New Glenn rocket back on April 19th and that the Federal Aviation Administration has approved its return to flight.
According to a statement from the FAA, Blue Origin “identified the direct cause of the mishap as a cryogenic leak that froze a hydraulic line and led to a thrust anomaly during the second stage engine burn.” This resulted in the payload, a next-generation communications satellite featuring a massive 2,400 sq ft deployable antenna array developed by AST SpaceMobile, being placed in an unsustainable orbit.
If you’ve always dreamed of piloting your own walking battle tank, you might finally be in luck. China’s Unitree Robotics has unveiled a mech standing 2.7 meters tall, complete with a promotional video showing it smashing cinder blocks. Because what else would you do with a robot you just paid more than half a million dollars for? Unfortunately, there isn’t much information about the bot’s speed or endurance, and a company spokesperson says the design still needs some refinement before it is ready for production. But still, we’re getting there. Might as well start saving up now.
Finally, we were thrilled to hear that the iconic soundtrack for DOOM has been inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. There’s perhaps no piece of software more emblematic of the hardware hacking world than the 1993 shooter, and while we don’t think that had anything to do with the decision to formally recognize the game’s heavy metal-inspired digital riffs, it will be all that much sweeter the next time we see some oddball gadget running through E1M1.
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Hmmph. My Chromecast was “excommunicated” a few years ago, when I was foolish enough to leave the country with it. Amazon Fire Stick is the same: It also stopped working when I crossed the border.
In both cases the only official resolution was to purchase new hardware for my new country of residence (which I declined to). There are clumsy workarounds (i.e. “hacks”) but it’s just not worth the effort for the increasingly lousy content they both offer.
wow, that’s rather nonsensical. Did they start working again after going back across the border? (assuming you ever went back) It sounds like they’re unable to handle regional content delivery, which is very strange since it’s the platform that decides what shows up on their pages. The Chromecast shouldn’t know the difference between regional licenses and rotating content.
They are both region-locked. They can sort-of work, for a while and with some content, with a VPN and an account in the country-of-origin. They worked when returned to the country-of-origin. At least the Chromecast did on one trip. I didn’t try the fire stick. They both ended up ceremonially sacrificed, and I’ll never move back anyway.
There is quite a lot of drama on the X post under @flipper_net about this device. Those comments are showing that the organization itself has ignored its own contributors to the Flipper Zero for quite some time and has pretty much killed all staff communication with any remaining developers that “would” even want to help with such a device. The discord they link to has NO staff whatsoever present and does not appear to have had any technical staff for quite some time. Its a slap in the face to say “we need your help” when they themselves offer no help or communication back. Its entirely one-sided.
Some people exist only to generate drama, and “the staff don’t communicate enough” is one of those complaints that is made regardless of how much effort people make. There’s always some gronk who thinks “updates every five minutes” is offensively lax. You literally can’t win that fight so it’s not worth even engaging with it.
The Flipper staff have poured a huge amount of support and development into the F0 already over several years. It’s a mature and feature complete device at this point, and there’s absolutely no need for staff interaction if you want to use it or even write an application for it.
Where have the devs been recently? They’ve been spending all their time developing the new hardware, obviously.