Feeling the Heat: Railway Defect Detection

On the technology spectrum, railroads would certainly seem to skew toward the brutally simplistic side of things. A couple of strips of steel, some wooden ties and gravel ballast to …read more Continue reading Feeling the Heat: Railway Defect Detection

Return Of The MITERS Journal

After a long hiatus, the MIT Electronic Research Society, better known as MITERS, has released their summer 2019 edition of the MITERS Journal, officially known as Volume 43 Issue 1.

The latest edition features a throwback to the first journal published in 1976, showing that some things just never change: …read more

Continue reading Return Of The MITERS Journal

How To Deal With A Cheap Spectrum Analyzer

The Hackaday Superconference is all about showcasing the hardware heroics of the Hackaday community. We also have a peer-reviewed journal with the same goal, and for the 2018 Hackaday Superconference we got a taste of the first paper to make it into our fully Open Access Journal. It comes from Ted Yapo, it is indeed a tale of hardware heroics: what happens when you don’t want to spend sixty thousand dollars on a vector network analyzer?

Ted’s talk begins with a need for a network analyzer. These allow for RF measurements, but if you ever need one, be prepared: you …read more

Continue reading How To Deal With A Cheap Spectrum Analyzer

Hackaday Links: July 8, 2018

Software-defined radio has been around for years, but it’s only recently that it’s been accessible to those of us who don’t have tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment in their lab. Here’s a new book from Analog Devices that gives you the lowdown on software-defined radio. It’s heavy on MATLAB and components from Analog, but it’s still a solid foundation for SDR.

Do you like cyberpunk? Do you like stories about rebellious people overthrowing the system? How about androids? Do you like androids? Here’s a Kickstarter that’s tying all of that together. Neptune Frost is (will be?) a …read more

Continue reading Hackaday Links: July 8, 2018

Bibles You Should Read: PoC || GTFO

PASTOR LAPHROAIG ANNOUNCES THE PUBLICATION OF WHAT WILL TORMENT THE ACOLYTES OF THE CHURCH OF ROBOTRON! NO MAN SHALL BE SPARED AND THE INQUISITION WILL BEGIN PROMPTLY!

For the last few years, Pastor Manul Laphroaig and friends have been publishing the International Journal of PoC || GTFO. This is a collection of papers and exploits, submitted to the Tract Association of PoC || GTFO, each of which demonstrates an interesting exploit, technique, or software toy in the field of electronics. Imagine, if 2600 or Dr. Dobb’s Journal were a professional academic publication. Add some whiskey and you have PoC || …read more

Continue reading Bibles You Should Read: PoC || GTFO

HardwareX Is A Scientific Journal For Open Hardware

Disruption is a basic tenet of the Open Hardware movement. How can my innovative use of technology disrupt your dinosaur of an establishment to make something better? Whether it’s an open-source project chipping away at a monopoly or a commercial start-up upsetting an industry with a precarious business model based on past realities, we’ve become used to upstarts taking the limelight.

As an observer it’s interesting to see how the establishment they are challenging reacts to the upstart. Sometimes the fragility of the challenged model is such that they collapse, other times they turn to the courts and go after …read more

Continue reading HardwareX Is A Scientific Journal For Open Hardware