This week, Hackaday’s Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos joined forces to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week.

In Hackaday news, the 2025 Pet Hacks Contest rolls on, but only for a short time longer. You have until Tuesday, June 10th to show us what you’ve got, so head over to Hackaday.IO and get started now! In other news, check out what adaptive optics can do when it comes to capturing pictures of the Sun. In other, other news, there won’t be a Podcast next week as Elliot is on vacation.

On What’s That Sound, Kristina failed once again, but four of you guessed correctly. Congratulations to [ToyoKogyo12aTurbo] who fared better and wins a limited edition Hackaday Podcast t-shirt!

After that, it’s on to the hacks and such, beginning with a largely-printed 6-DOF robot arm. We take a look at a bunch of awesome 3D prints like guitars and skateboards, take a look at some pet hacks, and discuss brick layers in orcaslicer. Finally, we talk a lot about keyboards, especially the quickly-evaporating Blackberry keyboards and why they’re disappearing.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/…

Download in DRM-free MP3 and savor at your leisure.

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Episode 324 Show Notes:

News:

• Adaptive Optics Take Clearest Pictures Of The Sun Yet
• 2025 Pet Hacks Contest

What’s that Sound?

• Congratulations to [ToyoKogyo12aTurbo] for knowing it was the ping of modern active sonar!

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• Simulation And Motion Planning For 6DOF Robotic Arm
  
  • Robotic Arm EB310

  
  

• 2025 Pet Hacks Contest: Keep The Prey At Bay With The Cat Valve
• Testing Brick Layers In OrcaSlicer With Staggered Perimeters
• You Can Make Your Own Ribbon Mic With A Gum Wrapper
  
  • Blue Ribbon Microphone
  • DIY Ribbon Element Upgrades A Studio Microphone

  
  

• Add Wood Grain Texture To 3D Prints – With A Model Of A Log
  
  • Adding Texture To 3D Prints
  • Fuzzy Skin Finish For 3D Prints, Now On Top Layers
  • Texturing 3D prints in IdeaMaker for Strength — CNC Kitchen

  
  

• You Wouldn’t Download A Skateboard?

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks:
  
  • Ender 3 Pro Gets A Second Job As A Stator Winder
  • Open Source Watch Movement Really Ticks All The Boxes
  • Passive Saturation Box Is A Cheap Way To Distort Your Sound
    
    • A Brief Hobbyist Primer On Clipping Diodes

    
    

  • Can We Replace A Program Counter With A Linear-Feedback Shift Register? Yes We Can!

  
  

• Kristina’s Picks:
  
  • 2025 Pet Hacks Contest: Weigh Your Dog The Easy Way
  • 3D Printing A Modular Guitar Means It Can Look Like Whatever You Want
  • A CRT Display For Retro Weather Forecasting

  
  

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• The Blackberry Keyboard: How An Open-Source Ecosystem Sprouts
• Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The H.R. Giger Keyboard
  
  • Old book typewriter Underwood Elliott-Fisher (1930), how to type on books, and why – YouTube

  
  

hackaday.com/2025/06/06/hackad…

This project, sent in by [Henk], goes through a few different ways to make a solder stencil using a vinyl cutter, a CO2 laser, and a fiber laser.

The project starts with identifying a method to convert the board’s Gerber files to a PNG, which is ultimately used to create a vector file for use with the laser. The first stencil, made with the CO2 laser, was cut out of masking tape. This worked fine for larger cutouts and is certainly a cheap option if you don’t have too many small components. A slightly better approach with the CO2 laser was using vinyl sheet release paper, which seemed to hold together better than the tape.
Laser-cut masking tape works, but not for long.
A vinyl cutter was also used as an experiment, but it didn’t perform as well as the CO2 laser, as expected, since the cutter uses a knife rather than light, leading to some tearing issues.

The final method utilized a fiber laser and an empty drink can to create a metal stencil. First, the can had to be cut open, heated, and flattened. The fiber laser was able to cut clean footprints in the aluminum, creating a stencil that would hold up to more use than the paper variations.

The finale of this exploration into laser stencil making was using the fiber laser to solder the board together. The stencil was used to spread paste on the pads, parts were placed on the board, and then the fiber laser heated the solder paste to solder them to the board. The board looked a bit toasty afterwards, but we imagine the process could be fine-tuned to reduce the collateral damage a bit.

Once you’ve got your stencil ready to go, you can combine it with a 3D printed jig to hold the PCB while you apply the solder paste.

hackaday.com/2025/06/06/solder…

Il mercato delle app di intelligenza artificiale sta attraversando un’altra strana svolta: ora gli utenti possono “abbracciare” personaggi di fantasia, baciare i propri cari defunti e trasformare foto casuali in fantasmagorie animate in modo scadente.

Queste app, che hanno invaso TikTok e gli app store, oscillano tra l’imbarazzante e l’inquietante. Da un lato ci sono modelli apparentemente innocui con gatti e nonne, mentre dall’altro ci sono scene apertamente feticistiche in cui l’intelligenza artificiale modifica i corpi, ingrandisce i seni e trasforma foto ordinarie in mini-scene a sfondo sessuale.

Gli algoritmi di queste app possono fare molto: cambiare un’acconciatura, snellire l’utente, farlo ballare in pigiama con le orecchie. Tuttavia, dietro l’apparente innocenza, si celano spesso funzioni discutibili. In una delle app più popolari, bastano un paio di foto per ottenere un video in cui l’utente abbraccia o bacia appassionatamente una celebrità, ad esempio Robert Pattinson nei panni di Edward Cullen.

Un altro modello permette di aumentare il seno della protagonista da B a DD in un paio di clic. Il tutto viene presentato con un’animazione che rispecchia l’idea di romanticismo infantile: i baci ricordano più il piegarsi meccanico dei volti, e gli abbracci sembrano come se qualcuno stesse cercando di incollare una bambola Barbie a un personaggio LEGO.

Alcune di queste app sono di proprietà di aziende poco conosciute provenienti da Turchia e Cina. Dietro le splendide pubblicità e le promesse romantiche si nasconde un modello di monetizzazione basato sulle microtransazioni: da 2,99 dollari a settimana a 69,99 dollari all’anno per l’accesso a un numero limitato di “crediti” per la generazione di video.

Il problema non è solo estetico o morale, ma anche culturale e tecnologico: queste app sfruttano modelli generativi senza controlli né contesto, alimentando rappresentazioni distorte di relazioni, affettività e corpi. E lo fanno in un ecosistema dove l’illusione dell’interazione emotiva viene venduta a rate settimanali.

Nel mezzo di questa deriva, resta una domanda aperta: cosa succede quando milioni di persone iniziano a confondere simulazioni affettive con esperienze autentiche? Forse l’intelligenza artificiale non ci sta solo intrattenendo, ma sta ridefinendo, un video alla volta, cosa intendiamo per contatto umano.

L'articolo Baci, Seni e Glitch! Il Romantico Mondo Trash Delle App per i DeepFake AI proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Satellite images show a new militia operating in southern Gaza in an area under IDF control, and a former Israeli defense minister claimed Israel is arming an ISIS-affiliated militia in Gaza to counter Hamas. In response, PM Netanyahu's office said the country is "working to defeat Hamas in various ways."

Se fosse vero sarebbe l'ennesima prova di quanto Israele sia sceso in basso.