Raspberry Pi 4 Just Released: Faster CPU, More Memory, Dual HDMI Ports

June 23, 2019 by Brian Benchoff 260 Comments

The Raspberry Pi 4 was just released. This is the newest version of the Raspberry Pi and offers a better CPU and more memory than the Raspberry Pi 3, dual HDMI outputs, better USB and Ethernet performance, and will remain in production until January, 2026.

There are three varieties of the Raspberry Pi 4 — one with 1GB of RAM, one with 2GB, and one with 4GB of RAM — available for $35, $45, and $55, respectively. There’s a video for this Raspberry Pi launch, and all of the details are on the Raspberry Pi 4 website.

A Better CPU, Better Graphics, and More Memory

The CPU on the new and improved Raspberry Pi 4 is a significant upgrade. While the Raspberry Pi 3 featured a Broadcom BCM2837 SoC (4× ARM Cortex-A53 running at 1.2GHz) the new board has a Broadcom BCM2711 SoC (a quad-core Cortex-A72 running at 1.5GHz). The press literature says this provides desktop performance comparable to entry-level x86 systems.

Of note, the new Raspberry Pi 4 features not one but two HDMI ports, albeit in a micro HDMI format. This allows for dual-display support at up to 4k60p. Graphics power includes H.265 4k60 decode, H.264 1080p60 decode, 1080p30 encode, with support for OpenGL ES, 3.0 graphics. As with all Raspberry Pis, there’s a ~~component~~ composite video port as well tucked inside the audio port. The 2-lane MIPI DSI display port and 2-lane MIPI CSI camera port remain from the Raspberry Pi 3.

Continue reading “Raspberry Pi 4 Just Released: Faster CPU, More Memory, Dual HDMI Ports” →

Hackaday Podcast 024: Mashing Smartphone Buttons, Sound Blastering, Trash Printing, And A Ludicrous Loom

June 21, 2019 by Mike Szczys 2 Comments

Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys wade through the fun hacks of the week. Looks like Google got caught ripping off song lyrics (how they got caught is the hack) and electric cars are getting artificially noisier. We look at 3D Printing directly from used plastic, and building a loom with many hundreds of 3D printed parts. The Sound Blaster 1.0 lives again thanks to some (well-explained) reverse engineered circuitry. Your smartphone is about to get a lot more buttons that work without any extra electronics, and we’ll finish things up with brass etching and downloadable nuclear reactor plans.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (60 MB or so.)

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 024: Mashing Smartphone Buttons, Sound Blastering, Trash Printing, And A Ludicrous Loom” →

This Week In Security: SACK Of Death, Rambleed, HIBP For Sale, And Oracle Weblogic — Again!

June 21, 2019 by Jonathan Bennett 13 Comments

Netflix isn’t the first name to come to mind when considering security research firms, but they make heavy use of FreeBSD in their content delivery system and do security research as a result. Their first security bulletin of the year, not surprisingly, covers a FreeBSD vulnerability that happens to also affect Linux kernels from the last 10 years. This vulnerability uses SACKs and odd MSS values to crash a server kernel.

To understand Selective ACKs, we need to step back and look at how TCP connections work. TCP connections provide guaranteed delivery, implemented in the from of ACKnowledgement (ACK) packets. We think of a TCP connection as having a dedicated ACK packet for every data packet. In reality, the Operating System makes great effort to avoid sending “naked” ACK packets, and combines multiple ACKs in a single packet. An ACK is simply a flag in a packet header combined with a running total of bytes received, and can be included in a normal data packet. As much as is possible, the ACK for data received is sent along with data packets flowing in the opposite direction. Continue reading “This Week In Security: SACK Of Death, Rambleed, HIBP For Sale, And Oracle Weblogic — Again!” →

Etching Large Brass Sheets Is Harder Than You Think

June 19, 2019 by Sean Boyce 32 Comments

One of my favorite ways to think of engineering is that a glass is not half empty or half full, only twice as large as it needs to be. As useful as that idea is, it also means that I rarely put any effort into the aesthetics of my projects – I learn or accomplish what I need, desolder and recycle the components, then move on. Few of my projects are permanent, and custom cases tend to be non-reusable, so I skip the effort and expense.

Once in a while though, I need to make a gift. In that case form and function both become priorities. Thankfully, all that glitters is not gold – and over the last year I’ve been learning to etch the copper alloys commonly classified as ‘brass’. We’ve covered some truly excellent etched brass pieces previously, and I was inspired to try and etch larger pieces of metal (A4 and larger) without sacrificing resolution. I thought this would be just like etching circuits. In fact, I went through several months of failed attempts before I produced anything halfway decent!

Although I’m still working on perfecting my techniques, I’ve learned enough in the meantime to give a report. Read on if you’re feeling the need for more fancy brass signs in your life.

Continue reading “Etching Large Brass Sheets Is Harder Than You Think” →

An Evening With Space Shuttle Atlantis

June 18, 2019 by Tom Nardi 26 Comments

When I got the call asking if I’d be willing to fly down to Kennedy Space Center and cover an event, I agreed immediately. Then about a week later, I remembered to call back and ask what I was supposed to be doing. Not that it mattered, I’d gladly write a few thousand words about the National Crocheting Championships if they started holding them at KSC. I hadn’t been there in years, since before the Space Shuttle program had ended, and I was eager to see the exhibit created for the fourth member of the Shuttle fleet, Atlantis.

So you can imagine my reaction when I learned that the event Hackaday wanted me to cover, the Cornell Cup Finals, would culminate in a private viewing of the Atlantis exhibit after normal park hours. After which, the winners of the competition would be announced during a dinner held under the orbiter itself. It promised to be a memorable evening for the students, a well deserved reward for the incredible work they put in during the competition.

Thinking back on it now, the organizers of the Cornell Cup and the staff at Kennedy Space Center should truly be commended. It was an incredible night, and everyone I spoke to felt humbled by the unique experience. There was a real, palpable, energy about it that you simply can’t manufacture. Of course, nobody sitting under Atlantis that night was more excited than the students. Though I may have come in as a close second.

I’ll admit it was somewhat bittersweet to see such an incredible piece of engineering turned into a museum piece; it looked as if Atlantis could blast off for another mission at any moment. But there’s no denying that the exhibit does a fantastic job of celebrating the history and accomplishments of the Space Shuttle program. NASA officially considers the surviving Shuttle orbiters to be on a “Mission of Inspiration”, so rather than being mothballed in a hangar somewhere in the desert, they are out on display where the public can get up close and personal with one of humanities greatest achievements. Judging by the response I saw, the mission is going quite well indeed.

If you have the means to do so, you should absolutely make the trip to Cape Canaveral to see Atlantis and all the other fascinating pieces of space history housed at KSC. There’s absolutely no substitute for seeing the real thing, but if you can’t quite make the trip to Florida, hopefully this account courtesy of your humble scribe will serve to give you a taste of what the exhibit has to offer.

Continue reading “An Evening With Space Shuttle Atlantis” →

You Wouldn’t Download A Nuclear Reactor, But Could You?

June 17, 2019 by Tom Nardi 43 Comments

By pretty much any metric you care to use, the last couple of decades has been very good for the open source movement. There was plenty of pushback in the early days, back when the only people passionate about the idea were the Graybeards in the IT department. But as time went on, more and more developers and eventually companies saw the benefit of sharing what they were working on. Today, open source is effectively the law of the land in many fields, and you don’t have to look far to find the community openly denouncing groups who are keeping their source under lock and key.

The open source submarine that won 2017 Hackaday Prize.

In the last few years, we’ve even seen the idea gain traction in the hardware field. While it’s not nearly as prevalent as opening up the software side of things, today it’s not uncommon to see hardware schematics and PCB design files included in project documentation. So not only can you download an open source operating system, web browser, and office suite, but you can also pull down all the information you need to build everything from a handheld game system to an autonomous submarine.

With so many projects pulling back the curtain, it’s not unreasonable to wonder where the limits are. There’s understandably some concerns about the emerging field of biohacking, and anyone with a decent 3D printer can download the files necessary to produce a rudimentary firearm. Now that the open source genie is out of the bottle, it seems there’s precious little that you can’t download from your favorite repository.

Scratching an exceptionally surprising entry off that list is Transatomic, who late last year uploaded the design for their TAP-520 nuclear reactor to GitHub. That’s right, now anyone with git, some uranium, and a few billion dollars of seed money can have their very own Molten Salt Reactor (MSR). Well, that was the idea at least.

So six months after Transatomic dumped a little under 100 MB worth of reactor documentation on GitHub, is the world any closer to forkable nuclear power? Let’s find out.

Continue reading “You Wouldn’t Download A Nuclear Reactor, But Could You?” →

Automate The Freight: Autonomous Delivery Hits The Mainstream

June 17, 2019 by Dan Maloney 40 Comments

It should come as no surprise that we here at Hackaday are big boosters of autonomous systems like self-driving vehicles. That’s not to say we’re without a healthy degree of skepticism, and indeed, the whole point of the “Automate the Freight” series is that economic forces will create powerful incentives for companies to build out automated delivery systems before they can afford to capitalize on demand for self-driving passenger vehicles. There’s a path to the glorious day when you can (safely) nap on the way to work, but that path will be paved by shipping and logistics companies with far deeper pockets than the average commuter.

So it was with some interest that we saw a flurry of announcements in the popular press recently regarding automated deliveries. Each by itself wouldn’t be worthy of much attention; companies are always maneuvering to be seen as ahead of the curve on coming trends, and often show off glitzy, over-produced videos and well-crafted press releases as a low-effort way to position themselves as well as to test markets. But seeing three announcements at one time was unusual, and may point to a general feeling by manufacturers that automated deliveries are just around the corner. Plus, each story highlighted advancements in areas specifically covered by “Automate the Freight” articles, so it seemed like a perfect time to review them and perhaps toot our own horn a bit.

Continue reading “Automate The Freight: Autonomous Delivery Hits The Mainstream” →