The ancient question of whether or not it’s possible to construct a circle with the same area as a given square using only a drawing compass and straightedge was finally answered in 1882, where it was proved that pi is a transcendental number, meaning it cannot be accurately represented in a compass-and-straightedge system. This inability […]
Imagine a line of affordable toys controlled by the player’s brainwaves. By interpreting biosignals picked up by the dry electroencephalogram (EEG) electrodes in an included headset, the game could infer the wearer’s level of concentration, through which it would be possible to move physical objects or interact with virtual characters. You might naturally assume such […]
Apple AirTags have speakers in them, and the speaker is not entirely under the owner’s control. [Shahram] shows how the speaker of an AirTag can be disabled while keeping the device watertight. Because AirTags are not intended to be opened or tampered with, doing so boils down to making a hole in just the right […]
Although off-the-shelf breadboards are plentiful and cheap, they almost always seem to use the same basic design. Although you can clumsily reassemble most of them by removing the voltage rail section and merging a few boards together, wouldn’t it be nice if you had a breadboard that you could stick e.g. one of those wide […]
More molten plastic spacers between the bus bar and terminal. (Credit: Will Prowse) Because size matters when it comes to statistics, [Will Prowse] decided to not just bank on his handful of failed Battle Born LFP batteries when it came to documenting their failure modes. Instead he got a whole gaggle of them from a […]
With more and more sensors being crammed into the consumer devices that many of us wear every day, the question of where medical devices begin and end, and how they should be regulated become ever more pertinent. When a ‘watch’ no longer just shows the time, but can keep track of a dozen vital measurements, […]
[GreatScott] has recently been tinkering in the world of radio frequency emissions, going so far as to put their own designs in a proper test chamber to determine whether they meet contemporary standards for noise output. This led them to explore the concept of shielding, and how a bit of well-placed metal can make all […]
For a long while, digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras were the king of the castle for professional and amateur photography. They brought large sensors, interchangeable lenses, and professional-level viewfinders to the digital world at approachable prices, and then cemented their lead when they started being used to create video as well. They’re experiencing a bit […]
You may not remember [Mr. Wizard], but he was a staple of nerd kids over a few decades, teaching science to kids via the magic of television. The Computer History Archives Project has a partially restored film of [Mr. Wizard] showing off sounds and noise on a state-of-the-art (for 1963) Tektronix 504 oscilloscope. He talks […]
Isn’t this glorious? If you don’t recognize what this is right away (or from the post title), it’s an AlphaSmart NEO word processor, repackaged in a 3D-printed typewriter-esque shell, meticulously designed by the renowned [Un Kyu Lee] of Micro Journal fame. Image by [Un Kyu Lee] via GitHub If you don’t want to spend roughly […]