news
Open Hardware/Modding: Small Computers, PocketBook Q, RISC-V, ESP32, and More
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It's FOSS ☛ This Tiny USB Device Turns Your Phone Into a Keyboard, Mouse, and SSH Terminal
The $42 open source dongle gives you BIOS-level keyboard and mouse control plus SSH access. No software installation is needed on the target machine.
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CNX Software ☛ Firehat is an open-source FireWire DV capture HAT for SBCs with Raspberry Pi PCIe FFC connector (Crowdfunding)
Computer Equipment Group has launched the Firehat, an open-source FireWire HAT that adds a native IEEE 1394 / i.LINK / DV port to SBCs with a Raspberry Pi PCIe FFC connector like the Pi 5 or the Radxa ROCK 2F. Built around a VIA VT6315N controller, the Firehat provides a modern way to capture footage from MiniDV, Digital8, DVCAM, DVCPRO, and HDV camcorders. It lets users connect compatible cameras or decks to an SBC and record the original digital DV stream directly to local storage, without legacy computers or discontinued FireWire capture cards.
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Hackaday ☛ Blow Those Pyros With A Telephone!
A pyrotechnic charge is set off by passing a high voltage through a filament within it, melting the filament and igniting the charge. We could think of a variety of circuits that could do this, but perhaps we wouldn’t have come up with [Michał Słomkowski]’s solution. He’s used the ringer crank generator from an old military field telephone. It’s an old project he’s shared with us due to its recent republishing on his website.
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Hackaday ☛ Anatomy Of An SLA Resin Printing Disaster
For last article’s resin print, I had to put a number of models onto the build plate in the slicer, after which I mashed ‘auto arrange’, ‘auto orient’ and then ‘auto support’ in their respective tabs. I did change the orientation of the beam so that it wasn’t pointing straight upward any more, as I wasn’t going to wait a few extra hours for it to print just for that single object.
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Linux Gizmos ☛ Upcoming Jetson Orin Nano 2 boosts edge AI performance to 78 TOPS [Ed: So much focus on slop]
NVIDIA has announced the Jetson Orin Nano 2, an updated edge AI platform aimed at robotics, drones, machine vision, and other embedded AI applications. The new module provides up to 78 TOPS of AI performance, 8GB of memory, and an 8-core Arm CPU while retaining the compact form factor of the previous Jetson Orin Nano generation.
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The PocketBook Q is a Linux-based alternative to Android ereaders — new Boox rival has a 5.84-inch E Ink screen and will cost $235
It seems like there's a growing hunger for small ereaders, as following in the footsteps of the Boox Palma series, the Viwoods AiPaper Reader, and the even smaller Xteink devices, there's now the phone-sized PocketBook Q.
This new ereader has a 5.84-inch E Ink Carta 1300 touchscreen with a 788 x 1576 resolution, a front light that lets you adjust both brightness and color temperature, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a 1,550mAh battery which supposedly allows for more than a month of reading on a single charge.
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Snapdragon Laptops Break Free from Windows Exclusivity as Qualcomm Embraces Linux and Google's New OS
Qualcomm is accelerating support for operating systems beyond Windows on its Snapdragon PC platform, ending a nearly decade-long exclusive tie-up with Microsoft. The journey began in 2019 when the Linaro community independently adapted Linux for Snapdragon laptops, with Qualcomm officially joining in 2021 and announcing official Linux kernel support for the Snapdragon X Elite platform in May 2024. Recently, Saudi company Humain teased a new product featuring the Snapdragon X2 Elite processor running a non-Windows OS, while Qualcomm has joined Google's Googlebook ecosystem, with Snapdragon X series chips set to support Aluminium OS. Analysts believe that with Snapdragon laptops no longer tied exclusively to Windows, older devices may gain a second life through new operating systems, while the Windows on Arm ecosystem will accelerate its maturation with new entrants like Nvidia. Arm PCs are finally gaining the OS and software ecosystem foundation needed to compete on equal footing with x86.
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Tech Times ☛ LilyGo Launches K230 Kit: RISC-V AI Pocket Computer Blocked From Current Ubuntu
LilyGo has upgraded its T-Display K230 development board into a complete, enclosure-packaged handheld computer — one that ships with onboard audio, a temperature sensor, long-range LoRa radio, and an optional physical keyboard. The result, available now starting at $150.31, is among the most fully featured pocket-sized RISC-V platforms accessible to developers and hobbyists, combining on-device AI inference, off-grid mesh radio, HDMI desktop output, and a full Linux-capable processor in a body measuring approximately 4.1 × 2.0 × 0.6 inches (104 × 51 × 15.5 mm).
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Adafruit ☛ Espressif posts a Linux BSP for the ESP32-S31
The ESP32-S31 is getting Linux support from Espressif. The dual-core RISC-V part was unveiled in March, two development boards followed in May, and mass production was announced a few weeks ago. The chip includes an MMU, which makes Linux far more tractable, and the boards carry 16MB PSRAM — enough for a minimal Linux image.
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Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications
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Jeff Geerling ☛ Debugging Ubiquiti's 5G Backup on AT&T
I decided to test the UniFi 5G Backup, which is a small PoE-powered 5G RedCap-enabled device good for up to 220 Mbps of downlink bandwidth. It takes a SIM card, and because other 5G products list AT&T and T-Mobile network support, I assumed this device would work with an AT&T Enterprise 'AIA' plan (which differs from the consumer 5G plans, and supports 5G RedCap).
Later on, I did notice this warning in their device FAQ: [...]
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