Author: Tom Nardi

2363 Articles

FREE-WILi Turns DC32 Badge Into Hardware Dev Tool

November 21, 2024 by 14 Comments

With few exceptions, electronic event badges are often all but forgotten as soon as the attendee gets back home. They’re a fun novelty for the two or three days they’re expected to be worn, but after that, they end up getting tossed in a drawer (or worse.) As you might imagine, this can be a somewhat depressing thought thought for the folks who design and build these badges.

But thanks to a new firmware released by the FREE-WILi project, at least one badge is going to get a shot at having a second life. When loaded onto the RP2350-powered DEF CON 32 badge, the device is turned into a handy hardware hacking multi-tool. By navigating through a graphical interface, users will be able to control the badge’s GPIO pins, communicate over I2C, receive and transmit via infrared, and more. We’re particularly interested in the project’s claims that the combination of their firmware and the DC32 badge create an ideal platform for testing and debugging Simple Add-Ons (SAOs).

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Measuring The Mighty Roar Of SpaceX’s Starship Rocket

November 21, 2024 by 46 Comments

SpaceX’s Starship is the most powerful launch system ever built, dwarfing even the mighty Saturn V both in terms of mass and total thrust. The scale of the vehicle is such that concerns have been raised about the impact each launch of the megarocket may have on the local environment. Which is why a team from Brigham Young University measured the sound produced during Starship’s fifth test flight and compared it to other launch vehicles.

Published in JASA Express Letters, the paper explains the team’s methodology for measuring the sound of a Starship launch at distances ranging from 10 to 35 kilometers (6 to 22 miles). Interestingly, measurements were also made of the Super Heavy booster as it returned to the launch pad and was ultimately caught — which included several sonic booms as well as the sound of the engines during the landing maneuver.

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With Core ONE, Prusa’s Open Source Hardware Dream Quietly Dies

November 20, 2024 by 146 Comments

Yesterday, Prusa Research officially unveiled their next printer, the Core ONE. Going over the features and capabilities of this new machine, it’s clear that Prusa has kept a close eye on the rapidly changing desktop 3D printer market and designed a machine to better position themselves within a field of increasingly capable machines from other manufacturers.

While some saw the incremental upgrades of the i3 MK4 as being too conservative, the Core ONE ticks all the boxes of what today’s consumer is looking for — namely high-speed CoreXY movement with a fully enclosed chamber — while still offering the build quality, upgradability, and support that the company has built its reputation on. Put simply it’s one of the most exciting products they’ve introduced in a long time, and exactly the kind of machine that many Prusa fans have been waiting for.

Unfortunately, there’s one feature that’s ominously absent from the Core ONE announcement post. It’s easy to overlook, and indeed, most consumers probably won’t even know it’s missing. But for those of us who are concerned with such matters, it’s an unspoken confirmation that an era has finally come to an end.

With the Core ONE, Prusa Research is no longer in the business of making open source 3D printer hardware, but that doesn’t mean that the printer isn’t hackable. It’s complicated, so read on.

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The Vecdec Cyberdeck Is More Than A Pretty Case

November 19, 2024 by 30 Comments

A common criticism we hear of cyberdecks is that functionality too often takes a backseat to aesthetics — in other words, they might look awesome, but they aren’t the kind of thing you’re likely to use a daily driver. It’s not an assessment that we necessarily disagree with, though we also don’t hold it against anyone if they’re more interested in honing their build’s retro-futuristic looks than its computational potential.

That said, when a build comes along that manages to strike a balance between style and function, we certainly take notice. The vecdec, built by [svenscore] is a perfect example. We actually came across this one in the Desert of the Real, also known as the outskirts of Philadelphia, while we stalked the chillout room at JawnCon 0x1. When everyone else in the room is using a gleaming MacBook or a beat-up ThinkPad, its wildly unconventional design certainly grabs your attention. But spend a bit of time checking the hardware out and chatting with its creator, and you realize it’s not just some cyberpunk prop.

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Spotted At Supercon: Glowtape Wearable Display

November 16, 2024 by 14 Comments

We’re big fans of unusual timepieces here at Hackaday, so it didn’t take long before somebody called our attention to the gloriously luminescent watch that [Henner Zeller] was wearing at this year’s Supercon.

He calls it the Glowtape, and it uses a dense array of UV LEDs and a long strip of glow-in-the-dark material to display the time and date, as well as images and long strings of text written out horizontally to create an impromptu banner. It looked phenomenal in person, with the energized areas on the tape glowing brightly during the evening festivities in the alleyway.

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WiFi Status Indicator Keeps Eye On The Network

November 16, 2024 by 19 Comments

These days, most of us take the instant availability of a high-speed link to the Internet for granted. But despite all of the latest technology, things still occasionally go pear-shaped — meaning that blistering fiber optic connection you’ve got to the world’s collected knowledge (not to mention, memes) can still go down when you need it the most.

After suffering some connectivity issues, [Arnov Sharma] decided to put together a little box that could alert everyone in visual range to the status of the local router. It won’t fix the problem, of course, but there’s a certain value to getting timely status updates. Using a 3D printed enclosure and a couple of custom PCBs, the build is fairly comprehensive, and could certainly be pressed into more advanced usage if given the appropriate firmware. If you’ve been thinking of a Internet-connected status indicator, this is certainly a project worth copying studying closely.

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 296: Supercon Wrapup With Tom And Al, The 3DP Brick Layering Controversy, And How To Weld In Space

November 15, 2024 by 5 Comments

In this episode you’ll get to hear not one, not two, but three Hackaday Editors! Now that the dust has mostly settled from the 2024 Hackaday Supercon, Al Williams joins Elliot and Tom to compare notes and pick out a few highlights from the event. But before that, the week’s discussion will cover the questionable patents holding back a promising feature for desktop 3D printers, a new digital book from NODE, and the surprisingly limited history of welding in space. You’ll also hear about the challenge of commercializing free and open source software, the finicky optics of the James Web Space Telescope, and the once exciting prospect of distributing software via pages of printed barcodes.

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