Readers may recall when we first covered the $5 Xiaomi LYWSD03MMC temperature and humidity sensor back in 2020. Prolific hacker [Aaron Christophel] wrote a custom firmware for the affordable gadget that was so capable and well implemented that it kicked off a whole new community. It’s recently been brought to our attention that the Xiaomi […]
Although the world of the X86 instruction set architecture (ISA) and related ecosystem is often accused of being ‘stale’ and ‘bloated’, we have seen a flurry of recent activity that looks to shake up and set the future course for what is still the main player for desktop, laptop and server systems. Via Tom’s Hardware comes […]
The Swiss Army knife is the most well-known multitool, combining a bunch of functionality into a compact package. [Jeff Gough] decided to build a custom example featuring a selection of his favorite tools. He documents the build in a video series on YouTube (see below). [Jeff] decided to take on the project as a gift […]
There are certain tasks that humans perform every day that are notoriously difficult for computers to figure out. Identifying objects in pictures, for example, was something that seems fairly straightforward but was only done by computers with any semblance of accuracy in the last few years. Even then, it can’t be done without huge amounts […]
LEGO make lots of neat floral arrangements these days, and even little Christmas trees, too. While they’re fun to build out of tiny little blocks, they’re a little small for use as your main Christmas tree. Sadly, a bigger version simply doesn’t exist in the LEGO catalog, so if that’s your desire, you’ll have to […]
Every scout knows how to read a compass, and that there is a magnetic north and a true north. That’s because the Earth’s magnetic field isn’t exactly aligned with the North Pole. Every five years, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the British Geological Survey (BGS) get together to decide if magnetic […]
Each Christmas, [Adam Anderson], [Daniel Quach], and [Johan Wheeler] (going by ‘the Janky Jingle Crew’)—set themselves the challenge of outdoing their previous creations. Last year’s CH32 Fireplace brought an animated LED fire to life with CH32V003 microcontrollers. This year, they’ve gone a step further with the North Pole Circuit, a holiday project that combines magnetic […]
There are plenty of hard jobs out there, like founding your country’s nuclear program, or changing the timing chain on a BMW diesel. Making your own mechanical watch from scratch falls under that umbrella, too. And yet, [John Raffaelli] did just that, and prevailed! That’s a lot of work. Only a handful of components were […]