The daily ledger

A Hotspot Becomes A Handheld

A Linux handheld computer is, in theory, easy and inexpensive given the availability of single-board computers, but in practice the budget invariably edges well into three figures. There’s an interesting …read more

Coreboot Hikes the Bay Trail to DRAM Initialization

This article is written on an open-source operating system, but not an open-source machine — the BIOS isn’t open-source, and even if it were supported by the coreboot project (formerly …read more

JLC puts AI-assisted board design in files you can read, review, and edit

Open the project file, change a part, see what the tool did, keep working after the AI has had its turn. That’s what interests me in JLC’s board-design tools. Editable files mean you can carry the design through the…

Teaching a Robot Hand to Walk

Although it wasn’t apparently designed with this in mind, it seems particularly fortuitous that this walking robotic hand was released in time for Halloween. Designed by researchers from ETH Zurich, …read more

Tonight is International Observe the Moon Night!

An animation of the Moon changing phases, as viewed from Earth. NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio Tonight is the night to look up! The annual celebration of lunar observation, science, and exploration presented by…

What are Your Indispensable Software Skills?

Using tools properly takes skill, and this goes for software tools as well as hardware. You don’t just buy a paintbrush and on day one paint the Mona Lisa. Similarly, …read more

Using Azo Photoisomerization to Alter Semiconductor Film Properties

Generally semiconductor devices like transistors have fixed properties, but using an azobenzene (Azo) compound it’s possible to optically alter these properties by exposing them to UV light. This is demonstrated …read…

Emulating Memory Access: How Hard Can It Be?

There are so many things we approximate to make life simple. Wires, for example, have no resistance or other strange effects. Crystal oscillators output their exact frequency. But surely our …read more

The Concertina Goes Electronic

The concertina is an instrument that features heavily in European folk music, of which there are a variety of types. [Xcott Craver] has built one, an anglo concertina of the …read more

On Chip Debug for (Some) MicroPython

If you’ve used MicroPython much, you know that debugging usually amounts to printing a few things out, trying your code out, and then repeating. But [ghi-electronics] wants you to have …read more

OpenMote – An ESP32-S3 programmable universal remote in a Wiimote shell (Crowdfunding)

Hat & Hammer has launched the OpenMote, an ESP32-S3-powered programmable universal remote that adopts the familiar, nostalgic form factor of a Nintendo Wiimote. It features WiFi, Bluetooth LE, an infrared (IR)…

“The Secret Life of Circuits” is here

LispBM: Concurrent Lisp for Microcontrollers

The scourge of x86 emulation