The prototype DACCU device for producing syngas from air. (Credit: Sayan Kar, University of Cambridge)
There is more carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere these days than ever before in human history, and while it would be marvelous to use these carbon atoms for something more useful, capturing CO₂ directly from the air isn’t that easy. After capturing it would also be great if you could do something more with it than stuff it into a big hole. Something like producing syngas (CO + H₂) for example, as demonstrated by researchers at the University of Cambridge.

Among the improvements claimed in the paper as published in Nature Energy for this direct air capture and utilization (DACCU) approach are that it does not require pure CO₂ feedstock, but will adsorb it directly from the air passing over a bed of solid silica-amine. After adsorption, the CO₂ can be released again by exposure to concentrated light. Following this the conversion to syngas is accomplished by passing it over a second bed consisting of silica/alumina-titania-cobalt bis(terpyridine), that acts as a photocatalyst.

The envisioned usage scenario would be CO2 adsorption during the night, with concentrated solar power releasing it the day with subsequent production of syngas. Inlet air would be passed only over the adsorption section before switching the inlet off during the syngas generating phase. As a lab proof-of-concept it seems to work well, with outlet air stripped from virtually all CO₂ and very high conversion ratio from CO₂ to syngas.

Syngas has historically been used as a replacement for gasoline, but is also used as a source of hydrogen (e.g. steam reformation (SMR) of natural gas) where it’s used for reduction of iron ore, as well as the production of methanol as a precursor to many industrial processes. Whether this DACCU approach provides a viable alternative to SMR and other existing technologies will become clear once this technology moves from the lab into the real world.

Thanks to [Dan] for the tip.

hackaday.com/2025/03/21/produc…

In theory, any piece of software could be built out of discrete pieces of hardware, provided there are enough transistors, passive components, and time available. In general, though, we’re much more likely to reach for a programmable computer or microcontroller for all but the simplest tasks for several reasons: cost, effort, complexity, economics, and sanity. [Igor Brichkov] was working with I2C and decided that he wanted to see just where this line between hardware and software should be by implementing this protocol itself directly with hardware.

One of the keys to “programming” a communications protocol in hardware is getting the timing right, the first part of which is initializing communications between this device and another on the bus. [Igor] is going to be building up the signal in parts and then ORing them together. The first part is a start condition, generated by one oscillator and a counter. This also creates a pause, at which point a second oscillator takes over and sends data out. The first data needed for I2C is an address, which is done with a shift register and a counter pre-set to send the correct bits out on the communications lines.

To build up the rest of the signal, including data from the rotary encoder [Igor] is using for his project, essentially sets of shift registers and counters are paired together to pass data out through the I2C communications lines in sequence. It could be thought of that the main loop of the hardware program is a counter, which steps through all the functions sequentially, sending out data from the shift registers one by one. We saw a similar project over a decade ago, but rather than automating the task of sending data on I2C it allowed the user to key in data manually instead.

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hackaday.com/2025/03/21/moving…

Kombucha! It’s a delicious fermented beverage that is kind to your digestive system and often sold in glass bottles. You don’t just have to use those bottles for healthy drinks, though. As [Simranjit Singh] demonstrates, you can also use them to create your very own plasma tube.

[Simranjit’s] build begins with a nice large 1.4-liter kombucha bottle from the Synergy brand. To make the plasma tube nicely symmetrical, the bottle had its original spout cut off cleanly with a hot wire, with the end then sealed with a glass cap. Electrodes were installed in each end of the tube by carefully drilling out the glass and installing small bolts. They were sealed in place with epoxy laced with aluminium oxide in order to improve the dielectric strength and aid the performance of the chamber. A vacuum chamber was then used to evacuate air from inside the chamber. Once built, [Simranjit] tested the bottle with high voltage supplied from a flyback transformer, with long purple arcs flowing freely through the chamber.

A plasma tube may not be particularly useful beyond educational purposes, but it does look very cool. We do enjoy a nice high-voltage project around these parts, after all.

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Pong was one of the first video games to really enter the public consciousness. While it hasn’t had the staying power of franchises like Zelda or Call of Duty, it nonetheless still resonates with gamers today. That includes [Arnov Sharma], who put together this neat handheld version using modern components.

An ESP32 development board serves as the brains of the operation. Capable of operating at many hundreds of megahertz, it has an excessive amount of power for an application as simple as this. Nonetheless, it’s cheap, and it gets the job done. It’s paired with an SSD1306 OLED screen of 124 x 32 resolution. That might not sound like much, but it’s plenty when you’re just drawing two paddles and a ball bouncing between them. Control is via a pair of SMD push buttons for a nice responsive feel.

What’s really neat, though, is the presentation. [Arnov] wrapped the electronics in a neat bean-shaped housing that vaguely apes game controllers of the 16-bit era. Indeed, [Arnov] explains that it was inspired by the Sega Genesis specifically. It looks great with the black PCBs integrated so nicely with the bright orange 3D printed components, and looks quite comfortable to use, too.

It might be a simple project, but it’s done rather well. Just by thinking about color choices and how to assemble the base components, [Arnov] was able to create an attractive and functional game that’s a lot more eye catching than some random boards thrown in an old project box. Indeed, we’ve featured stories on advanced FR4/PCB construction techniques before, too. Meanwhile, if you’re creating your own projects with similar techniques, don’t hesitate to let us know!

hackaday.com/2025/03/21/buildi…

Siete pronti ad una nuova faccia di Lazarus?

In Corea del Nord si sta creando un centro scientifico specializzato, che opererà 24 ore su 24 e svilupperà nuove tecnologie di attacco informatico utilizzando l’intelligenza artificiale. L’unità si chiama Centro di ricerca 227 e fa capo alla Direzione principale dell’intelligence (GRU) delle forze armate del Paese.

Secondo fonti della RPDC, la decisione di crearlo è stata presa personalmente da Kim Jong-un alla fine di febbraio. Il comandante in capo ordinò il rafforzamento delle capacità di guerra informatica all’estero, cosa che portò alla costituzione formale del centro il 9 marzo. Il comando fu trasmesso tramite la Direzione delle Operazioni al quartier generale del GRU.

Il centro avrà sede nel distretto di Mangyongdae, a differenza della sede principale del GRU, che si trova nel distretto di Hyongyesan di Pyongyang. Ciò evidenzia che la struttura sarà separata dalle divisioni esistenti. Mentre alcuni all’interno dell’agenzia ritengono che la sua missione primaria sia la raccolta di informazioni, la fonte sottolinea che l’attenzione sarà rivolta alle capacità di hacking offensive.

Tra i compiti del centro ci saranno lo sviluppo di programmi e metodi volti ad hackerare e neutralizzare i sistemi di sicurezza informatica occidentali, rubare dati e risorse finanziarie e implementare strumenti automatizzati di analisi delle informazioni. Particolare attenzione sarà rivolta alle tecnologie che utilizzano l’intelligenza artificiale, anche per la sicurezza informatica e lo spionaggio e la creazione di strumenti dannosi autogestiti.

Il centro manterrà una comunicazione costante con le unità hacker nordcoreane che operano all’estero per rispondere in tempo reale alle informazioni in arrivo. Ciò garantirà che le risorse e il personale in grado di accelerare il ciclo di sviluppo e implementazione di nuove soluzioni di attacco siano concentrati in un unico luogo.

Il reclutamento degli specialisti per il centro è già iniziato. Si prevede di attrarre circa 90 esperti che hanno dimostrato risultati eccellenti nelle università e nelle scuole post-laurea. Si tratta di programmatori, specialisti dell’automazione e della sicurezza informatica, laureati presso i principali istituti di istruzione e ricerca del Paese.

Va notato che non stiamo parlando di combattenti sul fronte dell’informazione che operano all’estero, ma di sviluppatori che creano strumenti offensivi nazionali. Si prevede che in futuro il loro lavoro amplierà significativamente il potenziale del GRU nel campo delle operazioni informatiche.

Da anni la Corea del Nord dimostra un successo allarmante nelle operazioni di cyber-offensiva. Per questo motivo, il famoso Gruppo Lazarus è associato a numerosi attacchi contro istituzioni finanziarie in tutto il mondo. Gli esperti sottolineano che è lui il responsabile di una serie di furti di criptovalute di alto profilo, i cui danni totali ammontano già a miliardi di dollari.

Uno degli ultimi episodi è stato Hackeraggio dello scambio di criptovalute Bybit, grazie al quale gli aggressori sono riusciti a prelevare asset digitali per un valore di circa 1,5 miliardi di dollari. Tali operazioni dimostrano l’elevato livello di sofisticatezza tecnica delle unità informatiche nordcoreane e rendono lo sviluppo di infrastrutture come il Centro 227 ancora più pericoloso per la sicurezza digitale globale.

L'articolo La Corea Del Nord avvia il Centro Scientifico 227. L’obiettivo? Creare attacchi informatici con le AI proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

You’re cutting yourself a single slice of cake. You grab a butter knife out of the drawer, hack off a moist wedge, and munch away to your mouth’s delight. The next day, you’re cutting forty slices of cake for the whole office. You grab a large chef’s knife, warm it with hot water, and cube out the sheet cake without causing too much trauma to the icing. Next week, you’re starting at your cousin’s bakery. You’re supposed to cut a few thousand slices of cake, week in, week out. You suspect your haggardly knifework won’t do.

In the home kitchen, any old knife will do the job when it comes to slicing cakes, pies, and pastries. When it comes to commercial kitchens, though, presentation is everything and perfection is the bare minimum. Thankfully, there’s a better grade of cutting tool out there—and it’s more high tech than you might think.

Shake It

Knives are very good at cutting food into distinct separate pieces. However, they have one major problem—food is sticky, and so are they. If you’ve ever cut through a cheesecake, you’ve seen this in action. Unless you’re very careful and deft with your slicing, the cake tends to grip the blade of the knife as it comes through. Try as you might, you’re almost always going to leave some marred edges unless you work very slowly.

While most home chefs and cafes can turn a blind eye to these sorts of things, that’s not the case in the processed food industry. For one thing, consumers expect each individually-packed morsel of food to be as cosmetically perfect as the last. For another, cutting processes have to be robust to work at speed. A human can compensate as they cut, freeing the blade from sticking and fettling the final product to hide their mistakes. Contrast that to a production line that slices ice cream bars from a sheet all day. All it takes is one stuck piece to completely mess up the production line and ruin the product.

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This is where ultrasonic food processing comes in. Ultrasonic cutting blades exist for one primary reason—they enable the cutting of all kinds of different foods without sticking, squashing, or otherwise marring the food. These blades most commonly find themselves used in processed food production lines, where a bulk material must be cut into individual bars or slices for later preparation or packaging.

It’s quite something to watch these blades in action. Companies like Dukane and MeiShun have demo videos that show the uncanny ability of their products to slice through even the stickiest foods without issue. You can watch cheesecakes get evenly sectored into perfect triangular slices, or a soft brie cheese being sliced without any material being left on the blade. The technique works on drier materials too—it’s possible to cut perfectly nice slices of bread with less squishing and distortion using ultrasonic blades. Even complex cakes, like the vanilla slice, with layers of stiff pastry and smooth custard, can be cut into neat polygons with appropriate ultrasonic tooling.

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The mechanism of action is well-understood. An ultrasonic cutting blade is formally known as a sonotrode, and is still sharpened to an edge to do its job. However, where it varies from a regular blade is that it does not use mere pressure to slice through the target material. Instead, transducers in the sonotrode vibrate it at an ultrasonic frequency—beyond the range of human hearing, typically from 20 kHz to 40 kHz. When the sonotrode comes into contact with the material, the high-frequency vibrations allow it to slice through the material without sticking to it. Since the entire blade is vibrating, it continues to not stick as it slides downwards, allowing for an exceptionally clean cut.

Generally, the ultrasonic sonotrode is paired with a motion platform to move the food precisely through the cutting process, and an actuator to perform the cutting action itself. However, there are also handheld ultrasonic knives that can be purchased for those looking to use the same technique manually.

The technique isn’t solely applied to the food industry. The same techniques work for many other difficult-to-cut materials, like rubber. The technique can also be applied to various textiles or plastic materials, too. In some cases, the sonotrode can generate enough heat as it cuts through the materials to melt and seal the edges of the material it’s cutting through.

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If you’re simply looking to cut some cake at home, this technique might be a little overly advanced for you. At the same time, there’s nothing stopping you from rigging up some transducers with a blade and a DIY CNC platform seeing what you can achieve. If you want the most perfectly cubed sheet cake at your next office party, this might just be the technology you’re looking for.

hackaday.com/2025/03/21/high-f…

We’re firmly in Europe this week on the Hackaday podcast, as Elliot Williams and Jenny List are freshly returned from Berlin and Hackaday Europe. A few days of mingling with the Hackaday community, going through mild panic over badges and SAOs, and enjoying the unique atmosphere of that city.

After discussing the weekend’s festivities we dive right into the hacks, touching on the coolest of thermal cameras, wildly inefficient but very entertaining wireless power transfer, and a restrospective on the capacitor plague from the early 2000s. Was it industrial espionage gone wrong, or something else? We also take a moment to consider spring PCB cnnectors, as used by both one of the Hackaday Europe SAOs, and a rather neat PCB resistance decade box, before looking at a tryly astounding PCB blinky that sets a new miniaturisation standard.

In our quick roundup the standouts are a 1970s British kit synthesiser and an emulated 6502 system written in shell script, and in the can’t-miss section we look at a new contender fro the smallest microcontroller, and the posibility that a century of waste coal ash may conceal a fortune in rare earth elements.

Follow the link below, to listen along!

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Episode 312 Show Notes:

What’s that Sound?

• If you know what that sound was, and we think you probably do, put your name down here to be in the drawing for the t-shirt.

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• The Capacitor Plague Of The Early 2000s
• Make Your Cheap Thermal Camera Into A Microscope
• Transmitting Wireless Power Over Longer Distances
• A Decade Resistance Box From PCBs
• World’s Smallest Blinky, Now Even Smaller
• Writing A GPS Receiver From Scratch

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks:
  
  • Reviving A Maplin 4600 DIY Synthesizer From The 1970s
  • Make Fancy Resin Printer 3D Models FDM-Friendly
  • Chemistry Meets Mechatronics In This Engaging Art Piece
  • Current Mirrors Tame Common Mode Noise
  • Speeding Up Your Projects With Direct Memory Access

  
  

• Jenny’s Picks:
  
  • Pick Up A Pebble Again
  • Turning Down The Noise On SMPS
  • A 6502, In The Shell
  • Repairing A Kodak Picture Maker Kiosk

  
  

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• 
  
  • Ask Hackaday: What Would You Do With The World’s Smallest Microcontroller?
  • From The Ashes: Coal Ash May Offer Rich Source Of Rare Earth Elements

  
  

hackaday.com/2025/03/21/hackad…

Amazon ha affermato che rimuoverà un’opzione di privacy meno popolare che consentiva agli utenti dei suoi smart speaker Echo di impedire l’invio di richieste vocali al cloud dell’azienda.

A partire dal 28 marzo 2025, Amazon non supporterà più l’opzione “Non inviare registrazioni vocali”, che impedisce l’invio di audio al cloud Amazon ed elabora le richieste localmente sul dispositivo.

In un’e-mail inviata ai clienti che hanno utilizzato questa opzione, Amazon ha affermato di aver deciso di “non supportare più questa funzionalità” in quanto amplia le capacità di Alexa con funzionalità di intelligenza artificiale generativa eseguite nel cloud.

Vale la pena notare che la funzionalità è stata introdotta solo su tre dispositivi dell’azienda (Echo Dot di quarta generazione, Echo Show 10 ed Echo Show 15) e funzionava solo per gli utenti statunitensi i cui dispositivi erano impostati in inglese. Secondo Amazon, meno dello 0,03% dei possessori di Echo utilizza questa funzionalità.

Dopo il 28 marzo, le persone che hanno utilizzato la funzione “Non condividere registrazioni vocali” passeranno automaticamente alla funzione “Non salvare registrazioni”. Tuttavia, non sarà possibile creare un ID vocale per i singoli utenti “per ottenere l’accesso a funzionalità più personalizzate”.

“Utilizzare Alexa significa proteggere la privacy dei nostri clienti e mantenere i loro dati al sicuro, e questo non cambierà. Ci siamo concentrati sugli strumenti e sui controlli della privacy che i nostri clienti utilizzano più spesso e che funzionano bene con l’intelligenza artificiale generativa, supportata dalla potenza di calcolo del cloud sicuro di Amazon”, ha affermato l’azienda in una nota.

L'articolo Tutto ciò che dici ad Alexa, sarà inviato ad Amazon dal 28 Marzo proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Microsoft rilasciato L’avviso più allarmante mai realizzato per gli utenti di Windows 10 che non hanno effettuato l’aggiornamento a Windows 11. L’azienda ha chiarito: il supporto di Windows 10 terminerà il 14 ottobre 2025 e coloro che rimangono sul vecchio sistema rischiano furti di dati, attacchi e altre terribili conseguenze.

“Quando il sistema operativo non riceve più gli aggiornamenti di sicurezza critici, è come lasciare la porta di casa aperta”, si legge nelle e-mail che Microsoft ha iniziato a inviare agli utenti questa settimana. A coloro che ricevono tali messaggi viene chiesto di verificare se il proprio computer è idoneo per un aggiornamento o di valutare l’acquisto di un nuovo dispositivo.

Secondo Statcounter, Windows 10 continua a essere utilizzato su circa 800 milioni di dispositivi. Microsoft sottolinea che, con l’avvicinarsi della fine del supporto, questi computer diventeranno “bersagli facili” per malware e attacchi informatici.

L’azienda sottolinea che gli aggiornamenti di sicurezza sono come le “serrature sulle porte”: proteggono dagli intrusi. E dato che l’aggiornamento di Windows di marzo ha nuovamente corretto le vulnerabilità zero-day, i rischi di rimanere su un sistema obsoleto sono in aumento.

Per le aziende e le organizzazioni, Microsoft offrirà un supporto esteso a pagamento per 30 dollari all’anno, ma questa opzione non è ancora apparsa sui mass media, forse perché teme che molti scelgano di pagare piuttosto che effettuare l’aggiornamento.

L’aggiornamento a Windows 11 rimane gratuito per i possessori di dispositivi con licenza idonea. Microsoft sottolinea che la combinazione del nuovo sistema e dell’hardware più moderno garantisce un livello di protezione notevolmente più elevato.

“Non aspettare che sia troppo tardi”, avverte l’azienda. “L’aggiornamento proteggerà i tuoi dati e ti garantirà tranquillità per la tua vita digitale.”

L'articolo Windows 10 Sta Per Scomparire! Corri o Sarai Hackerato Prima di Finire il Caffè proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

La Corte, chiamata a pronunciarsi sulla disciplina dell'adozione internazionale che non include le persone singole fra coloro che possono adottare, ha affermato che tale esclusione si pone in contrasto con gli articoli 2 e 117, primo comma, della Costituzione, quest'ultimo in relazione all'articolo 8 della Convenzione europea dei diritti dell'uomo.

C'è voluta la Corte Costituzionale per stabilire che per un bambino orfano è meglio avere un genitore adottivo che non averne neanche uno e dover restare in un istituto.

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Humans weren’t the first organisms on this planet to figure out how to turn the abundance of nitrogen in the atmosphere into a chemically useful form; that honor goes to some microbes that learned how to make the most of the primordial soup they called home. But to our credit, once [Messrs. Haber and Bosch] figured out how to make ammonia from thin air, we really went gangbusters on it, to the tune of 8 million tons per year of the stuff.

While it’s not likely that [benchtop take on the Haber-Bosch process demonstrated by [Marb’s lab] will turn out more than the barest fraction of that, it’s still pretty cool to see the ammonia-making process executed in such an up close and personal way. The industrial version of Haber-Bosch uses heat, pressure, and catalysts to overcome the objections of diatomic nitrogen to splitting apart and forming NH₃; [Marb]’s version does much the same, albeit at tamer pressures.

[Marb]’s process starts with hydrogen made by dripping sulfuric acid onto zinc strips and drying it through a bed of silica gel. The dried hydrogen then makes its way into a quartz glass reaction tube, which is heated by a modified camp stove. Directly above the flame is a ceramic boat filled with catalyst, which is a mixture of aluminum oxide and iron powder; does that sound like the recipe for thermite to anyone else?

A vial of Berthelot’s reagent, which [Marb] used in his recent blood ammonia assay, indicates when ammonia is produced. To start a run, [Marb] first purges the apparatus with nitrogen, to prevent any hydrogen-related catastrophes. After starting the hydrogen generator and flaring off the excess, he heats up the catalyst bed and starts pushing pure nitrogen through the chamber. In short order the Berthelot reagent starts turning dark blue, indicating the production of ammonia.

It’s a great demonstration of the process, but what we like about it is the fantastic tips about building lab apparatus on the cheap. Particularly the idea of using hardware store pipe clamps to secure glassware; the mold-it-yourself silicone stoppers were cool too.

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