Hardware Tech News

A new Linux tool called nbd-vram allows users to utilize their Nvidia GPU's unused VRAM as system swap space to prevent slow SSD swapping. This provides a clever performance workaround for laptop owners with soldered RAM and no physical memory upgrade path.

Open-source electronics company Adafruit has received a formal legal demand letter from Flux.ai, represented by the law firm Fenwick. This legal action highlights emerging tensions within the open-source hardware and maker community. Adafruit is currently reviewing the demands and is expected to share further updates with its community of hackers and electronics enthusiasts.

Researchers recently CT scanned four BYD components to reveal the inner workings of the world's best-selling EV. The analyzed parts included a battery cell, window switch, EV charger, and key fob, providing a rare look inside the technology of the popular automaker whose cars are banned in the United States.

HP is re-releasing its iconic HP-16C programmer calculator as a new Collector's Edition. The updated device merges the beloved classic design of the original with modern programming functions for today's computer scientists.

OpenFOV is a new software tool that allows iRacing players to use their standard webcams for real-time head tracking. By dynamically adjusting the in-game field of view to match physical head movements, it unlocks an immersive VR-style experience on standard monitors.

The Open Repair Data Standard (ORDS) introduces a unified framework for collecting and sharing repair data to improve product reliability tracking across the electronics industry. By standardizing how repair metrics are recorded, the initiative aims to empower consumers with transparent insights into device longevity and support the broader right-to-repair movement.

A new 2024 DOS demo called Pits has achieved native multicore processing and Full HD graphics in pure DOS without relying on external drivers. Since the legacy operating system lacks built-in multithreading, developers accomplished this by running standard DOS on one CPU core while executing custom code on additional cores. This workaround coordinates the cores via shared memory and requires programmers to manually implement synchronization, effectively writing a micro-kernel to manage the complex cross-core execution.

AI chip startup Groq is reportedly looking to raise more venture capital funding to support its business operations. The company is seeking to expand its footprint in the competitive artificial intelligence hardware market. Curiously, the article's description jokes that the company is achieving this financial feat by somehow bringing back Star Wars villain Emperor Palpatine.

The Muxcard is a DIY project that packs a fully functional computer into the dimensions of a standard credit card, featuring an ESP32 microcontroller, an E-Paper display, and NFC capabilities. This ultra-compact open-source design provides makers with a highly portable and customizable platform for their hardware projects.

Researchers led by Qing Cao have developed a scalable method for sequentially stacking high-performance silicon circuits to create advanced three-dimensional chips. This breakthrough overcomes the physical limitations of traditional manufacturing and provides a promising pathway to extend Moore's Law.

Software engineer and NixOS Steering Committee member Christina Sørensen explains why a decade-old Intel Xeon processor remains perfectly adequate for modern development and server workloads. She highlights the practical benefits of utilizing older enterprise hardware, emphasizing that continuous upgrades to the latest processors are often unnecessary.

The debate over normalizing 8-bit RGB values by 255 or 256 is visually inconsequential for standard digital displays but causes noticeable color tinting when generating low-bit analog VGA signals. Readers discuss hardware-level workarounds like temporal dithering and reflect on historical CRT quirks caused by similar voltage mismatches. Ultimately, the community concludes that dividing by 255 is the mathematically correct approach to properly account for quantization ranges and avoid fence post errors.

Nvidia RTX Spark combines advanced AI and RTX graphics technology into a compact form factor for slim laptops and small desktops. This integration is specifically designed to deliver high-performance computing tailored for creators, developers, and gamers.

Microsoft is challenging Apple's MacBook Pro dominance with the launch of the new Surface Laptop Ultra. This premium device is equipped with an NVIDIA RTX Spark chip and 128GB of unified memory to offer high-end performance.

After purchasing a brand new iPhone, the author intentionally slowed down the device's performance. The article details the reasoning behind this experiment and how artificially limiting a modern smartphone's speed impacts the overall user experience.

Developer NishantJoshi00 has open-sourced a new Zig programming template for the Flipper Zero on GitHub to streamline custom application development for the popular hardware multi-tool. The project provides a foundational codebase and actively invites the developer community to contribute to its ongoing growth.

A recent guide outlines how users can play classic DOS and Windows games purchased from GOG on Apple's M-series Macs. The tutorial provides practical workarounds for running nostalgic titles like SimCity 2000 and Theme Hospital on Apple Silicon hardware.

New beam spring keyboards from Ellipse and ModelFKeyboards are drawing attention from retro typing enthusiasts, but the company has a notorious reputation for poor quality control and virtually no warranty support. Although some users report that the latest metal-cased models work flawlessly out of the box, buyers are frequently warned they might receive a damaged unit. Consequently, customers should be prepared to spend significant time troubleshooting their expensive purchase to ensure they receive a fully functioning product.

YC P26 startup Expanse has launched an intelligent prediction layer designed to eliminate wasted GPU compute capacity in high-performance clusters. By analyzing source code and hardware topologies with a custom machine learning model, the platform determines the exact resources a job actually needs rather than relying on user allocations. This approach allows existing schedulers to optimize workload placement and significantly improve overall data center utilization rates.

Reader discussions highlight the ingenuity of Eastern Bloc engineers who reverse-engineered Western hardware like the DEC PDP-11 to bypass US sanctions and maintain compatibility with global software standards. By cloning Western systems and replicating software to save resources, these Cold War-era machines closely mirrored their American counterparts despite limited access to global supply chains. Today, these historic Soviet and East German clones remain preserved in university lobbies and local flea markets, continuing to fascinate classic computing enthusiasts.

Success in the rapidly growing semiconductor industry requires chip designers to shift their strategies when moving from academia to commercial roles. This article explores the key differences in risk management and silicon intellectual property utilization necessary for professionals to thrive in the field.

Organizers have revealed plans for a 2026 summer camp centered around a legacy lab designed to teach system administration using older technology. The event will challenge IT professionals to manage outdated infrastructure, evoking the nostalgic struggles of sysadmining like it is 2009.

A barn owl relies on exquisite structural variations in its feathers to achieve the extraordinary ability to hunt in complete darkness using hearing alone. Understanding the mechanics behind this natural acoustic engineering could provide valuable inspiration for designing advanced noise-reduction technologies.

Recent advancements in highly optimized, low-bit local AI models are paving the way for consumers to run powerful generation tasks on personal devices without relying on expensive cloud subscriptions. Enthusiasts note that specialized local inference engines are already achieving ultra-fast processing speeds that could soon outpace standard network latencies. Although current proof-of-concept models still struggle with accuracy, this rapid progress highlights a promising shift toward affordable, self-hosted AI hardware.

A United Airlines flight returned to Newark after a passenger's Bluetooth device name triggered a security alert. The flight crew responded by issuing repeated warnings and a strict one-minute ultimatum. Passengers were ordered to immediately turn off all Bluetooth devices to resolve the situation.

Chuwi has unveiled the Minibook X, an ultra-compact laptop designed for users seeking extreme portability and versatile computing on the go. This latest addition to the ultra-mobile PC market continues the brand's tradition of offering highly functional hardware in a miniature form factor. Observers are now looking forward to seeing its final retail pricing and performance benchmarks.

The official Version 1.0 specification for the AV2 video standard has been released, marking the finalization of the new media format. This complete technical framework now provides developers and hardware manufacturers with the definitive guidelines needed to begin implementation.

A personal account details the severe logistical and medical challenges faced when an insulin pump unexpectedly failed during a week-long vacation to Santa Fe. The story serves as a cautionary tale about the critical vulnerabilities of relying entirely on connected medical devices while traveling far from home.

A tech enthusiast integrated a repurposed datacenter GPU into a standard gaming PC for just £200 by jury-rigging the physical fit and cooling. This unconventional hardware mod enabled the system to run a local AI model that ties with Claude Sonnet 4.6 on standard benchmarks.

An illustrated feature explores the hidden engineering of everyday objects by breaking down the intricate internal mechanisms of a mechanical pencil. Through detailed visuals, the project celebrates the complex design and functional brilliance of common tools that we frequently take for granted.