news
Linux Devices, Open Hardware, and Gadgets
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Matt Webb ☛ Courier: real-time messaging for ESP32 with batteries included (new library)
Courier does a small and necessary job (messaging) in the most straightforward way possible.
Let’s say you’re using Arduino on ESP32. I’ll say more about ESP32 in a minute.
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Bootlin ☛ Bootlin training courses on NXP i.MX93 FRDM, and NXP Registered Partner status
Bootlin’s training courses, along with our freely available training materials, have been a cornerstone of the embedded GNU/Linux ecosystem for over 20 years. During this time, we have continuously expanded and refined our training portfolio, both to cover new technical topics and to adopt new hardware platforms for our practical lab sessions.
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CNX Software ☛ UGV Beast – An off-road tracked Hey Hi (AI) robot built for Raspberry Pi 4/5
Waveshare UGV Beast is an off-road robot with tracked wheels designed for Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 SBC handling Hey Hi (AI) vision and strategy planning, while an ESP32 sub-controller takes care of motion control and sensor data processing. If the design feels familiar, it’s because it’s a variant of the UGV Rover unmanned ground vehicle we covered in 2024, which replaces the six wheels of the original model with two continuous tracks, as found in military tanks, for better driving in difficult terrain.
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peppe8o ☛ Power on / Shutdown Button with Raspberry PI (and How to Avoid Shutdown Options)
This tutorial will show you how to create a power-on / shutdown button for Raspberry PI computer boards. Due to their low cost, mini button switches are useful for many purposes.
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Hackaday ☛ The Electromechanical Computer Of The B-52’s Star Tracker
In the ages before convenient global positioning satellites to query for one’s current location military aircraft required dedicated navigators in order to not get lost. This changed with increasing automation, including the arrival of increasingly more sophisticated electromechanical computers, such as the angle computer in the B-52 bomber’s star tracker that [Ken Shirriff] recently had a poke at.
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Star Labs ☛ Wait is over - coreboot on the AMD StarBook®
This one has been a long time coming.
We have coreboot available now for the AMD StarBook Mk VI. Not "we got to the splash screen once and decided to call it done", but an actual usable beta with working WiFi, working S3, firmware updates, and a sane path back to stock if you want out.
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This Engineer Got a Tesla To Play Rick Astley From a Retro Floppy Disk
Ukrainian electronics engineer Oleg Kutkov recently orchestrated an absurdly nostalgic crossover, proving that a modern Tesla vehicle can still communicate with 45-year-old storage tech. By routing the legacy hardware through a USB-to-FDD converter in the EV’s glove compartment, the car instantly recognized a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive. To flex the setup’s functionality, Kutkov successfully loaded and played a severely compressed MP3 file of Rick Astley‘s ubiquitous hit, “Never Gonna Give You Up.” The magnetic head could audibly be heard grinding away as the track slowly materialized, underscoring the stark generational gap between the hardware and the hyper-modern cabin.
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Two Makers Just Built the Pocket Linux PC Big Tech Refused To Make - Yanko Design
The commercial laptop market has gotten good at making portable computers slim and powerful, but it hasn't quite figured out what to do with people who want something truly pocketable.