Navarre Bartz – Page 4 – WindowsTechs.com

China’s Great Solar Wall is a Big Deal

Posted on August 18, 2025 by Navarre Bartz

An overhead image of the Kubuqi Desert Great Solar Wall. It shows a series of clusters of bluish solar panels arranged throughout a light brown and dark brown desert. One of the arrays contains an image of a horse made of solar panels.

Data centers and the electrification of devices that previously ran on fossil fuels is driving increased demand for electricity around the world. China is addressing this with a megaproject that …read more Continue reading China’s Great Solar Wall is a Big Deal→

This Polaroid-esque OCR Machine Turns Text to Braille in the Wild

Posted on August 16, 2025 by Navarre Bartz

A black and white device sits on a beige table. A white rotary knob projects out near the base of it's rectangular shape nearest the camera. Near it is a black rectangular section of the enclosure with six white dots protruding through holes to form a braille display. A ribbon cable snakes out of the top of the enclosure and over the furthest edge of the device, presumably connecting to a camera on the other side of the device.

One of the practical upsides of improved computer vision systems and machine learning has been the ability of computers to translate text from one language or format to another. [Jchen] …read more Continue reading This Polaroid-esque OCR Machine Turns Text to Braille in the Wild→

KeyMo Brings a Pencil to the Cyberdeck Fight

Posted on July 24, 2025 by Navarre Bartz

A hand with dark skin holds a black device. The bottom is a small keyboard and touchpad. The upper half is split with a square LCD on the left and a square, pink notepad on the right. A sketch of a woman wearing a puffy jacket is on the notepad and an illustration of a woman looking through an old timey film video camera is on the screen on the left.

Computers and cellphones can do so many things, but sometimes if you want to doodle or take a note, pencil and paper is the superior technology. You could carry a …read more Continue reading KeyMo Brings a Pencil to the Cyberdeck Fight→

A Neural Net For a Graphing Calculator?

Posted on July 17, 2025 by Navarre Bartz

An image of a light grey graphing calculator with a dark grey screen and key surround. The text on the monochrome LCD screen shows "Input: ENEB Result 1: BEEN Confidence 1: 14% [##] Result 2: Good Confidence 2: 12% [#] Press ENTER key..."

Machine learning and neural nets can be pretty handy, and people continue to push the envelope of what they can do both in high end server farms as well as …read more Continue reading A Neural Net For a Graphing Calculator?→

Long Live RSS!

Posted on July 10, 2025 by Navarre Bartz

While we know that many of you are reading Hackaday via our Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed, we suspect that most people on the street wouldn’t know that it underlies a lot of the modern internet. [A. McNamee] and [A. Service] have created a… Continue reading Long Live RSS!→

Generatively-Designed Aerospike Test Fired

Posted on July 10, 2025 by Navarre Bartz

The aerospike engine holds great promise for spaceflight, but for various reasons, has remained slightly out of reach for decades. But thanks to Leap 71, the technology has moved one …read more Continue reading Generatively-Designed Aerospike Test Fired→

AI Might Kill Us All (With Carbon Emissions)

Posted on July 4, 2025 by Navarre Bartz

So-called artificial intelligence (AI) is all the rage right now between your grandma asking ChatGPT how to code in Python or influencers making videos without having to hire extras, but …read more Continue reading AI Might Kill Us All (With Carbon Emissions)→

DIY Book Lamp is a Different Take on the Illuminated Manuscript

Posted on July 1, 2025 by Navarre Bartz

People have been coming up with clever ways to bring light to the darkness since we lived in caves, so it’s no surprise we still love finding interesting ways to …read more Continue reading DIY Book Lamp is a Different Take on the Illuminated Manuscript→

Hack Turns Nissan Leaf into Giant RC Car

Posted on June 25, 2025 by Navarre Bartz

Two images side by side. One shows a laptop opened to a map view with a vehicle model showing a vehicles location. A transparent overlay shows various blue-ish buttons for sending commands to the vehicle. The image on the right is of the interior of a Nissan Leaf. Visible are the very edge of the steering wheel, the center dash including the infotainment display, vents, and shifter, and part of the right side of the dash. Passenger and driver legs are just barely visible at the bottom of the image.

As cars increasingly become computers on wheels, the attack surface for digital malfeasance increases. [PCAutomotive] has shared its exploit for turning the 2020 Nissan Leaf into 1600 kg RC car. …read more Continue reading Hack Turns Nissan Leaf into Giant RC Car→

NREL Maps Out US Data Infrastructure

Posted on June 25, 2025 by Navarre Bartz

A map of the United States showing a series of interconnected lines in white, red, orange, yellow, and green to denote fiber optic and electrical transmission lines. Dots of white, orange, and yellow denote the location of the data centers relative to nearby metropolitan centers.

Spending time as wee hackers perusing the family atlas taught us an appreciation for a good map, and [Billy Roberts], a cartographer at NREL, has served up a doozy with …read more Continue reading NREL Maps Out US Data Infrastructure→