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Open Hardware/Modding: Fairphone, Arduino, Elektrobit, and More
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We just released the industry’s first ever nature report.
Like it or not, capitalism and nature are deeply linked. Think about it. Over half of the world’s GDP depends on natural capital. We need unpolluted land, clean water, pollution-free air.
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Arduino ☛ New PLC IDE version 1.1.0 brings remote lifecycle management to Opta!
Since its launch in December 2022, the (free!) Arduino PLC IDE was designed to make automation easier, faster, and more approachable for engineers in any industry. Now in its 1.1.0 version, we are proud to say it is taking another leap forward in this direction! What is the Arduino PLC IDE?
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Chris Aldrich ☛ Olympia SG1 Standard Typewriter Clean, Oil, and Adjust
Over the weekend I stripped down my 1956 Olympia SG1 and cleaned all the body panels thoroughly. I had taken out all the old foam, but I also removed the remaining loosened felt pieces.
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Jamie Montgomerie ☛ Rescuing vintage microcontrollers part 3: Life at long last
So far in this series, I found some decades-old Signetics SCN8031AH and OKI MSM83C154 microcontrollers in a drawer, and worked out that they’re 8051 and 8052 derivatives (members of the MCS-51 family) from the 1980s, and calculated that it should be possible to make them control modern WS2812 LED strips.
In this installment, I get one of the microcontrollers set up on breadboards and get it to, at last, fulfill its purpose and BLINK AN LED!
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Mixterla ☛ Simple Screw Counter
I have wasted a significant chunk of my life counting out small numbers of parts into bags and posting them to people.
It's not that I'm complaining about the popularity of my precision clock kits, but it does feel like the time could be better spent. I'm apparently such an anxious person that until recently I wasn't even comfortable listening to the radio or a podcast while I work. The risk of making a mistake, posting the wrong number of parts to someone, was too great.
But the process is kind of zen, so during the long hours of manually counting out nuts and bolts I started to dream about automation.
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Automotive World Ltd ☛ Elektrobit demos automotive Linux at embedded world
Elektrobit is demonstrating its Linux-based functional safety platform for automotive applications at embedded world 2026 in Nuremberg from 10-12 March. The company is showcasing a safe cockpit demo based on EB corbos Linux for Safety Applications, following its recent announcement of Linux-based functional safety in a production-grade automotive platform with Mobileye.