Rev up your browsers, package managers, or whatever other tool you use to avail yourself of new software releases, because the KiCAD team have announced that barring any major bugs being found in the next few hours, tomorrow should see the release of version 9 of the open source EDA suite. Who knows, depending on […]
In the near future, imagine a world where your health is continuously monitored, not through bulky devices but through an invisible graphene tattoo. Developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, these tattoos could soon detect a range of health metrics, including blood pressure, stress levels, and even biomarkers of diseases like diabetes. This technology, though […]
Good news for everyone who cannot get enough from improbably shaped boats that get referred to as a bench: the current owner (NTI Group) of the copyright has announced that 3DBenchy has been released into the public domain. This comes not too long after Prusa’s Printables website had begun to purge all derived models to […]
There’s a constant tension between governments looking for easier ways to catch criminals, companies looking to actually protect their users’ privacy, and individuals who just want their data to be truly private. The UK government has issued an order that threatens to drastically change this landscape, at least when it comes to Apple’s iCloud backups. […]
The days that PDFs were the granny-proof Swiss Army knives of document sharing are definitely over, according to [vk6]. He has managed to pull off the ultimate mind-bender: running Linux inside a PDF file. Yep, you read that right. A full Linux distro chugging along in a virtual machine all encapsulated within a document. Just […]
Mechanical switches are pretty easy to understand—the contacts touch, the current flows, and Bob is, presumably, your uncle. But what about soft switches? Well, they’re not that difficult to understand either, as explained by [EDN]. You can build a touch switch quite easily with old-school chips. The traditional softswitch takes input from a momentary single-pole […]
The Free Software Foundation is holding an auction to celebrate its 40th anniversary. You can bid on the original sketch of the GNU head by [Etienne Suvasa] and [Richard Stallman’s] Internet Hall of Fame medal. There are some other awards, including the FSF’s 1999 Norbert Wiener Award. There’s even a katana that symbolizes the fight […]
A significant event in the world of high-power electrical engineering is under way this weekend, as the three Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, disconnect their common power grid from the Russian system, and hook it up to the European one. It’s a move replete with geopolitical significance, but it’s fascinating from our point of […]
We were surprised when we read a post from C++ creator [Bjarne Stroustrup] that reminded us that C++ is 45 years old. His premise is that C++ is robust and flexible and by following some key precepts, you can avoid problems. We don’t disagree, but C++ is much like its progenitor, C, in that it […]
Bear with us for a moment for a little background. The Rideau Canal Skateway in Ottawa is the world’s largest natural skating rink, providing nearly 8 km of pristine ice surface during the winter. But maintaining such a large ice surface is a challenge. A regular Zamboni can’t do it; the job is just too […]