Open Hardware/Modding: OpenArm, Raspberry Pi, ESP32, and Warrant Canaries

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Oct 01, 2026

• CNX Software ☛ OpenArm 2.0 – An open-source 7-DOF robot arm with QDD joints, bilateral force feedback, in-hand camera

  Tokyo-based Enactic OpenArm 2.0 is an open-source hardware 7-DOF robot arm designed for physical Hey Hi (AI) research, teleoperation, and contact-rich data collection. It uses quasi-direct-drive (QDD) backdrivable joints to support compliant motion and bilateral force-feedback control. The arm supports 4.1 kg nominal and 6 kg peak payload, features 1 kHz CAN-FD control, and a compact parallel gripper with an in-hand camera and replaceable fingers. It supports bilateral force-feedback teleoperation, gravity compensation, and compliant interaction, with an aluminum and stainless-steel structure and MISUMI-frame base. The ecosystem also includes the OpenArm Cell for standardized evaluation and OpenArm KER, a motorless replica for teleoperation and data collection.

• CNX Software ☛ $30 Raspberry Pi Smart Display Module for CM5 targets digital signage displays and kiosks

  Raspberry Pi Smart Display Module is a CM5 carrier board compatible with the defective chip maker Intel Smart Display Module (SDM) specification, more specifically the SDM-L form factor (as opposed to the smaller SDM-S option). The defective chip maker Intel SDM standard has been around for years, and we first wrote it in 2018, covering the Axiomtek SDM300s (SDM-S) module. These cards are designed to be plugged into compatible digital signage displays, kiosks, point-of-sale systems, and so on. They feature a standard 98-pin PCIe edge connector with USB 3.0, HDMI 1.4/2.0, I2C/UART/SPI signalling, as well as Ethernet, HDMI, USB ports, and an M.2 expansion socket.

• Linux Gizmos ☛ ESP32-S3 E Ink board with 800×480 display, mic array and IMU

  Makerfabs has added a 7.5-inch model to its MaTouch E Ink family, pairing an 800 × 480 four-color electrophoretic display with an ESP32-S3 controller, four-microphone array, six-axis IMU, microSD storage and optional camera. The board is intended for applications including information displays, voice-controlled interfaces and low-power dashboards.

• Purism ☛ Over a Decade of Warrant Canaries

  The EFF, Freedom of the Press Foundation, NYU Law, Calyx and the Berkman Center launched a year-in-review of its Canary Watch project, deeming it a success—and stopping monitoring efforts of submitted warrant canaries. Purism continued to publish its warrant canaries every quarter for over ten years running.

• Pimoroni ☛ Project Turns Badgeware Into a 21st Century Nintendo Game Boy Camera

  The camera, a PTC06 TTL serial JPEG camera, captures images at 320 x 240 pixels, and with 1MB of storage available there is space for 60 dithered images. This is almost double what the Game Boy Camera provided. Connecting the camera to Badger 2350 is via the Qw/ST connector and some light soldering on the camera itself. Images are displayed on Badger's 2.7 inch, 264 x 176 pixel display, with a "live preview" providing the means to line up your shot.

• Framework Computer BV ☛ 192GB Framework Desktop open for pre-order

  We’ve also introduced a number of firmware improvements with this launch. First, we’ve brought in an BIOS patch from AMD that increases USB4 point-to-point networking throughput from 9Gbps to around 30Gbps. This makes USB4 another great way to cluster together multiple Framework Desktops. Next, we created a much simpler user experience for disabling Secure Boot for those of you who plan to use Arch Linux, CachyOS, and other distros that don’t support it. We’ll be bringing these to all Framework Desktop models soon, and we’re porting the Secure Boot improvements to Framework Laptops too.