Turning surplus LCD panels into stand-alone monitors with the help of a driver board is an established hack, and a search of eBay or AliExpress will turn up boards for almost any widely available panel. [Drygol] has a couple of old iPad screens, and has done exactly this with them. What makes these two projects stand aside from the crowd is their attention to detail, instead of creating a hacky monitor this is almost something you might buy as a product.

For a start, both screens sit in very smart 3D printed cases. Behind them is the LCD driver, and perhaps this is where many people might leave it. But the point of an iPad is portability, so the first one receives a suitably large lithium polymer battery and its associated electronics. As such a thing is of limited use without a battery level monitor, so one is mounted flush with the case on the outside. The final touch is a Bluetooth audio board and speaker, making an all-in-one peripheral we’d be happy to carry with us.

The second screen is a slimmer version of the first case, with a different board that has an onboard audio channel. It’s mounted in a stand with a MiSter FPGA emulator, for a very neat and compact desktop set-up.

This project shows what can be done with these screens, and raises the bar. All the files are included, so it should be possible to make your own. We expect someone might stick a Raspberry Pi in there, to make… something like an iPad.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen an iPad screen mod.

hackaday.com/2025/02/24/old-ip…

Dopo che le autorità del Regno Unito hanno chiesto ad Apple di creare una backdoor che consentisse l’accesso ai dati cloud crittografati degli utenti, Apple ha deciso di disattivare del tutto la funzionalità Advanced Data Protection (ADP) nel Regno Unito.

Come riportato all’inizio di questo mese dal Washington Post, citando le proprie fonti, le autorità britanniche hanno emesso un ordine e hanno chiesto ad Apple di fornire l’accesso ai dati criptati degli utenti in tutto il mondo. Secondo la pubblicazione, l’ordine imponeva ad Apple di creare una backdoor che avrebbe consentito l’accesso a qualsiasi contenuto caricato sul cloud da qualsiasi utente.

In particolare, il governo voleva un accesso ai dati protetto dalla crittografia end-to-end mediante Advanced Data Protection, che garantisce che nemmeno Apple stessa possa vedere i dati degli utenti. ADP è stato introdotto nel 2022 ed è una funzionalità opzionale che gli utenti possono abilitare per i backup di iCloud, le foto, le note e altri dati. Nella loro pubblicazione, i giornalisti del Washington Post hanno ipotizzato che tali requisiti avrebbero costretto Apple a chiudere ADP, cosa che è accaduta alla fine della scorsa settimana.

“Apple non può più offrire la protezione avanzata dei dati (ADP) ai nuovi utenti nel Regno Unito e gli utenti esistenti nel Regno Unito dovranno presto disattivare questa funzione di sicurezza”, ha affermato Apple .

L’azienda riteneva che il rispetto dei requisiti delle autorità britanniche avrebbe potuto garantire l’accesso ai dati degli utenti non solo al governo, ma anche agli aggressori.

“Siamo profondamente delusi dal fatto che la protezione di ADP non sarà disponibile per i nostri clienti nel Regno Unito, dato il continuo aumento delle violazioni dei dati e di altre minacce alla privacy. Migliorare la sicurezza dell’archiviazione cloud con la crittografia end-to-end è più importante che mai”, ha affermato Apple.

Quindi per gli utenti Apple del Regno Unito alcuni dati rimangono crittografati. Pertanto, iCloud Keychain e Health, iMessage e FaceTime dispongono della crittografia end-to-end per impostazione predefinita. Tuttavia, altri servizi iCloud, tra cui iCloud Backup, iCloud Drive, Foto, Note, Promemoria, Segnalibri di Safari, Comandi rapidi di Siri e così via, non verranno crittografati.

Apple ha affermato che spera di ripristinare in futuro la protezione dei dati nel Regno Unito, ma si rifiuta di creare backdoor per i governi. “Come abbiamo affermato più volte, non abbiamo mai creato backdoor o chiavi master per i nostri prodotti e servizi. E non lo faremo mai”, hanno detto i rappresentanti di Apple ai media.

L'articolo Apple si rifiuta di creare una Backdoor per il governo del Regno Unito e disabilita ADP proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Okay, you have to see the gallery to appreciate it, but this keyboard was designed to resemble a red cedar tree with the green shell and wood bottom and the copper PCB showing through the tree cutouts on the sides.

Image by [WesternRedCdar] via redditBut you know why I chose this picture — those PS2 buttons. According to [WesternRedCdar] they are just for fun, although they do allow for pressing Ctrl and Alt at the same time with a single thumb.

Oh, and are those Nintendo Switch joysticks above the PS2 buttons? Those are for the mouse and vertical/horizontal scrolling. Honestly, this seems like a great amount of thumb controls. The basics are there (presumably), and there isn’t any thumb-extending excess, like keys on the insides by the mouse.

This bad mama jama runs on an RP2040 and has 50 hand-wired Cherry Brown switches plus the PS2 buttons. In the build guide, you can read all about [WesternRedCdar]’s troubles with integrating those. The Nintendo Switch joysticks weren’t terribly easy, either, since the ribbon connector can’t be soldered directly.

The final issue was one of weight. Since many of the switches stand quite tall, it sort of jostles the keyboard to actuate them. [WesternRedCdar] opined that that the ideal solution would have been to use metal base plates instead of wood, but took care of the issue by adding layers of 1/8″ steel flat bar inside the case.

Gone in 60 Seconds: the Micro Journal Rev. 7 From Tindie

Don’t know what took me so long to find r/writerDeck, but here we go! [WorkingAmbition7014] was quite excited to announce there that [Background_Ad_1810] aka [Un Kyu Lee]’s Micro Journal rev. 7 was up on Tindie. It’s already sold out, but that’s okay because previous versions are already open-source, and it’s just a matter of time before this new revision makes its way to the ole GitHub.

Nearly NSFW image by [Un Kyu Lee] via TindieYou may remember our coverage of the third iteration from about a year ago. Look how far it has come since then! Although the overall portability has kind of taken a dive, it sure does look great from where I’m sitting. Maybe it’s just that lovely color scheme, but to me it has sort of a softened-up mil-spec look.

This distraction-free machine is based on the ESP32-S3 microcontroller. It starts up right away, and you can start typing pretty much immediately on the ePaper screen. There are a pair of knobs that go a long way toward its typewriter looks; the left one wipes the screen and puts the machine to sleep, and the right knob clears the screen in the case of too much ghosting.

Files are saved on the SD card that sits behind the screen, or you can send them to Google Drive. Now, it doesn’t come with that cool clip light, but it doesn’t have a backlight, either, so you’ll probably want to bring your own. You will also have to source your own 18650. Be sure to check out the overview after the break.

youtube.com/embed/lNPzFL1a6mI?…

The Centerfold: Purple Paradise

Image by [Majestic-Fox-550] via redditIsn’t this cozy and fresh? Some might say it’s too cool-toned overall, but I think the peach parts help it strike a balance. Again, I don’t know much, but that keyboard is a Feker Galaxy 80, and the desk mat is from The Mousepad Company. I don’t think those cloud wrist rests are too hard to find; I’ve even seen them at Five Below before.

I love these setup pictures, but I have to wonder, does anyone really keep their desk this clean and tidy? Of course not, it’s for the shot, you’re saying. But that’s my point. Why does everyone always tidy up so hard first? I want to see battle stations in their true forms sometimes. I feel like we got sorta close last week in the one with all the screens. So do I need to inspire centerfold submissions by showing my own battle station one of these times? I don’t know if y’all really want that.

Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad? Send me a picture along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!

Historical Clackers: the Ford Typewriter

Isn’t this machine a beauty? And no, inventor Eugene A. Ford bore no relation to Henry Ford the automobile maker. But wouldn’t this look grand while perched briefly on the running board of your Model T for a quick daguerreotype?
Image via The Martin Howard Collection
Lovely as she was, the 1895 Ford was no fun for the typist. The Space bar-placed Shifts required real pressure to properly operate, and the keys are evidently springy and wobbly. “Springy” sounds intriguing; “wobbly” does not.

Additionally, the advancing lever doesn’t allow going backwards or forwards a line at a time. But the one great thing about the Ford was that it’s a visible writer, whereas most machines of the time were blind writers, meaning you were unable to see what you were typing without stopping and doing something first. It wasn’t the first visible writer, but it might be the easiest to look at.

What it did do first is use aluminium in its construction, although there were two versions, one with an all-aluminium frame and carriage, and the other with a black, enameled cast iron frame and and an aluminium carriage. The cast iron went for $75, and the lighter-weight aluminium machine for $85. Both were lateral thrust machines, which means that the type bars are spread out like a fan and move horizontally to strike the platen.

Eugene Ford had quite the career. After putting his typewriter on the market in 1895, he worked with IBM for the rest of his life, and became chief development engineer of the New York laboratories in 1911. During his tenure, he developed improvements to various punched card accounting machines, sorters, and counters.

Finally, a Keyboard for Cat Lovers

Cats and keyboards go together like peanut butter and jelly. When they’re not straight up walking across it, they’re fluffing it up. Well, why not admit defeat and get this cozy cat-themed keyboard?

This is the Dry Studio Petbrick 65, which comes in calico and black, which is called the odd-eyed design, presumably because the kitty on the Escape key has heterochromia.
Image via Dry Studio
Now that’s just the keyboard itself that comes in calico and black; soon you’ll be able to get all kinds of fuzzy bezels, which attach with magnets and are hand-washable, thankfully.

The Petbrick 65 isn’t just some cutesy little thing. This is a serious mechanical keyboard with a sandblasted POM plate, a specially-tuned (what? how?) cotton poron switch pad, PET film for the sake of acoustics, and two layers of sound-dampening foam.

The switches are custom-made ‘crystal pinks’ that were developed in-house and look pretty slick. If you don’t like them, the PCB is hot-swappable. And they didn’t stop there — the keycaps have dye-sublimated legends for longevity.

Would I type on this? I would, at least until it became uncomfortable for my RSI situation. I’m interested to try these crystal pink switches and feel the fluffiness of the frame on the heels of my hands.

Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards? Help me out by sending in a link or two. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to email me directly.

hackaday.com/2025/02/24/keebin…

Normally, when you want a low DC voltage from the AC line, you think about using a transformer of some kind. [RCD66] noticed that an AC monitor meter must have some sort of power supply but had no transformers in sight. That led to an exploration of how those work and how you can use them, too. You can watch the work in the video below.

Sensibly, there is a transformer in the test setup — an isolation transformer to make it safe to probe the circuit. But there’s no transformer providing voltage changes. Isolation is important even if you are taking apart something commercial that might be trasformerless.

The circuit is simple enough: it uses a capacitor, a resistor, and a pair of diodes (one of them a zener diode). He uses this basic circuit to drive simple regulators with input and output filter capacitors. We’ve seen many variations on this design over the years.

You can’t draw a lot of power through this arrangement. But sometimes it is all you need. However, this is pretty dangerous, as we’ve discussed before. Be sure you understand exactly what the risks are before you decide to build something like this.

youtube.com/embed/zQxE7xRJsGo?…

hackaday.com/2025/02/24/line-p…

Work in progress

Gnocchi alla romana with Carbonara sauce

Questa credo che sarebbe la conclusione della dimostrazione dell'ipotesi per cui 2+2 fa 4, se tale ipotesi fosse stata dimostrata tramite la #ricerca clinica. Ma cosa significa?
Significa che 2+2 fa 4 con una piccola variabilità, e che le probabilità che 4 sia il risultato dell'operazione per il solo effetto del caso sono molto, molto scarse. Scarse ma non nulle.
Questo accade perché in #medicina, in tutte le branche medico-scientifiche, e nella biologia in generale - tutte descritte come "scienze imperfette", le variabili in gioco sono talmente tante da non poter essere incluse tutte in una formula algebrica il cui risultato è matematicamente inoppugnabile.
Avete mai sentito un complottista obiettare che i numeri 3, 4 e 5 non rappresentino una terna (o triade? Perdonate l'ignoranza) pitagorica? O dire che l'area del rettangolo non è base per altezza? No. Perché esiste una certezza matematica che queste tesi siano vere, ed è impossibile dimostrare il contrario, nemmeno in una minima percentuale di casi.
Quel p < 0.05, invece, è il piccolo dettaglio che permette all'antintellettualismo di mettersi a tu per tu con gli scienziati. È la vostra parola contro quella di #ammiocuggino. Avete presente il nonno mancato a 98 anni di morte naturale fumando due pacchetti di sigarette al giorno? Ecco, si tratta di un confirmation #bias (cherry picking, nel linguaggio del web) talmente frequente, che i cimiteri italiani dovrebbero essere pieni di nonni highlander. Da molti, questa viene considerata la prova che il fumo non è poi così dannoso; per chi ha un minimo di intelligenza critica, invece, è solamente l'eccezione che conferma la regola.

Non entrerò nel dettaglio di come, in Italia, l'antintellettualismo e l'analfabetismo funzionale spianino la strada, anche da un punto di vista legislativo, alle pseudoscienze. Forse tratterò l'argomento nei prossimi tempi, e questo post potrebbe essere una buona introduzione. Per il momento, è solo un piccolo spunto di riflessione per intuire quanto rigore scientifico e quanto lavoro - spesso malretribuito - ci siano dietro ad un #trial clinico, e di quanto queste pratiche siano misconosciute ai più, creando situazioni equivoche in cui, potenzialmente, chiunque può tirare acqua al proprio mulino.