Open Hardware: Raspberry Pi, RISC-V, Repairability
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Raspberry Pi Pico brings a 'WOPR' of a feature to a server rack
Every now and then, you'll find a maker with an itch to spruce up their hardware with a Raspberry Pi and we're all for it. Today we're showing off a cool server rack upgrade put together by maker and developer Aforsberg, as they're known as over at Printables, that uses a Raspberry Pi Pico to power a cool LED matrix setup that looks like the WOPR (War Operation Plan Response) computer from the 1983 movie War Games.
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CNX Software ☛ Solar-powered LLM over Meshtastic solution may provide live-saving instructions during disasters and emergencies
People are trying to run LLMs on all sorts of low-end hardware with often limited usefulness, and when I saw a solar LLM over Meshtastic demo on X, I first laughed. I did not see the reason for it and LoRa hardware is usually really low-end with Meshtastic open-source firmware typically used for off-grid messaging and GPS location sharing. But after thinking more about it, it could prove useful to receive information through mobile devices during disasters where power and internet connectivity can not be taken for granted.
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The Responsible Lithium Partnership ends… with a new beginning
It was in 2021 that we helped launch the Responsible Lithium Partnership. It was a momentous occasion for us from an impact perspective, working alongside automotive heavyweights like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, and Daimler, as well as global chemical manufacturer, BASF.
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CNX Software ☛ STMicro expands the STM32C0 Cortex-M0+ MCU family with STM32C051, STM32C091, and STM32C092 (with CAN FD)
STMicro first introduced the STM32C0 32-bit Arm Cortex-M0+ MCU family as an 8-bit MCU killer in 2023, followed by the STM32C071 adding USB FS and designed for appliances with graphical user interfaces (GUI). The company has now added three new parts with the STM32C051, STM32C091, and STM32C092. The STM32C051 is similar to the original STM32C031 but adds more storage (64KB vs 32KB) and is offered in packages with up to 48 pins, while the STM32C09x parts offer flash densities up to 256 KB in packages up to 64 pins, and the STM32C092 also gains a CAN FD interface. The STM32C09x parts can be seen as an update to the STM32C071 where more flash memory is needed.
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India Times ☛ RISC-V: Ex-Intel executives raise $21.5 million for RISC-V chip startup
Cofounded by several former Intel central processing unit (CPU) engineers and executives, the company plans to build technology and chips based on the open source architecture called RISC-V, pronounced "risk five."
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Desktop/Laptop
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The Register UK ☛ Laptop repairability improvements have stalled, says PIRG
The Public Interest Research Group, a US-based non-profit that's long been part of a coalition of repairability advocates, said in its 2025 Failing the Fix report that the latest generation of smartphones became more repairable in 2024, particularly in ease of disassembly.
Laptops, however, saw little to no advances, with most brands remaining difficult to mend.
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