3D printing has been around long enough that everyone’s heard at least one weird trick regarding 3D prints. [Angus] of [Maker’s Muse] puts a few to the test, and came …read more
About a month ago, [Greenhill Forge] built a few solar panels to collect energy from the sun. Unlike solar photovoltaics, which turn sunlight directly into electricity, these were designed to …read more
A fascinating aspect in evolutionary biology is that of convergent evolution — whereby similar structures and functions evolve independently from each other. The highly advanced nervous system of octopuses is …read more
A problem facing the designers of event badges is this: what happens to the badge after the event? It’s one that designers have tried to solve in many ways with …read more
It’s a hot one at both microphones, as Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos wilt in the heat with ice lollies and freezer packs. But still, we persevered long enough to …read more
There’s an interesting thing about retrocomputing — the moment that you realize your 25-year-old machine can do almost everything your average person uses a computer for. The problem is that the …read more
Following the reports last week using the Windows Global Device ID (GDID) in tracking a malware operators behavior, here is a comprehensive write-up about what goes into the GDID and …read more
Built-in batteries put a timebomb inside devices, with especially the calendar aging feature of Li-ion chemistries setting a hard limit on when you’ll have to toss the device or figure …read more
Having the information shown on the display of a digital multimeter also recorded off-screen can be incredibly useful, but unless the device exposes something like SCPI on a network interface, …read more
In 1675, while transporting a barometer by night, the astronomer Jean Picard noticed a glow inside its glass tube, just above the mercury. As the mercury sloshed and splashed across …read more
Railroads might be a nineteenth century technology, but they’re still the backbone of cargo transportation in the 21st century. They’ve also far from run out of innovation, including this one …read more
[Dr. Gough] bought a generic USB 3.0 hub on an Asian website. Surely, USB 3 is mature enough that even the cheapest hub will have some IC in it that …read more
CD+Graphics was a format that never really caught on. It let music discs pack some graphics, maybe liner notes, and mostly song lyrics into the otherwise empty space on a …read more
Although Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is typically associated with really large and really heavy things like planets in solar systems and big things in universes in general, it turns out …read more
Some breaking news from geostationary orbit, as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has announced that its newest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) satellite unexpectedly went offline last night, …read more
Even for those of us that are quite technically minded, we spend precious little time thinking about the cables that carry our signals and do all the important work we …read more
Come next year, those looking to explore the globe virtually via Google Earth will have to do so on their smartphone or from within their browser, as the search giant …read more
In order to not hit something, you generally need to know where that thing is. On land, the meager human eyesight tends to be sufficient. On the water, however, the …read more
You may or may not remember in some ancient chemistry class studying or even performing chromatography. The short definition is using media like paper or powder to separate a mixture. …read more
Compared to the Arduino Uno of old, modern microcontrollers are absolutely tiny — especially for the amount of processing power and I/O you get. But if you need something really small, …read more