Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

Pi Pico Rx: A Minimalist Software Defined Radio

2025-03-26

This article details the Pi Pico Rx, a remarkably simple software-defined radio (SDR) receiver built around a Raspberry Pi Pico. Using only a few components – a Pico, an analog switch, and an op-amp – it covers LW, MW, and SW bands, receiving signals from across the globe. The Pi Pico Rx cleverly utilizes the RP2040's PIO feature for quadrature oscillator generation and employs unique IQ sampling and DSP algorithms to demodulate AM, FM, SSB, and CW. Further features include an OLED display, spectrum scope, 512 programmable memory channels, headphone/speaker output, making it a functional and accessible DIY project.

(101-things.readthedocs.io)

Hardware DIY Electronics

AMD's Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs Sell 10x More Units in First Week

2025-03-25

AMD CEO Lisa Su announced that the Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards have been a phenomenal success, selling ten times more units than their predecessors in their first week on the market. This success is attributed to AMD's focus on delivering top-tier gaming performance at competitive prices. While current supply is limited and prices are exceeding MSRP, AMD is aggressively increasing production. More RDNA 4 cards are on the way, with the rumored RX 9060 potentially included in the lineup.

(www.techspot.com)

Hardware

Overprovisioning Fiber: Better Safe Than Sorry

2025-03-25

When planning fiber cabling between rooms or buildings, err on the side of caution and install more fiber than you initially need. Future expansion, bandwidth upgrades, and new protocols all demand extra capacity. Furthermore, fiber failures do happen—sometimes inexplicably—and having spare pairs allows for quick recovery. While single-mode and multi-mode fibers have different applications, having sufficient redundancy is crucial for minimizing downtime and costs.

(utcc.utoronto.ca)

Hardware fiber cabling network infrastructure redundancy

Elecom's Na Plus: First Consumer Sodium-Ion Power Bank is Here (But It's Bulky)

2025-03-25

Accessory maker Elecom has launched the Na Plus, the first consumer-ready power bank using sodium-ion batteries. Boasting superior environmental friendliness, extreme temperature tolerance, and a claimed lifespan of nearly 5,000 charges, it promises long-term durability. However, the 9,000mAh Na Plus, priced at ~$67, is significantly larger and heavier than comparable lithium-ion alternatives, offering less power output (max 45W). While sodium-ion technology is still nascent, its eco-friendly and safer nature makes it a promising long-term solution, with potential for future cost and size reductions.

(www.theverge.com)

Hardware sodium-ion battery power bank

Hacker News: Comsol 8GB USB Drive Teardown and Firmware Optimization

2025-03-25

The author disassembled a Comsol 8GB USB drive and discovered it uses a soldered-down microSDHC card and an Alcor Micro AU6989SN-GT controller. Using AlcorMP software, the author optimized the drive's firmware, improving read/write speeds and capacity. The article details AlcorMP software usage, and the impact of ECC settings, capacity/speed optimization, and cache program parameters on performance. Ultimately, the author significantly improved the drive's performance and stability, sharing their optimal settings.

(goughlui.com)

Hardware

My Bosch Dishwasher Demands a Cloud Connection: A Lament

2025-03-24

The author bought a Bosch 500 series dishwasher, praising its easy installation. However, key features like delayed start and eco mode require a Home Connect app and Wi-Fi connection. This sparked a reflection on manufacturers' over-reliance on cloud control, potentially contributing to planned obsolescence and data harvesting. The author argues that appliances should prioritize local control, with cloud features as add-ons, not replacements for core functionality. This creates unnecessary obstacles and dependence on internet access for basic operations.

(www.jeffgeerling.com)

Hardware planned obsolescence

AMD RDNA 4: Out-of-Order Memory Accesses and the Elimination of False Dependencies

2025-03-23

AMD's RDNA 4 architecture introduces significant memory subsystem enhancements, notably addressing false dependencies between wavefronts present in RDNA 3 and earlier architectures. Previously, one wavefront could be stalled by another's memory accesses, impacting performance. RDNA 4 resolves this by implementing new out-of-order queues, allowing requests from different shaders to be serviced out of order. This article details testing that verifies this improvement and compares AMD, Intel, and Nvidia GPU architectures in handling cross-wave memory dependencies. While not entirely novel, RDNA 4's improvements significantly enhance performance, particularly in emerging workloads like ray tracing.

(chipsandcheese.com)

Hardware GPU architecture memory subsystem

Running Steam on an Orange Pi 5 Plus: A Ludicrously Neat Experiment

2025-03-23

The author details a six-step process for installing Steam on an Orange Pi 5 Plus, involving Armbian installation, adding Box86/64 repositories, installing dependencies, and further configuration. While successful, performance is inconsistent, with most tested games running at 720p and barely exceeding 30 FPS. The author concludes it's more a fun technical challenge than a practical gaming solution, although future improvements from Collabora and Valve's ARM initiatives might change that.

(interfacinglinux.com)

Hardware

Home Batteries vs. Gas Generators: The Backup Power Showdown

2025-03-23

With rising grid outage risks, home batteries and gas generators are top choices for backup power. Gas generators offer a lower upfront cost, but higher long-term running and fuel costs, plus noise and carbon monoxide risks. Home batteries, especially paired with solar, have higher initial investment but benefit from tax credits, lower operating costs, and quieter, cleaner operation. Batteries last about 10 years, generators 20+, but require maintenance. Ultimately, home batteries win on flexible installation, quiet operation, and ease of maintenance, making them a more convenient backup power solution.

(pv-magazine-usa.com)

Hardware home energy storage backup power

Resurrecting a Caltech DEC Pro 380: A Retro Hardware Upgrade

2025-03-22

This article details the author's journey upgrading a vintage DEC Professional 380 computer, a relic from Caltech, based on the PDP-11 architecture. This machine represents one of DEC's less successful forays into the personal computer market, but its robust build and unique design remain fascinating. The author meticulously documents the upgrade process, including replacing the aging hard drive with an SSD and upgrading the RAM, alongside experiences using the PRO/VENIX operating system. Interwoven is a compelling history of DEC's struggles in the PC market and the evolution of the PDP-11 architecture, making for a technically detailed and engaging read.

(oldvcr.blogspot.com)

Hardware

Interactive Smart Cake: A Camera Disguised as Dessert

2025-03-22

This article details the creation of an interactive smart cake, a collaboration between the author and a confectionery roboticist. The cake, designed to resemble a camera, incorporates a camera, LEDs, a thermal printer, and other interactive components. It detects faces, takes photos, and prints personalized receipts. The article provides a detailed walkthrough of the hardware, software, code, and assembly process, culminating in a delicious and photographically capable cake!

(medium.com)

Hardware Smart Hardware Creative Project

Pocket Keyboard Design Contest: A Clash of Creativity and Technology

2025-03-22

A unique pocket keyboard design contest has concluded, showcasing amazing entries. Participants cleverly utilized Bluetooth, minimal key layouts, side buttons, folding designs, and more to create portable keyboards that are both practical and aesthetically pleasing. 'bubby', with its innovative side-button design, won the grand prize, while several other ingenious keyboards also received awards. The contest not only demonstrated the participants' exceptional creativity but also advanced innovation in the field of pocket keyboard design.

(chrischrislolo.github.io)

Hardware creative design

Untapped GPU Power: The Path to a Better Parallel Computer

2025-03-21

While GPUs boast immense power for real-time graphics and machine learning, their general-purpose computing potential remains untapped. This article delves into the limitations of current GPU architectures, examining the successes and failures of pioneering parallel computing designs like the Connection Machine, Cell, and Larrabee. The author proposes several paths forward, including building large core grids, running Vulkan commands from the GPU side, improving work graphs, or evolving CPU parallel computing capabilities. The ultimate goal is a more powerful and programmable parallel computer to unlock the potential of new algorithms and applications.

(raphlinus.github.io)

Hardware hardware architecture

Beta Release: SSB Firmware for QMX/QMX+ Transceivers

2025-03-21

QRP Labs releases a beta version of SSB firmware for its QMX/QMX+ transceivers. This firmware utilizes polar modulation and boasts a rich feature set including audio equalization, microphone AGC, compression, and digital pre-distortion. The release includes comprehensive instructions and testing procedures, along with a microphone test tool and a calibration tool to optimize SSB performance. The article details the underlying polar modulation technique and explains the firmware's features and known issues.

(qrp-labs.com)

Hardware

HP's Dynamic Security Under Fire Again: Lawsuits Mount Over Ink Cartridge Restrictions

2025-03-20

HP is facing renewed backlash over its Dynamic Security feature in printers. This feature, which uses firmware updates to block non-HP ink cartridges, has led to numerous lawsuits and customer complaints. While HP now includes disclaimers on product pages and has previously paid settlements, a new class-action lawsuit alleges HP is using Dynamic Security to create a monopoly on the aftermarket for replacement cartridges. Recently, a firmware update even bricked some HP printers, further fueling negative sentiment.

(arstechnica.com)

Hardware Printers Dynamic Security

ASUS Ascent GX10: A Lightweight AI Powerhouse Challenging the Mac Studio?

2025-03-20

At GTC 2025, ASUS unveiled the Ascent GX10 mini PC, powered by NVIDIA's GB10 chip. This compact powerhouse boasts an Arm CPU, Blackwell GPU, 128GB of LPDDR5x shared memory, and a ConnectX-7 NIC for 200GbE clustering. Priced at $2999, it undercuts NVIDIA's DGX Spark by $1000, offering exceptional value. Despite its portability, its powerful computing capabilities and clustering functionality make it a strong contender in the AI space, potentially challenging products like the Apple Mac Studio.

(www.servethehome.com)

Hardware AI mini PC NVIDIA Blackwell

Hidden Windows FAQ: New Settings Feature Unveiled

2025-03-20

Recent Windows builds (26120.3576 and 22635.5090) include a hidden FAQ list accessible within Settings > System > About. This list addresses questions related to Windows version and device specifications. It can be enabled using the command `vivetool /enable /id:55305888`.

(bsky.app)

Hardware System Settings

Intel Xe3 Architecture Deep Dive: Significant Improvements Target High-End Market

2025-03-19

Details of Intel's Xe3 GPU architecture have emerged, with software development visible across several open-source repositories. Xe3 boasts a potential maximum of 256 Xe Cores, significantly more than its predecessor, supporting up to 32,768 FP32 lanes. Improvements include 10 concurrent threads per XVE, flexible register allocation, increased scoreboard tokens, and a new gather-send instruction. Additionally, Xe3 introduces Sub-Triangle Opacity Culling (STOC), which subdivides triangles to reduce wasted shader work, enhancing ray tracing performance. These advancements bring Intel's architecture closer to AMD and Nvidia's in terms of performance and efficiency, signaling Intel's ambition in the high-end GPU market.

(chipsandcheese.com)

Hardware GPU Architecture

Pixel 9a: A Kid-Friendly Phone with Robust Parental Controls

2025-03-19

The Google Pixel 9a is designed with kids in mind, offering a suite of safety and parental control features. Parents can manage their child's account and device using Google Family Link, controlling screen time, monitoring app usage, approving downloads, setting privacy options, and sharing location. A new 'School Time' feature restricts functionality and silences notifications during school hours. Additionally, Google Wallet for kids is rolling out on the Pixel 9a, enabling safer payments with Google Pay and allowing kids to add passes like movie tickets and library cards. Parents maintain control over payment cards and passes through Family Link.

(blog.google)

Hardware kids phone parental controls google wallet

Intel Drops 256-bit AVX-10 Mode, Goes All-in on 512-bit

2025-03-19

Intel has significantly revised its AVX-10 instruction set whitepaper, abandoning the previously planned optional 256-bit mode in favor of a full 512-bit vector width. This means future Intel E-core processors will fully support AVX-512, aligning with AMD's Zen 4 architecture. The change stems from updated GCC compiler patches removing 256-bit compatibility. This simplifies instruction set handling and boosts the competitiveness of future Intel Xeon E-core server platforms, better competing with AMD's EPYC processors. While a late decision, it positively impacts the future of the x86_64 microarchitecture.

(www.phoronix.com)

Hardware 512-bit vector

Fanless M4 MacBook Air: Performance and Power Efficiency

2025-03-19

The new MacBook Air features a fanless M4 chip, offering performance on par with other M4 Macs. It boasts a 10-core CPU (4 performance and 6 efficiency cores) and a 10-core GPU. While sustained heavy workloads may cause slight performance throttling, it performs nearly identically to actively cooled M4 versions in most everyday tasks. Compared to the M3, the M4 offers a 15-30% CPU performance boost and a 10-20% GPU improvement. Against the M1, the overall performance increase is a substantial 50-70%. While it throttles under extreme stress tests, the M4 provides a noticeable performance upgrade for typical users, exceeding the needs of most daily workflows.

(arstechnica.com)

Hardware fanless design

Nvidia Unveils Personal AI Supercomputers: DGX Spark and DGX Station

2025-03-19

Nvidia launched two personal AI supercomputers, DGX Spark and DGX Station, powered by the Grace Blackwell platform. These new AI PC architectures are designed for running neural networks and will be manufactured by five major PC manufacturers. Aimed at developers and researchers, the DGX systems allow for local prototyping, fine-tuning, and running of large AI models. They also act as bridge systems, easily transferring models between desktop and cloud environments. DGX Spark offers impressive performance, while DGX Station boasts enhanced memory and networking speeds.

(arstechnica.com)

Hardware AI Supercomputers

SheepShaver: Open-Source PowerPC Mac Emulator

2025-03-18

SheepShaver is an open-source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator capable of running Mac OS 7.5.2 through 9.0.4. Originally a commercial product for BeOS (1998), it was open-sourced in 2002 and ported to Windows, Linux, and macOS. While primary development ceased in 2008, community contributions continue, making it a valuable tool for running older Mac OS versions, especially as the Classic Environment is absent in newer macOS releases. Users need to supply their own ROM image and Mac OS copy.

(www.emaculation.com)

Hardware

Nvidia Unveils RTX Pro Blackwell GPU Lineup for Professionals

2025-03-18

Nvidia today announced its RTX Pro Blackwell series of GPUs, designed for professional designers, developers, data scientists, and creatives. The lineup includes a flagship RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell GPU for workstations, along with other desktop and laptop variants, and a datacenter version of the RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell. The workstation RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell boasts 96GB of GDDR7 memory and a 600-watt power draw (slightly higher than the RTX 5090's 575 watts). It features PCIe Gen 5 support, DisplayPort 2.1, and the latest Blackwell generation RT and Tensor cores. This GPU targets professionals working on game development, AI workloads, and other demanding tasks requiring significant VRAM and processing power. Max-Q and server variants are also planned. Nvidia is replacing its previous RTX numbering scheme and Quadro branding with the new RTX Pro branding. Also launching are the RTX Pro 5000 and 4000 Blackwell for desktops and laptops, and the RTX Pro 4500 Blackwell for desktops. Laptop versions will include 3000, 2000, 1000, and 500 models, featuring up to 24GB of VRAM and Nvidia's latest Blackwell Max-Q technologies for AI-powered performance and power optimization. These laptops will compete with AMD's Strix Halo chips, which offer 128GB of unified memory. Pricing for the RTX Pro 6000 workstation variant hasn't been revealed, but availability begins in April from distributors like PNY and TD Synnex, with OEMs like Dell, HP, and Lenovo following in May. The server variant will be available from Cisco, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Supermicro soon, with cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and CoreWeave offering it later this year. The rest of the RTX Pro Blackwell workstation lineup arrives this summer from Boxx, Dell, HP, and Lenovo, with laptop variants shipping in Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Razer devices later this year.

(www.theverge.com)

Hardware Professional GPUs

10 Years of Hardware Startup Lessons Condensed into a 300+ Page Book

2025-03-18

An engineer with over a decade of experience across multiple hardware startups has compiled their hard-earned wisdom into a 300+ page guide to electronics design. Covering everything from ideation and component selection to schematic design, PCB layout, cost optimization, manufacturing, testing, lab setup, troubleshooting, demo tips, and recommended companies, this book aims to accelerate your learning and prevent common pitfalls. A free digital copy or a physical copy for $39 is available.

(www.hscott.net)

Hardware electronics engineering startup lessons

NVIDIA's Global Website Directory

2025-03-18

NVIDIA provides a comprehensive list of its regional websites, allowing users to access localized content, pricing, and retailer information based on their country. The list includes links to sites for Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, India, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Middle East, Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Peru, Poland, Rest of Europe, Romania, Singapore, Finland, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, CIS, Korea, Mainland China, Taiwan, and Japan.

(www.nvidia.com)

Hardware Global Websites Regional Information

Pebble's Back: Core Devices Unveils Two New Smartwatches

2025-03-18

Eric Migicovsky, the original creator of the Pebble smartwatch, is back with his new company, Core Devices, launching two new smartwatches: the Core 2 Duo and the Core Time 2. The Core 2 Duo, launching in July for $149, is essentially a resurrected Pebble 2, using leftover parts and boasting a 30+ day battery life and a speaker. The Core Time 2, arriving in December for $225, updates the Pebble Time 2 design with a touchscreen, while retaining the long battery life, customizability, and hacker-friendly features. Both run the open-sourced Pebble OS, offering a nostalgic experience, though iPhone compatibility remains a challenge.

(www.theverge.com)

Hardware

Open Source PebbleOS Smartwatches Are Back: Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2 Pre-orders Open

2025-03-18

rePebble has announced two new smartwatches running open-source PebbleOS: the Core 2 Duo and the Core Time 2. The Core 2 Duo features an ultra-crisp black and white display, a polycarbonate frame, costs $149, and starts shipping in July. The Core Time 2 boasts a larger 64-color display, a metal frame, costs $225, and begins shipping in December. Both watches are inspired by the classic Pebble design, offering long battery life, a simple and beautiful aesthetic, and compatibility with thousands of existing Pebble apps. Available exclusively for pre-order on the rePebble website, quantities are limited.

(ericmigi.com)

Hardware

Raspberry Pi Launches RP2350 Microcontroller Family with Out-of-the-Box Rust Support

2025-03-18

Raspberry Pi announced the RP2350 family, its latest microcontrollers featuring out-of-the-box Rust support—a first for the industry. The RP2350 boasts dual Arm Cortex-M33 cores with FPU, and optionally dual RISC-V Hazard3 cores, switchable at runtime or boot time. Improvements include increased SRAM and Flash, more GPIOs, and enhanced peripherals, along with advanced features like secure boot and partition support. While still using USB 1.1, it maintains the same price point as its predecessor and offers several variants. The blog post delves into booting, partition tables, address translation, and OTP functionality, demonstrating Rust code porting and execution examples.

(thejpster.org.uk)

Hardware

The 100 USB Device Nightmare: Bottlenecks and Engineering Challenges

2025-03-17

Connecting 100 USB devices isn't trivial! The article highlights the severe congestion caused by USB's hub-like architecture, making it impossible for a single controller to handle the load. The solution requires a custom PCB with up to 100 USB controllers and a high-speed network interface (e.g., 100Gb fiber optics), along with complex drivers and server-side software to manage the massive data flow. A cheaper but less efficient alternative is also suggested: using small computers like Raspberry Pis, with efficient power management and Ethernet connections. In short, this is a monstrously complex engineering project.

(forum.level1techs.com)

Hardware Performance Bottleneck

Category: Hardware