Recently [Dillan Stock] over at The Stock Pot YouTube channel bought a $17 ‘mushroom’ lamp from his local Kmart that listed ‘USB-C rechargeable’ as one of its features, the only problem being that although this is technically true, there’s a major asterisk. This Inaya-branded lamp namely comes with a USB-C cable with a rather prominent label attached to it that tells you that this lamp requires that specific cable. After trying with a regular USB-C cable, [Dillan] indeed confirmed that the lamp does not charge from a standard USB-C cable. So he did what any reasonable person would do: he bought a second unit and set about to hacking it.

[Dillan] also dug more into what’s so unusual about this cable and the connector inside the lamp. As it turns out, while GND & Vcc are connected as normal, the two data lines (D+, D-) are also connected to Vcc. Presumably on the lamp side this is the expected configuration, while using a regular USB-C cable causes issues. Vice versa, this cable’s configuration may actually be harmful to compliant USB-C devices, though [Dillan] did not try this.

With the second unit in hand, he then started hacking it, with the full plans and schematic available on his website.

The changes include a regular USB-C port for charging, an ESP32 board with integrated battery charger for the 18650 Li-ion cell of the lamp, and an N-channel MOSFET to switch the power to the lamp’s LED. With all of the raw power from the ESP32 available, the two lamps got integrated into the Home Assistant network which enables features such as turning the lamps on when the alarm goes off in the morning. All of this took about $7 in parts and a few hours of work.

Although we can commend [Dillan] on this creative hack rather than returning the item, it’s worrying that apparently there’s now a flood of ‘USB C-powered’ devices out there that come with non-compliant cables that are somehow worse than ‘power-only’ USB cables. It brings back fond memories of hunting down proprietary charging cables, which was the issue that USB power was supposed to fix.

Normally, videos over at The Signal Path channel on YouTube have a certain vibe, namely teardowns and deep dives into high-end test equipment for the microwave realm. And while we always love to see that kind of content, this hop into the world of cryogenics and liquid oxygen production shows that [Shahriar] has other interests, too.

Of course, to make liquid oxygen, one must first have oxygen. While it would be easy enough to get a tank of the stuff from a gas supplier, where’s the fun in that? So [Shahriar] started his quest with a cheap-ish off-the-shelf oxygen concentrator, one that uses the pressure-swing adsorption cycle we saw used to great effect with DIY O₂ concentrators in the early days of the pandemic. Although analysis of the machine’s output revealed it wasn’t quite as capable as advertised, it still put out enough reasonably pure oxygen for the job at hand.

The next step in making liquid oxygen is cooling it, and for that job [Shahriar] turned to the cryocooler from a superconducting RF filter, a toy we’re keen to see more about in the future. For now, he was able to harvest the Stirling-cycle cryocooler and rig it up in a test stand with ample forced-air cooling for the heat rejection end and a manifold to supply a constant flow of oxygen from the concentrator. Strategically placed diodes were used to monitor the temperature at the cold end, a technique we can’t recall seeing before. Once powered up, the cryocooler got down to the 77 Kelvin range quite quickly, and within an hour, [Shahriar] had at least a hundred milliliters of lovely pale blue fluid that passed all the usual tests.

While we’ve seen a few attempts to make liquid nitrogen before, this might be the first time we’ve seen anyone make liquid oxygen. Hats off to [Shahriar] for the effort.

SEGA se complace en anunciar que Sonic Rumble se lanzará oficialmente a nivel mundial el jueves 8 de mayo de 2025. El equipo de desarrollo está preparado para ofrecer un título verdaderamente excepcional a los fans de Sonic, con una sólida base de contenidos y características, preparando el terreno para un futuro dinámico y atractivo.

Sonic Rumble viene repleto de mejoras clave en la jugabilidad, diseñadas para añadir profundidad y capas estratégicas a cada ronda. Cada personaje podrá hacer uso de un conjunto de habilidades, lo que permitirá a los jugadores personalizar su estilo de juego y abordar los desafíos de diversas maneras. Con múltiples ranuras de habilidades disponibles por personaje, los jugadores podrán experimentar con diferentes combinaciones para encontrar la que mejor se adapte a su estilo preferido.

Los jugadores ya pueden preinscribirse a través de App Store y Google Play, así como en PC vía Steam. Encuentra más información sobre Sonic Rumble, la preinscripción y mucho más en el sitio web de Sonic Rumble.

Además, el lanzamiento oficial mundial de Sonic Rumble introducirá los bandos, que reunirán a los jugadores para crear estrategias y superar obstáculos como una unidad. Tanto las habilidades como los bandos estarán disponibles en el lanzamiento, lo que proporcionará a los jugadores una experiencia de juego rica y atractiva desde el primer día.

La preinscripción para Sonic Rumble estará abierta hasta el 8 de mayo de 2025, fecha de lanzamiento. A medida que aumente el número de jugadores preinscritos, ¡también lo harán las recompensas! Ahora es un buen momento para que cualquier persona interesada en el juego se preinscriba y, a medida que aumente el número de personas inscritas, habrá más recompensas disponibles, como aspectos de personajes, incluido un aspecto de Sonic de la reciente película Sonic the Hedgehog 3, calcomanías y compañeros Chao, y moneda del juego (Rings).

Las recompensas solo están disponibles para los jugadores que se hayan preinscrito y se ofrecen sin costo adicional. El equipo de Sonic Rumble se compromete a ofrecer una experiencia memorable a los fans de Sonic con nuevas mecánicas de juego, características y más contenido emocionante. Permanece atento a las próximas actualizaciones, incluidos los detalles sobre nuestro programa de creadores, con el que los creadores de contenido podrán obtener ingresos, a medida que nos acercamos al lanzamiento oficial mundial de Sonic Rumble el 8 de mayo de 2025.

Acerca de Sonic Rumble

¡Diviértete con amigos y familiares en caóticas batallas de supervivencia! ​Sonic Rumble es el primer juego multijugador de la famosa serie para jugar en grupo, ¡donde pueden enfrentarse hasta 32 jugadores! ¡¿Quién será el mejor Rumbler del mundo?!

Sonic Rumble ofrece una visión diferente de la querida fórmula de Sonic, transformando a los icónicos personajes de Sonic en figuras de juguete que compiten en emocionantes desafíos de battle royale.

Los jugadores competirán para recoger anillos, usar potenciadores y superar a sus oponentes en un entorno vibrante y caótico creado por el viejo enemigo de Sonic, el Dr. Eggman. Centrado en la acción trepidante, la estrategia de juego y las opciones de personalización, Sonic Rumble pretende atraer tanto a los fans de Sonic de toda la vida como a los recién llegados.

Características principales:

• ¡Explora un mundo lleno de pistas encantadoras y modos de juego emocionantes! – ¡Experimenta una gran variedad de pistas con diferentes temáticas y modos de juego! Rumble está lleno de estilos de juego diferentes, que incluye los modos Carrera, donde los jugadores compiten por el primer puesto; Supervivencia, donde los jugadores compiten por mantenerse en el juego; Batalla de Rings, donde los jugadores se enfrentan y se esquivan para obtener la mayor cantidad de Rings, ¡y muchos más! Las partidas son cortas, para que cualquiera pueda divertirse en su tiempo libre.
• Juega con amigos y familiares! – ¡Forma un escuadrón de 4 jugadores y trabajen juntos para enfrentar a otros escuadrones alrededor del mundo!
• ¡Aquí encontrarás a todos tus personajes favoritos de Sonic! – ¡Juega como Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, Dr. Eggman y otros personajes favoritos de la serie Sonic! ¡Personaliza a tus personajes a tu gusto con una variedad de aspectos, animaciones, efectos y más!
• Entorno del juego – ¡Los jugadores controlan a un personaje de la serie Sonic para explorar un mundo de juguetes creado por el villano Dr. Eggman, mientras se enfrentan a peligrosos obstáculos y arenas peligrosas!
• ¡Hay una gran variedad de música que le da vida al mundo de Sonic Rumble! – ¡Sonic Rumble contiene música vivaz para quienes buscan adrenalina a toda velocidad! ¡También préstale atención a las melodías icónicas de la serie Sonic!

Requisitos Mínimos:

• Requiere un procesador y un sistema operativo de 64 bits
• SO: Windows 10 / Windows 11
• Procesador: Intel Pentium G3260 / AMD A8-7650K
• Memoria: 4 GB de RAM
• Gráficos: Nvdia GeForce GT 630 (VRAM 2GB) / Radeon R7 240
• DirectX: Versión 11
• Red: Conexión de banda ancha a Internet
• Almacenamiento: 7 GB de espacio disponible

Requisitos Recomendados:

• Requiere un procesador y un sistema operativo de 64 bits
• SO: Windows 10 / Windows 11
• Procesador: Intel Core i3-8100 / Ryzen 3 3100
• Memoria: 8 GB de RAM
• Gráficos: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 / Radeon RX 460
• DirectX: Versión 11
• Red: Conexión de banda ancha a Internet
• Almacenamiento: 7 GB de espacio disponible

Acerca de SEGA CORPORATION

SEGA CORPORATION tiene su sede en Tokio, Japón, y es líder mundial en entretenimiento interactivo. La empresa desarrolla, publica y distribuye una gran variedad de juegos para consolas, PC y dispositivos inalámbricos, así como productos de personajes y otros productos diversos. Además, SEGA distribuye en todo el mundo, a través de sus bases de publicación globales, una serie de contenidos de juegos desarrollados por sus estudios nacionales y extranjeros.

SEGA está aprovechando su propia propiedad intelectual para acelerar el desarrollo y la comercialización de su propiedad intelectual no sólo en juegos, sino también en otros medios, aumentando así drásticamente el valor de su propiedad intelectual. SEGA está posicionando el transmedia como una estrategia importante para proporcionar nuevos contenidos a usuarios de todo el mundo. El sitio web de SEGA CORPORATION se encuentra aquí.

Acerca de Rovio

Rovio Entertainment Ltd. es una empresa mundial de juegos para móviles que crea, desarrolla y publica juegos para móviles, que se han descargado más de 5,000 millones de veces. Rovio es más conocida por la marca global Angry Birds, que comenzó como un popular juego para móviles en 2009, y desde entonces ha evolucionado de los juegos a diversos entretenimientos, animaciones y productos de consumo en licencias de marca. Rovio ha producido The Angry Birds Movie (2016), y su secuela, The Angry Birds Movie 2 se estrenó en 2019.

La empresa ofrece múltiples juegos para móviles y cuenta con siete estudios de juegos: uno en Espoo (Finlandia), Estocolmo (Suecia), Copenhague (Dinamarca), Barcelona (España), Montreal y Toronto (Canadá), así como una filial en Izmir (Turquía) llamada Ruby Games. La mayoría de los empleados trabajan en Finlandia, donde Rovio tiene su sede. Rovio es propiedad de SEGA.

©SEGA. Todos los derechos reservados. SEGA está registrada en la Oficina de Patentes y Marcas de Estados Unidos. SEGA, el logotipo de SEGA, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG y SONIC RUMBLE son marcas registradas o marcas comerciales de SEGA CORPORATION. Todas las demás marcas comerciales, logotipos y derechos de autor pertenecen a sus respectivos propietarios.

La entrada Sonic Rumble se lanzará el 8 de Mayo en PC y Mobile – Nuevo Trailer de Gameplay apareció primero en PC Master Race Latinoamérica.

[JesseDarr] recently wrote in to tell us about their dynamic Arm for Robitc Mischief (dARM), a mostly 3D printed six degrees of freedom (6DOF) robotic arm that’s designed to be stronger and more capable than what we’ve seen so far from the DIY community.

The secret? Rather than using servos, dARM uses brushless DC (BLDC) motors paired with ODrive S1 controllers. He credits [James Bruton] and [Skyentific] (two names which regular Hackaday readers are likely familiar with) for introducing him to not only the ODrive controllers, but the robotics applications for BLDCs in the first place.

dARM uses eight ODrive controllers on a CAN bus, which ultimately connect up to a Raspberry Pi 4B with a RS485 CAN Hat. The controllers are connected to each other in a daisy chain using basic twisted pair wire, which simplifies the construction and maintenance of the modular arm.

As for the motors themselves, the arm uses three different types depending on where they are located, with three Eaglepower 8308 units for primary actuators, a pair of GB36-2 motors in the forearm, and finally a GM5208-24 for the gripper. Together, [JesseDarr] says the motors and gearboxes are strong enough to lift a 5 pound (2.2 kilogram) payload when extended in a horizontal position.

The project’s documentation includes assembly instructions for the printed parts, a complete Bill of Materials, and guidance on how to get the software environment setup on the Raspberry Pi. It’s not exactly a step-by-step manual, but it looks like there’s more than enough information here for anyone who’s serious about building a dARM for themselves.

If you’d like to start off by putting together something a bit easier, we’ve seen considerably less intimidating robotic arms that you might be interested in.

Using USB for powering devices is wonderful, as it frees us from a tangle of incompatible barrel & TRS connectors, not to mention a veritable gaggle of proprietary power connectors. The unfortunate side-effect of this is that the obvious thing to do with power connectors is to introduce splitters, which can backfire horribly, especially since USB-C and USB Power Delivery (USB-PD) were introduced. The [Quiescent Current] channel on YouTube recently went over the ways in which these handy gadgets can literally turn your USB-powered devices into a smoldering pile of ashes.

Much like Qualcomm’s Quick Charge protocols, USB-PD negotiates higher voltages with the power supply, after which this same voltage will be provided to any device that’s tapped into the power supply lines of the USB connector. Since USB-C has now also taken over duties like analog audio jacks, this has increased the demand for splitters, but these introduce many risks. Unless you know how these splitters are wired inside, your spiffy smartphone may happily negotiate 20V that will subsequently fry a USB-powered speaker that was charging off the same splitter.

In the video only a resistor and LED were sacrificed to make the point, but in a real life scenario the damage probably would be significantly more expensive.

We’ve seen a Linux-based operating system made to run on some widely varying pieces of hardware over the years, but [Dimity Grinberg]’s latest project may be one of the most unusual. It’s a PCB with 3 integrated circuits on it which doesn’t seem too interesting at first, but what makes it special is that all three of those chips are in 8-pin SOIC packages. How on earth can Linux run on 8-pin devices? The answer lies as you might expect, in emulation.

Two of the chips are easy to spot, a USB-to-serial chip and an SPI RAM chip. The processor is an STM32G0 series device, which packs a pretty fast ARM Cortex M0+ core. This runs a MIPS emulator that we’ve seen on a previous project, which is ripe for overclocking. At a 148 MHz clock it’s equivalent to a MIPS running at about 1.4 MHz, which is just about usable. Given that the OS in question is a full-featured Debian, it’s not running some special take on Linux for speed, either.

We like some of the hardware hacks needed to get serial, memory, and SD card, onto so few pins. The SD and serial share the same pins, with a filter in place to remove the high-frequency SPI traffic from the low-frequency serial traffic. We’re not entirely sure what use this machine could be put to, but it remains an impressive piece of work.

If you flew or drove anything remote controlled until the last few years, chances are very good that you’d be using some faceless corporation’s equipment and radio protocols. But recently, open-source options have taken over the market, at least among the enthusiast core who are into squeezing every last bit of performance out of their gear. So why not take it one step further and roll your own complete system?

Apparently, that’s what [Malcolm Messiter] was thinking when, during the COVID lockdowns, he started his own RC project that he’s calling LockDownRadioControl. The result covers the entire stack, from the protocol to the transmitter and receiver hardware, even to the software that runs it all. The 3D-printed remote sports a Teensy 4.1 and off-the-shelf radio modules on the inside, and premium FrSky hardware on the outside. He’s even got an extensive folder of sound effects that the controller can play to alert you. It’s very complete. Heck, the transmitter even has a game of Pong implemented so that you can keep yourself amused when it’s too rainy to go flying.

Of course, as we alluded to in the beginning, there is a healthy commercial infrastructure and community around other open-source RC projects, namely ExpressLRS and OpenTX, and you can buy gear that runs those software straight out of the box, but it never hurts to have alternatives. And nothing is easier to customize and start hacking on than something you built yourself, so maybe [Malcolm]’s full-stack RC solution is right for you? Either way, it’s certainly impressive for a lockdown project, and evidence of time well spent.

Thanks [Malcolm] for sending that one in!

Bears! Are they scared of massive arcs that rip through the air, making a lot of noise in the process? [Jay] from the Plasma Channel sure hopes so, because that’s how his bear deterrent works!

[Jay] calls it the Bear Blaster 5000. Right from the drop, this thing looks like some crazy weapon out of Halo. That’s because it throws huge arcs at 280,000 volts. The basic concept behind it is simple enough—a battery drives a circuit which generates (kinda) low voltage AC. This is fed to the two voltage multipliers which are set up with opposite polarity to create the greatest possible potential difference between the two electrodes they feed. The meaty combination is able to arc across electrodes spaced over four inches apart. It’s all wrapped up in a super-cool 3D printed housing that really shows off the voltage multiplier banks.

Given its resemblance to a stun gun, you might think the idea is to jab an attacking bear with it. But the reality is, if the bear is close enough that you could press this device against it, you’re already lunch. [Jay] explains that it’s more about scaring the animal off with the noise and light it produces. We’d certainly take a few steps back if we heard this thing fire off in the woods.

[Jay] does a great job of explaining how the whole setup works, as well as showing off its raw ability to spark. We’ve seen some great builds from [Jay] before, too, like this beefy custom flyback transformer.

Los fanáticos de Dodge Roll y los «siempre positivo nunca negativo» de Devolver Digital han desvelado que Enter the Gungeon 2 está en desarrollo, uno muy activo.

Presentado por Dave Crooks de Dodge Roll durante el Nintendo Direct de hoy, Enter the Gungeon 2 es una secuela abarrotada y de alto calibre del icónico juego de mazmorras y balas, todo ello reforzado con un nuevo estilo artístico en 3D, nuevas armas y enemigos y una jugabilidad ampliada.

Enter the Gungeon 2 llegará a PC vía Steam y Nintendo Switch 2 en 2026. Ya puedes añadirlo a tu lista de deseos en Steam, incluso aunque no tengas PC. Permanece atento a las actualizaciones que llegarán a lo largo del año, incluidos anuncios sobre la inclusión del juego en plataformas adicionales, a menudo ocurre cuando menos te lo esperas.

Lucha a través de zonas conocidas y desconocidas mientras la Gungeon en ruinas revela sus secretos a aquellos lo suficientemente valientes como para entrar. Descubre, desbloquea y domina fantásticas armas en sus salas generadas procedimentalmente y destruye las legiones de Gundead que surgen de su interior.

Acerca de Enter the Gungeon 2

Embárcate en dinámicas batallas contra enemigos endiabladamente cutes, antes confinados al plano 2D, y deléitate mientras son golpeados, lanzados por los aires y arrojados a las profundidades de los pozos.

Elige entre un elenco de Gungeoneers en expansión, lleno de caras nuevas y conocidas mientras rescatas y extraes héroes abandonados de las profundidades de la Mazmorra. Hazte invencible mediante combinaciones inesperadas de poderosos objetos pasivos, explosivos objetos activos, bendiciones, maldiciones y tu propio dominio sobre un impresionante arsenal de armas.

Y trata de entender por qué te encuentras bajo una lluvia de balas en la Gungeon una vez más…

Acerca de Devolver Digital

Devolver Digital, Inc. es una editorial estadounidense de videojuegos con sede en Austin, Texas, especializada en la publicación de juegos independientes.

La compañía fue fundada en junio de 2009 por Nigel Lowrie, Harry Miller, Graeme Struthers, Rick Stults y Mike Wilson, cinco ejecutivos que habían participado en Gathering of Developers y Gamecock Media Group, que publicaban juegos en condiciones favorables para los desarrolladores.

Sin embargo, debido al alto coste asociado al lanzamiento de juegos en tiendas físicas, fueron adquiridos y disueltos por empresas más grandes. Para evitarlo, Devolver Digital recurrió a los canales de distribución digital.

Devolver Digital comenzó publicando remakes en alta definición de los juegos de la serie Serious Sam. Tras el éxito de estos remakes y los juegos derivados de la serie, Devolver Digital comenzó a publicar juegos de otros estudios independientes más pequeños, uno de los primeros de los cuales fue su exitoso título, Hotline Miami.

La compañía también operaba Devolver Digital Films para la distribución cinematográfica y es propietaria mayoritaria de la editorial Good Shepherd Entertainment.

En enero de 2020, Devolver Digital contaba con 20 empleados. La empresa salió a bolsa en el Mercado de Inversiones Alternativas en noviembre de 2021.

La empresa es propiedad principalmente de Miller, Struthers y Lowrie, con participaciones minoritarias de NetEase, Sony Interactive Entertainment y Kwalee.

Acerca de Enter the Gungeon

Enter the Gungeon es un roguelike de tipo bullet hell de 2016, desarrollado por Dodge Roll y publicado por Devolver Digital. Ambientado en la Gungeon, una zona con temática de armas de fuego, la jugabilidad sigue a varios personajes jugadores, llamados Gungeoneers, que recorren salas generadas proceduralmente para encontrar un arma capaz de «matar el pasado».

Los Gungeoneers luchan contra enemigos con forma de bala, a los que se enfrentan con armas convencionales y exóticas. Enter the Gungeon cuenta con un sistema de muerte permanente, que hace que los Gungeoneers pierdan todos los objetos obtenidos y comiencen de nuevo desde el primer nivel al morir.

Entre partidas, los jugadores pueden viajar a una zona llamada la Brecha, donde pueden conversar con personajes no jugadores y desbloquear nuevos objetos que encontrarán aleatoriamente durante el juego.

La entrada Enter the Gungeon 2 anunciado para PC y Switch 2 – Primeros Screenshots y Teaser Trailer apareció primero en PC Master Race Latinoamérica.

[Luca Dentella] recently encountered a toy, which was programmed to read different stories aloud based on the figurine placed on top. It inspired him to build an audio device using the same concept, only with music instead of children’s stories.

The NFC Music Player very much does what it says on the tin. Present it with an NFC card, and it will play the relevant music in turn. An ESP32 WROOM-32E lives at the heart of the build, which is hooked up over I2S with a MAX98357A Class D amplifier for audio output. There’s also an SD card slot for storing all the necessary MP3s, and a PN532 NFC reader for reading the flash cards that activate the various songs. Everything is laced up inside a simple 3D-printed enclosure with a 3-watt full range speaker pumping out the tunes.

It’s an easy build, and a fun one at that—there’s something satisfying about tossing a flash card at a box to trigger a song. Files are on Github for the curious. We’ve featured similar projects before, like the Yaydio—a fun NFC music player for kids. Video after the break.

The hits just keep coming for the International Space Station (ISS), literally in the case of a resupply mission scheduled for June that is now scrubbed thanks to a heavy equipment incident that damaged the cargo spacecraft. The shipping container for the Cygnus automated cargo ship NG-22 apparently picked up some damage in transit from Northrop Grumman’s Redondo Beach plant in Los Angeles to Florida. Engineers inspected the Cygnus and found that whatever had damaged the container had also damaged the spacecraft, leading to the June mission’s scrub.

Mission controllers are hopeful that NG-22 can be patched up enough for a future resupply mission, but that doesn’t help the ISS right now, which is said to be running low on consumables. To fix that, the next scheduled resupply mission, a SpaceX Cargo Dragon slated for an April launch, will be modified to include more food and consumables for the ISS crew. That’s great, but it might raise another problem: garbage. Unlike the reusable Cargo Dragons, the Cygnus cargo modules are expendable, which makes them a great way to dispose of the trash produced by the ISS crew since everything just burns up on reentry. The earliest a Cygnus is scheduled to dock at the ISS again is sometime in this autumn, meaning it might be a long, stinky summer for the crew.

By now you’ve probably heard the news that genetic testing company 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy. The company spent years hawking their spit-in-a-tube testing kits, which after DNA sequence analysis returned a report revealing all your genetic secrets. This led to a lot of DNA surprises, like finding a whole mess of half-siblings, learning that your kid isn’t really related to you, and even catching an alleged murderer. But now that a bankruptcy judge has given permission for the company to sell that treasure trove of genetic data to the highest bidder, there’s a mad rush of 23andMe customers to delete their data. It’s supposed to be as easy as signing into your account and clicking a few buttons to delete your data permanently, with the option to have any preserved samples destroyed as well. Color us skeptical, though, that the company would willingly allow its single most valuable asset to be drained. Indeed, there were reports of the 23andMe website crashing on Monday, probably simply because of the rush of deletion requests, but then again, maybe not.

It may not have been 121 gigawatts-worth, but the tiny sample of plutonium that a hapless Sydney “science nerd” procured may be enough to earn him some jail time. Emmanuel Lidden, 24, pleaded guilty to violations of Australia’s nuclear proliferation laws after ordering a small sample of the metal from a US supplier, as part of his laudable bid to collect a sample of every element in the periodic table. Shipping plutonium to Australia is apparently a big no-no, but not so much that the border force officials who initially seized the shipment didn’t return some of the material to Lidden. Someone must have realized they made a mistake, judging by the outsized response to re-seize the material, which included shutting down the street where his parents live and a lot of people milling about in hazmat suits. We Googled around very briefly for plutonium samples for sale, which is just another in a long list of searches since joining Hackaday that no doubt lands us on a list, and found this small chunk of trinitite encased in an acrylic cube for $100. We really hope this isn’t what the Australian authorities got so exercised about that Lidden now faces ten years in prison. That would be really embarrassing.

And finally, we couldn’t begin to tote up the many happy hours of our youth spent building plastic models. New model day was always the best day, and although it’s been a while since we’ve indulged, we’d really get a kick out of building models of some of the cars we had an emotional connection to, like the 1972 Volkswagen Beetle that took us on many high school adventures, or our beloved 1986 Toyota 4×4 pickup with the amazing 22R engine. Sadly, those always seemed to be vehicles that wouldn’t appeal to a broad enough market to make it worth a model company’s while to mass-produce. But if you’re lucky, the car of your dreams might just be available as a download thanks to the work of Andrey Bezrodny, who has created quite a collection of 3D models of off-beat and quirky vehicles. Most of the files are pretty reasonably priced considering the work that obviously went into them, and all you have to do is download the files and print them up. It’s not quite the same experience as taking the shrink-wrap off a Revell or Monogram box and freeing the plastic parts from they’re trees to glue them together, but it still looks like a lot of fun.

Music consumption has followed a trend over the last decade or more of abandoning physical media for online or streaming alternatives. This can present a problem for young children however, for whom a simpler physical interface may be an easier way to play those tunes. Maintaining a library of CDs is not entirely convenient either, so [JakesMD] has created the Yaydio. It’s a music player for kids, that plays music when a card is inserted in its slot.

As you might expect, the cards themselves do not contain the music. Instead they are NFC cards, and the player starts the corresponding album from its SD card when one is detected. The hardware is simple enough, an Arduino Nano with modules for MP3 playback, NFC reading, seven segment display, and rotary encoder. The whole thing lives in a kid-friendly 3D printed case.

Some thought has been given to easily adding albums and assigning cards to them, making it easy to keep up with the youngster’s tastes. This isn’t the first such kid-friendly music player we’ve seen, but it’s certainly pretty neat.

Plastic has been a revolutionary material over the past century, with an uncountable number of uses and an incredibly low price to boot. Unfortunately, this low cost has led to its use in many places where other materials might be better suited, and when this huge amount of material breaks down in the environment it can be incredibly persistent and harmful. This has led to many attempts to recycle it, and one of the more promising efforts recently came out of a lab at Northwestern University.

Plastics exist as polymers, long chains of monomers that have been joined together chemically. The holy grail of plastic recycling would be to convert the polymers back to monomers and then use them to re-make the plastics from scratch. This method uses a catalyst to break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET), one of the more common plastics. Once broken down, the PET is exposed to moist air which converts it into its constituent monomers which can then be used to make more PET for other uses.

Of course, the other thing that any “holy grail” of plastic recycling needs is to actually be cheaper and easier than making new plastic from crude oil, and since this method is still confined to the lab it remains to be seen if it will one day achieve this milestone as well. In the meantime, PET can also be recycled fairly easily by anyone who happens to have a 3D printer around.

USB Power Delivery is widely considered to be a good thing. It’s become relatively standard, and is a popular way for makers to easily power their projects at a number of specific, useful voltages. However, what you may not know is that it’s possible to get much more variable voltages out of some USB chargers out there. As [GreatScott!] explains, you’ll want to meet USB-C PPS.

PPS stands for Programmable Power Supply. It’s a method by which a USB-C device can request variable voltage and current delivery on demand. Unlike the Power Delivery standard, you’re not limited to set voltages at tiers of 5V, 9V, 15V and 20V. You can have your device request the exact voltage it wants, right from the charger.  Commercially, it’s most typically used to allow smartphones to charge as fast as possible by getting the optimum voltage to plumb into the battery. However, with the right techniques, you can use PPS to get a charger to output whatever voltage you want, from 3.3 V to 21 V, for your own nefarious purposes. You can choose a voltage in 20 mV increments, and even set a current limit in 50 mA increments. Don’t go mad with power, now.

However, there’s a hitch. Unlike USB PD, there isn’t yet a whole ecosystem of $2 PPS breakout boards ready to gloop into your own little projects. As [GreatScott!] suggests, if you want to use PPS, you might want to take a look at the AP33772S IC. It’s a USB PD3.1 Sink Controller. You can command it over I2C to ask for the voltage and current you want. If that’s too hard, though, [CentyLab] has a solution on Tindie to get you going faster. It’s also got some exciting additional functionality—like USB-C AVS support. It offers higher voltage and more power, albeit with less resolution, but chargers with this functionality are quite obscure at this stage.

We’ve actually touched on PPS capability before in our exploration of the magic that is USB-C Power Delivery. Video after the break.

[Thanks to Keith Olson for the tip!]

It all started with a gift idea: a star-field lamp in the form of a concrete sphere with lightpipes poking out where the stars are, lit up from the inside by LEDs. When you’re making one of these, maybe-just-maybe you’d be willing to drill a thousand holes and fit a thousand little plastic rods, but by the time you’re making a second, it’s time to build a machine to do the work for you.

So maybe we quibble with the channel name “Unnecessary Automation,” but we won’t quibble with the results. It’s a machine that orients a sphere, drills the hole, inserts the plastic wire, glues it together with a UV-curing glue, and then trims the end off. And if you like crazy machines, it’s a beauty.

The video goes through all of the design thoughts in detail, but it’s when it comes time to build the machine that the extra-clever bits emerge. For instance, [UA] used a custom 3D-printed peristaltic pump to push the glue out. Taking the disadvantage of peristaltic pumps – that they pulse – as an advantage, a custom housing was designed that dispensed the right amount between the rollers. The rolling glue dispenser mechanism tips up and back to prevent drips.

There are tons of other project-specific hacks here, from the form on the inside of the sphere that simplifies optic bundling and routing to the clever use of a razor blade as a spring. Give it a watch if you find yourself designing your own wacky machines. We think Rube Goldberg would approve. Check out this video for a more software-orientated take on fiber-optic displays.

Ever heard of VENIX? There were lots of variants of Unix back in the day, and VENIX was one for the DEC Professional 380, which was — sort of — a PDP 11. The 1982 machine normally ran the unfortunately (but perhaps aptly) named P/OS, but you could get VENIX, too. [OldVCR] wanted to put one of these back online and decided the ST-506 hard drive was too risky. A solid-state drive upgrade and doubling the RAM to a whole megabyte was the plan.

It might seem funny to think of a desktop workstation that was essentially a PDP-11 minicomputer, but in the rush to corner the personal computer market, many vendors did the same thing: shrinking their legacy CPUs. DEC had a spotty history with small computers. [Ken Olsen] didn’t think anyone would ever want a personal computer, and the salespeople feared that cheap computers would eat into traditional sales. The Professional 350 was born out of DEC’s efforts to catch up, as [OldVCR] explains. He grabbed this one from a storage unit about to be emptied for scrap.

The post is very long, but you get a lot of history and a great look inside this vintage machine. Of course, the PDP-11 couldn’t actually handle more than 64K without tricks and you’ll learn more about that towards the end of the post, too.

Just as a preview, the story has a happy ending, including a surprising expression of gratitude from the aging computer. DEC didn’t enjoy much success in the small computer arena, eventually being bought by Compaq, which, in turn, was bought by Dell. During their heyday, this would have been unthinkable.

The PDP/11 did have some success because it was put on a chip that ended up in several lower-end machines, like the Heathkit H11. Ever wonder how people programmed the PDP computers with switches and lights?

If you ever wished electrons would just behave, this one’s for you. A team from Tohoku, Osaka, and Manchester Universities has cracked open an interesting phenomenon in the chiral helimagnet α-EuP₃: they’ve induced one-way electron flow without bringing diodes into play. Their findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The twist in this is quite literal. By coaxing europium atoms into a chiral magnetic spiral, the researchers found they could generate rectification: current that prefers one direction over another. Think of it as adding a one-way street in your circuit, but based on magnetic chirality rather than semiconductors. When the material flips to an achiral (ferromagnetic) state, the one-way effect vanishes. No asymmetry, no preferential flow. They’ve essentially toggled the electron highway signs with an external magnetic field. This elegant control over band asymmetry might lead to low-power, high-speed data storage based on magnetic chirality.

If you are curious how all this ties back to quantum theory, you can trace the roots of chiral electron flow back to the early days of quantum electrodynamics – when physicists first started untangling how particles and fields really interact.

There’s a whole world of weird physics waiting for us. In the field of chemistry, chirality has been covered by Hackaday, foreshadowing the lesser favorable ways of use. Read up on the article and share with us what you think.

In theory, any piece of software could be built out of discrete pieces of hardware, provided there are enough transistors, passive components, and time available. In general, though, we’re much more likely to reach for a programmable computer or microcontroller for all but the simplest tasks for several reasons: cost, effort, complexity, economics, and sanity. [Igor Brichkov] was working with I2C and decided that he wanted to see just where this line between hardware and software should be by implementing this protocol itself directly with hardware.

One of the keys to “programming” a communications protocol in hardware is getting the timing right, the first part of which is initializing communications between this device and another on the bus. [Igor] is going to be building up the signal in parts and then ORing them together. The first part is a start condition, generated by one oscillator and a counter. This also creates a pause, at which point a second oscillator takes over and sends data out. The first data needed for I2C is an address, which is done with a shift register and a counter pre-set to send the correct bits out on the communications lines.

To build up the rest of the signal, including data from the rotary encoder [Igor] is using for his project, essentially sets of shift registers and counters are paired together to pass data out through the I2C communications lines in sequence. It could be thought of that the main loop of the hardware program is a counter, which steps through all the functions sequentially, sending out data from the shift registers one by one. We saw a similar project over a decade ago, but rather than automating the task of sending data on I2C it allowed the user to key in data manually instead.

Hoy, durante la presentación de primavera de Future Games Show, GFA Games presentó un nuevo y electrizante tráiler de su esperado MMO de disparos postapocalíptico: PIONER. El vídeo ofrece un vistazo al mundo oscuro e inmersivo del juego, mostrando combates repletos de acción y entornos atmosféricos ambientados en una misteriosa isla de la era soviética.

PIONER es un MMO de disparos postapocalíptico ambientado en la misteriosa isla soviética de Tártaro, que ofrece un vasto mundo abierto de más de 50 kilómetros cuadrados. Combinando intensa acción JcE y JcJ con una narrativa centrada en el jugador, el juego incluye misiones de facción, mazmorras ocultas y entornos dinámicos.

El realismo cobra protagonismo, sustituyendo las barras de salud y los niveles tradicionales por mecánicas inmersivas. Zonas de alto riesgo como las «Tierras Sombrías» llevan el JcJ al extremo, permitiendo batallas caóticas con grandes recompensas donde las alianzas son clave, ¡o opcionales!

PIONER se lanzará en PC vía Steam a finales de 2025, con lanzamientos en consola previstos para una fecha posterior.

Acerca de PIONER

PIONER es un MMO shooter en primera persona con un mundo abierto ambientado en una realidad alternativa. En una isla postapocalíptica desierta, llena de estructuras abandonadas de la era soviética, los jugadores explorarán un entorno peligroso que combina elementos dinámicos de PvE y PvP.

Con un mapa de más de 50 kilómetros cuadrados, sin contar mazmorras ocultas, el juego invita a descubrir misterios, completar misiones de facciones y participar en tareas que afectan las relaciones y las recompensas por lealtad.

Explora y sobrevive

PIONER se centra en las historias narrativas y en la interacción social. Los jugadores pueden completar misiones principales o trabajar para facciones, ganando recompensas y contenido narrativo adicional por su lealtad a los distintos grupos.

Las batallas PvP se desarrollan en zonas específicas llamadas «Tierras Oscuras». El juego fomenta la inmersión total, motivando a los jugadores a explorar, planificar estrategias y sobrevivir en un mundo donde sus decisiones son clave. El universo del juego seguirá evolucionando, con más detalles que se revelarán a medida que se acerque su lanzamiento en 2025.

• Mundo abierto oscuro e inmersivo
 – Explora una realidad alternativa inspirada en la era soviética, llena de paisajes atmosféricos, arquitectura única y una historia cautivadora.
• Narrativa rica influenciada por la ciencia ficción
- Descubre una historia profunda con personajes complejos, artefactos poderosos y anomalías misteriosas, inspirada en la ciencia ficción clásica.
• Campaña narrativa 
- Vive una experiencia inmersiva a través de una campaña llena de historia y misiones apasionantes.

Un inmenso arsenal de armas

• Opciones de juego variadas 
- Participa en misiones PvE, arenas PvP, eventos dinámicos, lugares de historia y mini-juegos entretenidos como la pesca y el casino.
• Modo «Tierras Oscuras» con botín y disparos 
- Atrévete a explorar las «Tierras Sombrías», un modo intenso que combina supervivencia y búsqueda de tesoros.
• Facciones con personajes únicos
 – Trabaja con facciones interesantes, cada una con su propia personalidad, filosofía y recompensas exclusivas.
• Personalización de armas avanzada
 – Diseña armas militarizadas con una amplia variedad de módulos y estructuras únicas, nunca vistas antes en juegos MMO.
• Mecánica de supervivencia realista
 – Mantén a tu personaje saludable gestionando el hambre, el descanso y los recursos para darle un sentido estratégico a la supervivencia.

Sistema flexible de crafting

• Sistema de artesanía profundo 
- Usa materiales recolectados, artefactos y energía de anomalías para fabricar armas y equipo poderoso en bancos de trabajo.
• Juego social basado en clanes 
- Forma clanes, usa emojis y chats para comunicarte, compite en tablas de clasificación y construye una comunidad sólida.
• Incursiones y misiones específicas 
- Participa en seis incursiones únicas que mezclan la exploración en mundo abierto con desafíos organizados que ponen a prueba el trabajo en equipo y la estrategia.

Requisitos Mínimos:

• SO: Windows 10
• Procesador: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-6100
• Memoria: 16 GB de RAM
• Gráficos: NVIDIA GTX 1060 6G
• Red: Conexión de banda ancha a Internet

Requisitos Recomendados:

• SO: Windows 11
• Procesador: Core(TM) i5-8600 CPU
• Memoria: 16 GB de RAM
• Gráficos: NVIDIA RTX 2060
• Red: Conexión de banda ancha a Internet

Acerca de GFA Games

GFA Games es un estudio de desarrollo de videojuegos con sede en Belgrado, Serbia, dedicado a crear experiencias de juego inmersivas y evocadoras.

Fundado por un equipo de desarrolladores apasionados, el estudio se centra en combinar una narrativa rica, una jugabilidad dinámica y un diseño visual impactante.

Su próximo título, PIONER, demuestra su compromiso con la creación de mundos postapocalípticos únicos, llenos de profundidad y desafío.

La entrada PIONER (Shooter MMO) se lanzará en PC a fines del 2025 – Requisitos, Screenshots y Trailer de Gameplay apareció primero en PC Master Race Latinoamérica.