Author: Mike Szczys

6403 Articles

Qualcomm Looks To Gobble Up NXP

September 30, 2016 by 31 Comments

Remember when we talked about NXP merging with Freescale to move into the top ten semiconductor companies? Yeah, that was just eighteen months ago and just barely closed before the new year. Now it looks like Qualcomm wants to acquire NXP to the tune of $30 billion.

You’re most likely familiar with Qualcomm as a cellphone silicon company. The acquisition of NXP opens up a lot of additional markets with their portfolio of chips — automotive among them thanks to the Freescale merger. Now you should be asking yourself just how big Qualcomm is already. What’s perhaps most interesting is that, as mostly a wireless chip company, Qualcomm is ranked number three in worldwide semiconductor sales. Adding NXP — a behemoth now in the top ten — adds at least 30% to Qualcomm’s numbers.

And so here we are, one step close to a monolithic chip fab that produces all computing power for the human race. Yippie!

Calling All Procrastinators

September 30, 2016 by 13 Comments

We have your number… you’re one who likes to while away the daylight hours, then make a mad effort throughout the night to finish everything before the sun again rises. In fact, that describes a lot of us Hackaday writers.

Put those well-honed cramming skills to good use this weekend, because Monday morning is the deadline to enter the 2016 Hackaday Prize. The current challenge is to show us your Assistive Technology. Prototyping some hardware to make life a little bit better for people dealing with a disability, to help those who are aging in place, to provide more widespread access to health care, and the like. We will pick 20 entries from this challenge to win $1000 each and become eligible for one of the five huge prizes.

Huge prizes you say? We’re talking about a grand prize of $150,000 and a residency at the Supplyframe Design Lab in Pasadena, plus four other cash prizes of $25k, $10k, $10k, and $5k. Twenty final projects have been chosen from each of the first four challenges, and there have already been over 1000 total entries! But your chances of pulling a rabbit out of the hat this weekend are still really good. So far there are just under 200 entries in this final challenge — twenty will move forward on Monday.

Call up your friends and stock up on Red Vines and Red Bull (Club Mate if you can get it). Occupy your hackerspace and get to work. If you are pulling all nighter’s in a bid to take Assistive Technology by storm, make sure you let us know on Twitter so we can follow along.

The HackadayPrize2016 is Sponsored by:

New SuperCon Badge Is 40% Lighter And A Work Of Art

September 28, 2016 by 28 Comments

The 2016 Hackaday SuperConference is just around the corner and today we get a good look at the hardware badge. It was designed by [Voja Antonic] — a legend of hardware creation who will be at the conference. I like to think of him as the Woz of the Eastern Bloc, having designed the Galaksija computer. This badge is a beautiful example of embedded design. We’ll dive into all of the details after the break.

Get your ticket now for 48-hours of talks, workshops, the Hackaday Prize party, badge hacking,  and so much more.

Continue reading “New SuperCon Badge Is 40% Lighter And A Work Of Art” →

Seeking Treachery In A Questionably Sourced Phone

September 26, 2016 by 24 Comments

Have you ever considered sourcing an off-brand phone from the China markets? Why, or what stopped you? The answer is data and identity. You are trusting both when you decide to use a smartphone. Let’s face it, smartphones are a personality prosthesis in our society. They know your physical location, what your interests are, the people you hang out with, and how you spend your money. The keys to the castle are shared with these devices and you shouldn’t grant that kind of trust without knowing your phone is worthy of it.

But… what if that phone has amazing features at an equally amazing price? [ijsf] bought the phone and then made it earn the proper level of trust. The model in question is a Blackview BV6000s — pictured above in a tub of soapy water proving it’s IP68 claim. This thing has flagship specs but not a flagship name so [ijsf] took [Dave Jones’] advice and took it apart instead of turning it on. In this case, it is a complete ROM dump and disassembly.

The goals was to find malware — anything that is potentially leaking data. Nothing was found, which we think is because this phone isn’t nearly shady enough. We’d expect the bargain basement models (like this $3 wonder vaporware) to be more in line. That one actually has a carrier behind it which means they plan to recoup on usage charges. But suspiciously cheap phones may be using a business model that makes it back by stealing a chunk of your identity.

Two good things come out of [ijsf’s] writeup. First, it’s a decent guide to dumping and snooping in a ROM. Second, in addition to the fruitless search for thieving apps, the annoying bloatware was removed for a cleaner ‘stock’ image.

Solenoid Engine With Woodworking Chops

September 25, 2016 by 28 Comments

Simple, elegant, and well executed. This solenoid engine build is everything we’ve come to love about [Matthias Wandel]’s work. If you don’t recognize his name you probably remember the name of his site: Wood Gears.

In what feels like an afternoon project he put together a solenoid engine. It translates the linear motion of a small solenoid into the circular motion of a flywheel. The only specialized part in this hack is the solenoid. It has a pretty long throw and includes a hinge pin at the end.

The rest is crafted mostly of wood — it is admirable how he uses that table saw like a surgeon uses a scalpel. The wooden components include a base, flywheel, very interesting bearing blocks, and a few mounting brackets to hold everything in just the right place. Add to this a coat hanger for the cam shaft, the internals of a terminal strip for the cam, some heavy gauge wire, and you’re in business. The latter two make up a clever electrical switch that synchronizes the drive of the solenoid with the flywheel.

It’s amusing to hear [Matthias] mention that this engine isn’t very practical. We still think the project has merit — it’s great for learning about how simple an engine can be, and for developing an intuitive appreciation for how great commercially available motors and engines actually are. Plus, if you can mimic these fabrication techniques you can build anything. Great work on this one [Matthias], another thing of beauty!

Check out his video below, then go back and check out his air-powered engine and of course, a hack that actually uses wood gears.

Continue reading “Solenoid Engine With Woodworking Chops” →

Now Is The Golden Age Of Artisanal, Non-Traditional Tube Amps

September 24, 2016 by 17 Comments

Earlier in the month, [Elliot Williams] quipped that it had been far too long since we saw a VFD-based amplifier build. Well, that dry spell is over. This week, [kodera2t] started showing off his design for a VFD headphone amp.

Here’s the thing, this isn’t using old surplus vacuum fluorescent displays. This is actually a new part. We first covered it about 18 months ago when Korg and Noritake announced the NuTube. It’s the VFD form factor you would find in old stereo and lab equipment, but housed in the familiar glass case is a triode specifically designed for that purpose.

Check out [kodera2t’s] video below where he walks through the schematic for his amplifier. Since making that video he has populated the boards and taken it for a spin — no video of that yet but we’re going to keep a watchful eye for a follow-up. Since these parts can be reliably sourced he’s even planning to sell it in his Tindie store. If you want to play around with this new tube that’s a pretty easy way to get the tube and support hardware all in one shot. This is not a hack, it’s being used for exactly what Korg and Noritake designed it to do, but we hope to see a few of these kits hacked for specific tastes in amp design. If you do that (or any other VFD hacking) we want to hear about it!

And now for the litany of non-traditional VFD amps we’ve grown to love. There is the Nixie amp where [Elliot] made the quip I mentioned above, here’s an old radio VFD amp project, in this one a VCR was the donor, and this from wayback that gives a great background on how this all works.

Continue reading “Now Is The Golden Age Of Artisanal, Non-Traditional Tube Amps” →

My Take On Assistive Tech For The Hackaday Prize

September 22, 2016 by 39 Comments

We’re in the last few weeks for entries in the 2016 Hackaday Prize — specifically the challenge is to show off your take on assisstive technology. This is a hugely broad category and I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I’m sure there’s a ton of low-hanging fruit that’s not obvious to everyone. This would be a great time to hit up the comments below and leave your “hey, I always thought someone should make…” ideas. I’m looking forward to reading them and it might just inspire someone to spend the next couple weeks hammering out a prototype to enter.

For me, it’s medication. I knew this can be a challenging problem having gone through a few cycles of prescription medicines in my life. But recently I helped out a family member who was suddenly on many medications taken on eight different times a day — including once, twice, three, and six times per day. This was further compounded by sleep deprivation (having to set alarms at night to take the medicine) and  drowsy/woozy effects from the medicine. I can tell you first hand that this is really tough for anyone to deal with and it’s incredibly easy to make a mistake or not be able to remember if you took a dose.

Pill Organizers Do No More or Less

We’ve seen a number of pill organizers before and that’s what I reached for in this case. However, that organizer only had four slots for each day. I didn’t hack it (other than writing on the doors with a Sharpie for when to take each) but even if there were added buttons or LEDs I’m not convinced this would be a marked improvement.

What you see above is my proposal for the medicine problem. Smartphones have become ubiquitous and the processing power and cameras of even budget phones are mind blowing. I think it is entirely possible to write an app that uses computer vision to recognize pills and sync them with the schedule. This may mean whipping the phone out of your pocket, or designing a pill box that has a phone stand next to it (saying that makes me think of using RPi and a Pi camera). Grab your pills and validate them under the camera.

Useful Augmented Reality

The screen of the phone would use augmented reality to overlay information about the pills it sees — you know, like Pokemon Go but in a way that enriches your life. ‘pills, catch ’em all!’ — new pills can be learned of the fly, delivering the user to a screen to identify the pill and the dosing schedule. Taking the validation picture will record when the medicine was taken, and the natural extension of this systems is a pharmacy’s ability to push your dose schedule to your account when you pick up the prescription. A stretch goal would be keeping an eye out for interactions.

This is all very much like how hospitals do it — they’re scanning bar codes on the packaging and the patient bracelet and recording it. This would be an easier user experience and quite frankly I think companies already in this space (like Snapchat and Niantic) could whip this up in a single-day hackathon no problem.

Is it the perfect system? Maybe not. But there is no perfect system or we’d be using it by now. We need you, the world’s talent pool, to step up and make life a little better. Do it in prototype form by October 3rd and you’ll be eligible for one of twenty $1000 cash prizes and a chance at winning the Hackaday Prize. But even if you don’t build a single thing, one idea could be the spark that lets others change the world for the better. So let’s hear it!

The HackadayPrize2016 is Sponsored by: