Devices and Open Hardware/Modding
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Is cybersecurity holding back IoT uptake?
The trouble comes in that cybersecurity is not simply an add-on. Rather, it is a foundational element required to unlock the vast and varied capabilities of IoT.
McKinsey, in its report Cybersecurity for the IoT: how trust can unlock value, notes that poor cybersecurity strategies have created vulnerabilities that make adoption difficult. For example, studies have shown that there exists a significant disconnect between IoT buyers and providers when it comes to the importance of digital trust and privacy.
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Linux Gizmos ☛ USB Insight Hub for Advanced USB Monitoring and Control
CrowdSupply recently launched the USB Insight Hub, a tool designed to provide detailed monitoring and control over multiple USB devices. Built for developers and tech enthusiasts, this hub offers a range of monitoring features, allowing users to view power and data usage in depth.
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You know what scares us about big tech? Planned obsolescence.
In the spirit of Halloween, let’s talk about something truly chilling in the electronics industry: planned obsolescence. Beyond the tricky spelling, the real horror lies in how common it’s become. When companies design products to expire on purpose, there’s a serious problem. Is there any evidence of companies actually doing this?
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Open Hardware/Modding
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Arduino ☛ This disturbing Halloween doll was brought to life with Bottango
An Arduino UNO Rev3 board controls the servo motors through an Adafruit 16-channel PWM servo driver board. That Arduino acts as a hardware driver for Bottango, which is software that was developed specifically for animatronics projects like this one.
Using Bottango, Coward was able to create complex animations that involve all of the servo motors moving simultaneously. A child-size onesie (another thrift store find) covers the skeleton and electronics, completing the illusion of a doll come to life.
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Wouter Groeneveld ☛ Replacing a Baby AT Motherboard
It took me more than two months to finally unwrap that eBay present containing a Pine Technology PT-428 baby AT Socket 3 motherboard. The original one in the 486 case, a PCChips M602, died on me this summer. Well, died is perhaps a bit exaggerated: the keyboard suddenly refused to be recognized and the HDD controller started getting funky. Since I have very limited 30+ year old hardware supplies, replacing certain parts to debug the problem is easier said than done.
The result: it works! Well… Something else stopped working correctly. Of course it did. Repairing old hardware is like a yin yang thing: something is fixed, something else breaks. To ensure that ever-lasting balance—all for the greater good. More on that soon.
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