Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

Google Pixel 4a Update Halves Battery Life for Some Users

2025-01-31

A recent Google software update for the Pixel 4a, intended to improve battery stability, has unexpectedly halved battery life for some users. Investigations revealed that the Pixel 4a uses two different battery types. The Lishen battery, after the update, experiences a reduced maximum charge voltage and a 50% capacity decrease. Google offers free battery replacements, $100 Google Store credit, or $50 cash compensation, but a rollback isn't possible. This highlights the potential unforeseen consequences of software updates and the importance of manufacturer response.

(liliputing.com)

Hardware Battery Issues Software Update

Copper Pours on PCBs: Fashion or Necessity?

2025-01-30

The widespread use of copper pours in modern PCB design has sparked discussion. This article explores the reasons behind this trend, going beyond mere aesthetics. From early 8-bit computer motherboards to today's smartphones, PCB design has evolved dramatically. Copper pours not only improve signal integrity in high-speed electronics but also reduce RF emissions, aiding compliance with regulations like FCC Part 15. However, the mechanism involves inductance and common-mode chokes; copper pours manage return current paths to lower impedance, reducing interference and radiation. But copper pours aren't always necessary; for most hobby projects, it's not a critical concern. The article concludes by cautioning about the careful consideration required when working with high-speed interfaces, and the potential increase in shunt capacitance.

(lcamtuf.substack.com)

Hardware PCB design copper pours signal integrity

Why You Should Leave 100nF Decoupling Capacitors Behind

2025-01-30

This article debunks the long-standing practice of using 100nF decoupling capacitors as a default. The author argues that this practice is outdated due to advancements in IC technology (faster switching speeds) and the availability of low-cost, high-capacitance MLCCs. The article dives deep into the physics of decoupling, explaining impedance, parasitic inductance and capacitance, and their impact on power delivery network (PDN) integrity. It advocates for using larger capacitors (1uF or 2.2uF) for better decoupling, reduced EMI, and improved PDN stability. The importance of capacitor package size and its influence on parasitic inductance are highlighted. The author suggests that the persistence of outdated practices stems from cognitive load reduction and historical cost considerations.

(codeinsecurity.wordpress.com)

Hardware Decoupling Capacitors PCB Design

Zyxel Firewall Bricked by Buggy Update: On-Site Fix Required

2025-01-29

A faulty application signature update released by Zyxel last Friday is causing reboot loops, ZySH daemon failures, and login issues for some users. Affected devices include USG Flex and ATP Series devices running ZLD firmware with active security licenses and dedicated signature updates enabled in on-premises/standalone mode. The only workaround requires physical access to the firewall via a console/RS232 cable for recovery. Zyxel has disabled the application signature on its servers to prevent further impact.

(www.theregister.com)

Hardware Software Bug

DIY Type 1 Diabetes Smartwatch: A Father's Journey

2025-01-29

A software engineer father embarked on a six-month journey to build a simple smartwatch for his son with Type 1 diabetes. The watch reliably displays CGM data and provides haptic feedback for critical blood glucose levels. He overcame challenges including BLE connectivity, custom PCB design, haptic motor selection, display choice, waterproofing, and battery life. While not mass-produced, the project yielded valuable hardware R&D experience and is planned to be open-sourced for community benefit. The project highlights the possibilities and difficulties of hardware development.

(andrewchilds.com)

Hardware Hardware Development Medical Technology

Resurrecting a Perfect Commodore Amiga 1000: A Retrocomputing Odyssey

2025-01-29

This blog post details the author's journey restoring a Commodore Amiga 1000, the first model of the Amiga series. Purchased from eBay, the machine's resurrection involved identifying its previous owner (Franz Barta), replacing capacitors, troubleshooting (a loose CPU socket was the culprit!), installing a PiStorm and Parceiro expansion board, and finally, restoring it to working order with a Retrobrighting treatment. The author shares experiences running incompatible software using WHDLoad and outlines future upgrades, including RGB2HDMI for high-definition output and RAM expansion.

(celso.io)

Hardware hardware restoration

Seagate's New Hard Drives: A Case of Massive Reselling?

2025-01-29

German publication Heise.de reports a widespread issue where numerous Seagate hard drive buyers received used drives instead of new ones. The drives, showing usage times of tens of thousands of hours, were purchased from various retailers, including authorized Seagate sellers and major online marketplaces. Affected models span different series and capacities. While Seagate is investigating, the scale and nature of the problem remain unclear, raising concerns about potential fraud.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Hardware Hard Drives Fraud

Fixing a Broken Monitor Power Button: A Hardware Repair Odyssey

2025-01-28

The author's LG 27UL500-W monitor's power button stopped working. Disassembly revealed the problem wasn't a simple button failure, but a multi-layered button membrane inside, with one layer showing signs of overheating and corrosion – likely a factory defect. The repair involved replacing a soldering iron tip, wrestling with tiny parts, and general frustration. Ultimately, the power button was successfully fixed, with the author detailing the process and lessons learned.

(www.lkhrs.com)

Hardware Hardware Repair Monitor Electronics

Elegant Parametric Speaker Cabinets: A 3D-Printed Odyssey

2025-01-28

This detailed post chronicles a multi-year journey designing and building fully parametric speaker cabinets using OpenSCAD. Inspired by the curves of Mission SX2 and Sony speakers, the author crafted an elegant design adaptable to various drivers and enclosure volumes. The build process, meticulously documented, covers 3D printing challenges (PLA curling, bed adhesion), assembly using clever screw-based clamping, and meticulous finishing to hide layer lines. The final product boasts exceptional sound quality and a professional finish, exceeding expectations for a DIY project.

(calbryant.uk)

Hardware speaker build

Intel Quietly Slashes Xeon 6 CPU Prices by Up to $5,340

2025-01-28

Intel unexpectedly slashed prices on its latest Xeon 6 'Granite Rapids' processors, just four months after their release. The flagship model now costs $12,460, a $5,340 drop. This makes Intel's Xeon 6 CPUs cheaper than AMD's EPYC processors, both in absolute terms and per-core. While unannounced officially, the price cuts are reflected in Intel's online database. Reductions vary by model, reaching up to 30% for some, with certain models undercutting AMD's per-core pricing. This move may be a response to declining market share or an attempt to boost sales. However, these prices are based on Intel's Recommended Customer Price (RCP) for 1,000 units; large-scale buyers will likely have negotiated different prices.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Hardware Xeon Price Cuts

Pebble Is Back!

2025-01-27

The beloved Pebble smartwatch is making a comeback! Founder Eric Migicovsky and his team are developing a new Pebble-like watch running open-source PebbleOS. This revival is thanks to Google open-sourcing the OS and the continued support of the Rebble community. The new watch will retain Pebble's signature simplicity, long battery life, and add some exciting new features. Sign up to get one!

(repebble.com)

Hardware

Puget Systems' Mineral Oil-Cooled PC: A Decade+ of Experimentation

2025-01-27

Since 2007, Puget Systems has experimented with mineral oil cooling for PCs, iterating through multiple versions. Starting with a simple aquarium and inexpensive hardware, they refined their design with custom acrylic motherboard trays, efficient radiators, and dual-pump systems, achieving remarkable cooling performance and stability. While patent issues led to the discontinuation of sales, their persistent experimentation and contribution to the DIY community remain noteworthy.

(www.pugetsystems.com)

Hardware mineral oil cooling liquid cooling

SiFive P550 Microarchitecture Deep Dive: RISC-V's Ambitious Step

2025-01-27

This article delves into SiFive's P550 microarchitecture, a RISC-V processor core targeting high-performance applications. The P550 employs a three-wide out-of-order execution architecture with a 13-stage pipeline, aiming for 30% higher performance in less than half the area of a comparable Arm Cortex A75. The analysis compares P550 to the Cortex A75, examining branch prediction, instruction fetch and decode, out-of-order execution, and the memory subsystem. While the P550 shows weaknesses in areas like unaligned memory access, it represents a significant step forward for RISC-V. Though needing further refinement, the P550 demonstrates SiFive's progress towards high-performance general-purpose CPUs.

(chipsandcheese.com)

Hardware Microarchitecture

Halliday AR Glasses: A Unique Design with Significant Drawbacks

2025-01-27

Halliday's AR glasses, showcased at CES, boast a novel optical design that deviates from conventional waveguide-based approaches. Employing a monocular projector to directly project images onto the eye via a mirror optical system, they offer advantages in brightness and efficiency, and compatibility with standard prescription lenses. However, users must look upward to view the image, leading to discomfort and social awkwardness. Stray light also results in a halo effect, diminishing contrast. Despite successful marketing, the design may hinder resolution and image quality improvements, and the lack of a camera limits its AI potential. While innovative, its drawbacks significantly outweigh the benefits.

(kguttag.com)

Hardware AR Glasses Optical Design

L3 Systems WristPC Keyboard: A Rugged Wearable Keyboard

2025-01-27

L3 Systems has developed the WristPC Keyboard for portable and wearable computer applications. This rugged QWERTY keyboard features a standard PC keyboard interface and comes in black anodized aluminum or blue ABS plastic housings. Completely sealed, it's designed for use in rain and harsh environments. Its curved back ensures comfortable and secure wrist placement, with an optimized alphanumeric layout and conveniently positioned arrow keys. Optional wrist straps and keyboard illumination are available. Custom keyboards for Aaton Cantar users are also offered (requires separate Gotham Sound Dsub15-USB adapter).

(www.l3sys.com)

Hardware keyboard ruggedized

Automating Giant 3D Prints with a Python Jigsaw Generator

2025-01-26

This article details the creation of an automated system using Python and OpenSCAD to split large 3D printing models into smaller, printable parts. The system generates parts with dovetail joints for easy assembly. The author meticulously outlines the geometric derivation of the dovetail profile, overcomes OpenSCAD performance limitations and non-manifold mesh issues, ultimately succeeding in printing a large speaker model. This showcases a compelling example of 3D printing, parametric design, and automated workflows, highlighting the ingenuity in overcoming technical hurdles for efficient 3D printing production.

(calbryant.uk)

Hardware parametric design

Building Artificial Synapses with LEDs: A Hardware Approach

2025-01-26

The Global Science Network demonstrates how to build artificial synapses on a breadboard using LEDs as optocouplers. The article details the components of an artificial synapse: an inverter, an optocoupler made with two LEDs, an output buffer, a diode, and a variable resistor. Inhibitory synapses require an additional discharge transistor. Each synapse adds or removes charge from the postsynaptic neuron. For functional equivalence to biological cells, a proportional number of states must be transferred compared to the biological network. The accompanying video provides a more detailed explanation.

(www.gsnetwork.com)

Hardware artificial synapse

Sony Discontinues Production of Several Storage Media

2025-01-25

Sony announced that it will cease production of Blu-ray discs, MD recording discs, MD data discs, and Mini DV cassettes in February 2025. This marks the official end of these once-popular storage media, with Sony stating there will be no successor products.

(www.sony.jp)

Hardware storage media discontinued

Steam Deck Gets 'Bricked': A Minimalist Handheld Mod

2025-01-25

A developer has created a radical modification of the Steam Deck, removing the screen and controllers to create a minimalist handheld dubbed the 'Steam Brick'. This involved a complete teardown and rebuild, leaving only the motherboard, power button, and a USB port. The motivation? Portability. The resulting device is about a third the size of the original and significantly lighter, easily fitting into a backpack. While functionality is reduced – accessing the BIOS is currently impossible – for users who primarily connect their Steam Deck to AR glasses or a TV, this could be a worthwhile trade-off.

(crastinator-pro.github.io)

Hardware Minimalist Handheld

The Undocumented 68030 Instruction That Saved the Mac Classic II

2025-01-25

While debugging a Macintosh Classic II in MAME, the author discovered a bus error causing a 'Sad Mac' in 32-bit addressing mode. Reverse engineering revealed an out-of-bounds jump in the ROM, leading the CPU to execute an undocumented 68030 instruction. Surprisingly, this instruction corrected the value of register A1, preventing a crash and allowing the Classic II to boot successfully. The author validated this by repairing a vintage Classic II and modifying its ROM. This case highlights the power of emulators in uncovering hardware quirks and showcases how a software bug was inadvertently fixed by hardware.

(www.downtowndougbrown.com)

Hardware

VexRiscv: An FPGA-Friendly 32-bit RISC-V CPU Implementation

2025-01-25

VexRiscv is an FPGA-friendly 32-bit RISC-V CPU implementation written in SpinalHDL. It features a configurable pipeline depth, various instruction set extensions (including M, A, F, D, C), and a highly extensible plugin system allowing for easy addition of custom instructions and features. The project offers a wide range of configurations, from simple RV32I to complex Linux-capable SoCs, and includes comprehensive documentation, tests, and examples for rapid deployment and debugging on FPGAs.

(github.com)

Hardware

Bambu's Controversial 3D Printer Update: A Necessary Security Measure or a Path to Enshittification?

2025-01-25

Bambu Lab, maker of popular 3D printers, implemented a new proprietary authentication system, sparking controversy. While presented as a security measure against remote hacks, users fear it could lead to restrictions on third-party tools and filaments, and potentially, subscription services. Bambu claims the update is optional and maintains local access, but inconsistencies in their statements and security vulnerabilities have eroded user trust. The company's response to concerns, including promises to keep a developer mode and not require subscriptions for current models, attempts to quell fears but skepticism remains.

(www.theverge.com)

Hardware 3D printer

Nvidia Phasing Out Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta GPUs

2025-01-25

Nvidia is phasing out its Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta GPU architectures, moving them to a legacy driver branch. While CUDA support will remain, these GPUs will no longer receive new feature updates. The announcement marks the end of an era for GTX-series cards, with only the GTX 16-series and newer architectures receiving full support going forward. While game driver support for Maxwell and Pascal currently persists, the timeline for its termination remains unclear. This means no further performance improvements for users of these older cards.

(www.tomshardware.com)

Hardware driver support

Steve Reich's Clapping Music, Reimagined with Flip-Disc Displays

2025-01-24

An artist ingeniously recreates Steve Reich's iconic 'Clapping Music' using two flip-disc displays. By controlling the flipping of individual segments, they produce a rhythmic sound reminiscent of clapping. The project showcases a blend of hardware and software, demonstrating a unique artistic approach to sound and visuals. The code is open-source, inviting others to experiment and build upon the work.

(hannahilea.com)

Hardware Creative

Roto VR: Revolutionizing VR Comfort with a Rotating Chair

2025-01-24

The Roto VR Explorer chair automatically rotates to match your head movements in VR, significantly enhancing comfort and immersion. By tracking a sensor on your headset, the chair synchronizes its rotation, mitigating motion sickness and improving comfort during extended VR sessions. A Pro version and add-ons are available for productivity, such as working with virtual monitors. While some lag and control issues exist, Roto VR's core concept is innovative, particularly excelling in relaxed VR experiences, showing immense potential for future development.

(skarredghost.com)

Hardware Haptic Feedback

Impact of Extremely Low Temperatures on 5nm SRAM Array Size and Performance

2025-01-24

New research explores the effects of extremely low temperatures (down to 10K) on the size and performance of 5nm FinFET SRAM arrays. Researchers found that at cryogenic temperatures, the maximum array size is limited by wordline parasitics, not leakage current, and performance is governed by both bitline and wordline parasitics. This has significant implications for future low-power, high-performance computing, offering valuable insights for optimizing SRAM arrays in extremely cold environments.

(semiengineering.com)

Hardware cryogenic temperatures

Intel's Modular PC Design: A Sustainable Approach to Reduce E-waste

2025-01-24

Addressing the growing e-waste problem, Intel introduces a modular PC design. This innovative approach allows for easy upgrades and repairs by modularizing key components, extending device lifespan and reducing electronic waste. Three levels of modularity—factory, field, and user—cater to different repair needs and skill levels. Intel aims to lower carbon footprint, support the right-to-repair, streamline manufacturing, and ultimately create a more sustainable PC lifecycle.

(community.intel.com)

Hardware modular design

Zen 5's Op Cache Disabled: A Deep Dive into its Clustered Decoders

2025-01-24

This article delves into the instruction fetch and decode mechanism of AMD's Zen 5 processor. Zen 5 uses a unique dual-decoder cluster architecture, with each cluster serving one of the core's two SMT threads. Normally, Zen 5 relies on a 6KB op cache to deliver instructions, with the decoders only activating on cache misses. The author disables the op cache, forcing the decoders to handle all instructions, to evaluate their performance. Tests reveal significant performance drops in single-threaded mode with the op cache disabled; however, in multi-threaded mode, the dual-decoder clusters effectively compensate for the performance loss, even showing performance gains in some multi-threaded workloads. The author concludes that Zen 5's dual-decoder cluster design isn't the primary instruction source but acts as a secondary mechanism, boosting performance in high-IPC and multi-threaded scenarios, complementing the op cache for a balanced performance and power consumption.

(chipsandcheese.com)

Hardware CPU Architecture

Geometric Series Solution for Capacitor Charge Under Square Wave Excitation

2025-01-24

This article analyzes the charge and discharge process of a capacitor under the influence of a symmetric square wave voltage. By establishing recursive equations for charging and discharging, the geometric series solution for the process is obtained. Special cases are discussed where the time constant is much smaller or larger than the period of the square wave. For example, when the time constant is much smaller than the period, the capacitor fully charges and discharges; when the period is much smaller than the time constant, the circuit acts as a low-pass filter.

(ivanbelenky.com)

Hardware capacitor square wave geometric series

DM50: A Cheap, Open-Source, High-Precision Calculator

2025-01-24

DM50 is a cheap, powerful, easy-to-build, open-source hardware calculator boasting high precision. The project is hosted on GitHub and offers downloads for PCBs, firmware, bezels, and a 3D-printed case. Recent updates include finalizing the casing design, battery life testing, key model selection, and processor advancements. DM50 aims to provide a user-friendly, high-performance calculator experience.

(50calc.com)

Hardware

Category: Hardware