Open Hardware and Linux-Friendly Devices

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 21, 2022

• Over-engineering my TV watching: Part 1: bypassing geo-block with a custom reverse proxy

  This is the first part of a series of posts where I will detail how I built a complex system to consume Italian TV abroad entirely from a single web app and a Chromecast.

• Beating unscrupulous arcade owners at their own games | Arduino Blog

  Mark Rober isn’t just a talented mechanical engineer and entertaining personality, he is also something of a champion of justice for the common man. He’s already proved that several times with his famous yearly porch pirate-targeted pranks, but now he’s taking on the corrupt fat cats running arcades for children. Those arcades are often full of rigged games that are either more difficult than they seem or downright unwinnable. In his most recent video, Rober built machines that could beat several of those games with ease.

  We don’t have enough space here to provide detail on every contraption that Rober created, but they all accomplish a common goal of defeating rigged arcade games. Some of those, like Skee-Ball, are only nefarious in the sense that have misleading difficulty and rely on misdirection to swindle players. Others, like Quik Drop, are almost impossible for humans to win. For good measure, Rober even made a robot that can block every shot a human opponent takes in air hockey.

• 5 ways Matter will disappoint users at launch

  After participating in a panel on Matter at Silicon Labs’ Works With event on Tuesday and conversing with attendees throughout the event, I think the initial response to Matter is going to be tepid at best and downright aggravated at worst.

  One person I spoke with, who declined to be named for this article, said they had the feeling that, given the delays and the constant influx of new members to the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), which led to ballooning features requests, the CSA decided to just push something — anything — out. While I imagine the CSA’s thinking was probably along the lines of “Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good,” based on my conversations, it may be that the 1.0 version of the standard may not be that good.

• How to build Raspberry Pi Pico programs with no software installation

  To solve this problem, I’ve actually turned to what might seem an unlikely tool, Google’s Colab service. If you have run across this, you probably associate it with Python notebooks, because that’s its primary use case. I’ve found it to be useful for a lot more though, because it effectively gives you a free, temporary Linux virtual machine that you control through the browser. Instead of running Python commands, you can run Linux shell commands by putting an exclamation point at the start. There are some restrictions, such as needing a Google account to sign in, and the file system disappearing after you leave the page or are idle too long, but I’ve found it great for documenting all sorts of installation and build processes in an accessible way.

• $199+ NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano system-on-module delivers up to 40 TOPS - CNX Software

  NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano system-on-module (SoM) is an update to the Jetson Nano entry-level Edge AI and robotics module that delivers up to 40 TOPS of AI performance, meaning it’s up to 80 times faster than the original module.

  The new SoM features an hexa-core Arm Cortex-A78AE processor, an up to 1024-core NVIDIA Ampere architecture GPU with 32 Tensor cores, up to 8GB RAM, and the same 260-pin SO-DIMM connector found in the Jetson Orin NX modules.

• Intel announce their NUC 12 Enthusiast Mini PC and Kit with Arc graphics

  Intel have revealed their new NUC 12 Enthusiast Mini PC and Kit (code-named Serpent Canyon) and I must admit, it looks and sounds pretty nice. Coming with an Intel Arc A770M GPU with 16GB GDDR6 VRAM, this new Mini PC has plenty going for it with a 12th Gen Intel Core™ i7-12700H mobile processor.

• New Khadas Edge2 integrates Rockchip RK3588S and it launches at $199

  Khadas officially launched the Edge2 SBC featuring the powerful octa-core Rockchip RK3588S SoC along with a 6 TOPS performance NPU. The device is available in two models which offer upgradable RAM and storage capacity.