A spectrometer is one of those tools that many of us would love to have, but just can’t justify the price of. Sure there are some DIY options out there, but few of them have the convenience or capability of what’s on the commercial market. [Chris] from Zoid Technology recently found a portable spectrometer complete with Android application for just $150 USD on AliExpress which looked very promising…at least at first.

The problem is that the manufacturer, Torch Bearer, offers more expensive models of this spectrometer. In an effort to push users into those higher-priced models, arbitrary features such as data export are blocked in the software. [Chris] first thought he could get around this by reverse engineering the serial data coming from the device (interestingly, the spectrometer ships with a USB-to-serial adapter), but while he got some promising early results, he found that the actual spectrometer data was obfuscated — a graph of the results looked like stacks of LEGOs.

That ain’t right — data over the serial link was obfuscated for your protection fleecing
His next step was to decompile the Android application and manually edit out the model number checks. This let him enable the blocked features, although to be fair, he did find that some of them actually did require additional hardware capabilities that this cheaper model apparently doesn’t posses. He was able to fix up a few other wonky issues in the application that are described in the video below, and has released a patch that you can use to bring your own copy of the software up to snuff.

But that’s not all — while fiddling around inside the Android tool’s source code, he found the missing pieces he needed to understand how the serial data was being obfuscated. The explanation to how it works is pretty long-winded, so we’ll save time and just say that the end result was the creation of a Python library that lets you pull data from the spectrometer without relying on any of the manufacturer’s software. This is the kind of thing a lot of people have been waiting for, so we’re eager to see what kind of response the GPLv3 licensed tool gets from the community.

If you’d still rather piece together your own spectrometer, we’ve seen some pretty solid examples you can use to get started.

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[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.

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Secondo lo studio, la Cina resta la minaccia informatica più attiva e persistente per gli Stati Uniti sulla base del report di valutazione annuale delle minacce (ATA-2025). Secondo il rapporto, Pechino non sta semplicemente conducendo operazioni di cyber intelligence, ma sta deliberatamente costruendo infrastrutture per potenziali attacchi contro obiettivi critici all’interno degli Stati Uniti in caso di conflitto.

Uno degli episodi più allarmanti, che l’intelligence chiama la campagna Volt Typhoon, sono le azioni dei cinesi hacker, finalizzato alla “preinstallazione dell’accesso” ai sistemi di approvvigionamento idrico, energetico e delle telecomunicazioni. Questi attacchi non compromettono semplicemente singoli nodi, ma creano le condizioni per disconnettere intere regioni dai servizi di base in caso di crisi. Il nuovo episodio, Salt Typhoon, ha mostrato come gli hacker siano riusciti a penetrare nelle infrastrutture delle compagnie di telecomunicazioni.

Particolare attenzione è rivolta alla minaccia in caso di guerra a Taiwan. Il rapporto afferma che la Cina potrebbe lanciare massicci attacchi informatici contro installazioni militari, sistemi di comunicazione e infrastrutture civili degli Stati Uniti per causare caos, ritardare lo spiegamento delle truppe e destabilizzare la situazione interna degli Stati Uniti. Tra i potenziali obiettivi rientrano i sistemi energetici, la logistica, la navigazione satellitare e le strutture mediche.

Secondo l’intelligence americana, la Cina sta utilizzando attivamente l’intelligenza artificiale nelle operazioni informatiche. Nel 2024 sono stati registrati casi di deepfake, conduttori di fake news e social media con avatar generati dall’intelligenza artificiale utilizzati per diffondere disinformazione. Tali campagne miravano a dividere la società americana su questioni quali immigrazione, droga e aborto.

Gli sforzi della Cina si estendono anche allo spazio. Pechino sta potenziando la sua capacità di intercettare i satelliti per le comunicazioni e la ricognizione. Il rapporto sottolinea che l’Esercito Popolare di Liberazione ha già i mezzi per disattivare i satelliti nemici utilizzando la guerra elettronica, i laser e i missili d’attacco. L’intelligence sottolinea che in tempo di pace queste tecnologie vengono utilizzate per ispezioni e test, ma possono essere adattate per gli attacchi.

Le minacce informatiche della Cina non si limitano agli attacchi tecnici. L’intelligence statunitense ha documentato un aumento dell’influenza segreta all’interno del Paese, attraverso campagne volte a diffamare le istituzioni americane e a promuovere narrazioni a vantaggio di Pechino. Nel 2024, alcuni attori cinesi hanno utilizzato account e contenuti falsi per interferire nel dibattito pubblico e probabilmente anche in future elezioni.

Secondo l’intelligence, la vulnerabilità dei sistemi americani resta elevata. Ciò che è particolarmente preoccupante è che le campagne cinesi stanno diventando sempre più sofisticate, furtive e tecnologicamente avanzate, mentre i metodi di rilevamento sono in ritardo rispetto alla velocità con cui gli aggressori riescono ad adattarsi.

L'articolo Cyber guerra imminente? La Cina potrebbe spegnere l’America in caso di conflitto proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

[Jamie] decided to build a generator, and Lego is his medium of choice. Thus was created a fancy levitating generator that turns a stream of air into electricity.

The basic concept is simple enough for a generator—magnets moving past coils to generate electricity. Of course, Lego doesn’t offer high-strength magnetic components or copper coils, so this generator is a hybrid build which includes a lot of [Jamie’s] non-Lego parts. Ultimately though, this is fun because of the weird way it’s built. Lego Technic parts make a very crude turbine, but it does the job. The levitation is a particularly nice touch—the build uses magnets to hover the rotor in mid-air to minimize friction to the point where it can free wheel for minutes once run up to speed. The source of power for this contraption is interesting, too. [Jamie] didn’t just go with an air compressor or a simple homebrew soda bottle tank. Instead, he decided to use a couple of gas duster cans to do the job. The demos are pretty fun, with [Jamie] using lots of LEDs and a radio to demonstrate the output. The one thing we’d like to see more of is proper current/voltage instrumentation—and some measurement of the RPM of this thing!

While few of us will be rushing out to build Lego generators, the video nonetheless has educational value from a mechanical engineering standpoint. Fluids and gases really do make wonderful bearings, as we’ve discussed before. Video after the break.

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Hackers like making clocks, and we like reporting on them around these parts. Particularly if they’ve got a creative mechanism that we haven’t seen before. This fine timepiece from [gooikerjh] fits the bill precisely—it’s a sliding tile clock!

The brains of the build is an Arduino Nano ESP32. No, that’s not a typo. It’s basically an ESP32 in a Nano-like form factor. It relies on its in-built WiFi hardware to connect to the internet and synchronize itself with time servers so that it’s always showing accurate time. The ESP32 is set up to control a set of four stepper motors with a ULN2003 IC, and they run the neat time display mechanism.

All the custom parts are 3D printed, and the sliding tile concept is simple enough. There are four digits that show the time. Each digit contains number tiles that slide into place as the digit rotates. To increment the digit by one, it simply needs to be rotated 180 degrees by the relevant stepper motor, and the next number tile will slide into place.

We love a good clock at Hackaday—the more mechanical, the better. If you’re cooking up your own nifty and enigmatic clocks at home, don’t hesitate to drop us a line!

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