The hack we have for you today is among our most favorite types of hack: a good, honest, simple, and well documented implementation that meets a real need. Our hacker [Solo Pilot] has sent in a link to their basement monitor.

The documentation is quite good. It’s terse but comprehensive with links to related information. It covers the background, requirements, hardware design, sensors, email and SMS alerts, software details, and even has some credits at the end.

Implementing this project would be a good activity for someone who has already made an LED flash and wants to take their skills to the next level by sourcing and assembling the hardware and then configuring, compiling, deploying, and testing the software for this real-world project.

To make this project work you will need to know your way around the Arduino IDE in order to build the software from the src.zip file included with the documentation (hint: extract the files from src.zip into a directory called AHT20_BMP280 before opening AHT20_BMP280.ino and make sure you add necessary boards and libraries).

One feature of the basement monitor that we would like to see is a periodic “everything’s okay” signal from the device, just so we can confirm that the reason we’re not getting an alarm about flooding in the basement is because there is no flood, and not because the battery ran dead or the WiFi went offline.

If you’ve recently started on your journey into where electronics meets software a project such as this one is a really great place to go next. And of course once you are proficient with the ESP8266 there are a thousand such projects here at Hackaday that you can cut your teeth on. Such as this clock and this fault injection device.

hackaday.com/2025/05/17/making…

All’inizio di questo mese, è stato segnalato su Windows 11 24H2 un bug di sicurezza che ha portato alla perdita di dati da parte di utenti ignari. Tuttavia, i problemi di BitLocker hanno ora colpito anche Windows 10. In seguito agli ultimi aggiornamenti del Patch Tuesday rilasciati all’inizio di questa settimana per il mese di maggio 2025 (KB5058379/ KB5058392/ KB5058383/ KB5058387), gli utenti segnalano che i loro sistemi visualizzano la schermata di ripristino di BitLocker al riavvio dopo l’installazione.

Il problema è diffuso tra gli OEM hardware, poiché gli utenti Lenovo, Dell e HP segnalano tutti lo stesso problema. Si tratta di un bug che colpisce i PC aziendali gestiti tramite Intune, WSUS e SCCM ed è il secondo bug importante correlato alle aziende a colpire tali dispositivi questo mese, dopo il precedente che ha bloccato l’aggiornamento di Windows 11 2024 sui dispositivi 22H2/23H2.

Un utente mersongeorge su un forum Microsoft ha aperto una discussione intitolata “13 maggio – KB5058379 Windows 10 causa danneggiamenti e gli endpoint richiedono la chiave BitLocker…”. L’utente descrive il problema così: “L’ultimo aggiornamento di qualità KB5058379 , rilasciato il 13 maggio, non funziona sui dispositivi Windows 10. In alcuni dispositivi, causava l’attivazione della finestra della chiave BitLocker dopo il riavvio. L’aggiornamento sembra comunque fallire. Alcuni dispositivi si bloccano in un ciclo di riavvii. Questo problema riguarda principalmente i dispositivi gestiti da Intune. Lenovo Thinkpad. In alcuni casi, la tastiera viene disabilitata e l’utente non riesce a passare la chiave BitLocker.”

Fortunatamente, Microsoft è a conoscenza del bug presente nell’aggiornamento KB5058379 e di come questo causi loop di riavvio, errori di aggiornamento e richieste di ripristino di BitLocker. L’azienda ha anche fornito una soluzione alternativa. Il problema è stato convalidato sui modelli Dell Precision 5570 e 5680 basati su Intel. Un utente Callum Hargreaves2 sullo stesso thread lo ha confermato. L’azienda ha suggerito che il problema sia correlato alla tecnologia Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) di Intel, ma sono in corso ulteriori indagini. Pertanto, disabilitare la funzionalità TXT nel BIOS potrebbe potenzialmente risolvere il problema. L’utente ha scritto quanto segue:

Prossimi passi e raccomandazioni:

• Continua a tenere sospesi i dispositivi interessati con l’installazione degli aggiornamenti.
• Per i dispositivi già interessati e che necessitano del ripristino di BitLocker, la misura provvisoria consigliata è l’applicazione della chiave di ripristino e il ripristino dell’aggiornamento come descritto.
• Un’altra possibile soluzione alternativa è la disattivazione di TXT nel BIOS, ma, come hai notato, potrebbe richiedere l’intervento di personale remoto e non è la soluzione ideale per distribuzioni di grandi dimensioni.
• Microsoft sta lavorando per documentare il problema su Windows Release Health e MicrosoftPortali del Centro di amministrazione 365; gli aggiornamenti saranno forniti non appena saranno disponibili nuove informazioni.

Per chi non lo sapesse, Intel TXT è una funzionalità di sicurezza integrata nei processori e nei chipset Intel. Aiuta a proteggere i computer dagli attacchi software garantendo che le applicazioni vengano eseguite in uno spazio sicuro e isolato. TXT utilizza la sicurezza basata su hardware per proteggere i dati e integra funzionalità come Intel PTT (o comunemente chiamato TPM) e Secure Boot.

L'articolo Lenovo, Dell, HP bloccati dal bug BitLocker di Windows: ecco cosa sta succedendo proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Microsoft ha iniziato a licenziare circa 6.000 dipendenti martedì, quasi il 3% della sua forza lavoro globale, nel più grande ciclo di tagli di posti di lavoro degli ultimi due anni. La decisione arriva mentre il colosso della tecnologia raddoppia gli investimenti nell’intelligenza artificialee mira a semplificare le operazioni riducendo i livelli di gestione.

Tra le persone colpite c’era Gabriela de Queiroz, Direttore dell’IA di Microsoft. De Queiroz ha condiviso un sentito messaggio su LinkedIn, esprimendo la sua tristezza e il suo shock per essere stata licenziata, nonostante il suo importante contributo all’azienda.

I licenziamenti riguardano dipendenti di tutti i team, livelli e aree geografiche; sono già stati emessi avvisi di licenziamento. Nonostante abbia registrato ricavi e profitti elevati per il trimestre gennaio-marzo, superando le aspettative di Wall Street, Microsoft si è unita ad altre importanti aziende tecnologiche nel tagliare posti di lavoro a causa della crescente incertezza economica. Di seguito la traduzione del post su Linkedin di Gabriela de Queiroz, Direttore dell’IA di Microsoft.
💔 Notizia agrodolce da condividere: sono stato colpito dall'ultimo round di licenziamenti di Microsoft.

Me lo aspettavo? Forse.

Al giorno d'oggi, non importa quanto duramente lavori, quanto sostieni la tua azienda o quanti risultati e visibilità porti, che si tratti di aiutare Microsoft a diventare un nome di fiducia tra le startup di intelligenza artificiale o di promuovere iniziative per renderla un posto migliore in cui lavorare per centinaia di persone, niente di tutto ciò ti rende immune alla ristrutturazione.

Sono triste? Assolutamente. Ho il cuore spezzato nel vedere così tante persone di talento con cui ho avuto l'onore di lavorare essere lasciate andare. Queste sono persone che si sono preoccupate profondamente, sono andate ben oltre e hanno davvero fatto la differenza. 💙

Ma se mi conoscete, sapete che guardo sempre il lato positivo. ✨

Sono un ottimista nel cuore. Questo non è cambiato. Il mio sorriso, la mia gratitudine, la mia convinzione che ogni giorno è un dono: tutto questo è ancora qui.

Ci è stato chiesto di interrompere immediatamente il lavoro e di fissare un'assenza dall'ufficio. Ma ho scelto di rimanere un po' più a lungo, presentandomi alle riunioni, salutandomi, impacchettando quello che potevo. Mi sembrava giusto.

Qual è il prossimo passo? Non lo so ancora. È troppo presto per dirlo. Ma confido che ne verrà fuori qualcosa di buono.

A coloro che ne sono stati colpiti: non siete soli. Siamo almeno in 6.000.

E a coloro che ci hanno contattato, grazie. La tua gentilezza significa tutto in questo momento. ❤️
Ha rivelato che, nonostante ai dipendenti fosse stato chiesto di interrompere immediatamente il lavoro, lei ha scelto di rimanere brevemente per salutare e concludere le attività in corso. De Queiroz, pur mantenendo un atteggiamento ottimista, ha affermato di non sapere ancora cosa le riserva il futuro, ma di confida che dalla transizione scaturirà qualcosa di buono.

Ha anche riconosciuto l’entità dei licenziamenti e ha offerto solidarietà alle altre persone colpite: “A chi è stato colpito: non siete soli. Siamo almeno 6.000”. Microsoft non ha rilasciato dichiarazioni sui singoli licenziamenti, ma ha confermato che i tagli al personale rientrano in un più ampio processo di aggiustamento strutturale.

L'articolo Microsoft licenzia 6000 persone e la Direttrice dell’IA: “Ho dato tutto, ma non è bastato” proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

There’s just some joy in an instant camera. They were never quality cameras, even in the glory days of Polaroid, but somehow the format has survived while the likes of Kodachrome have faded away. [Mellow_Labs] decided he wanted the instacam experience without the Polaroid pricing, so he made his own in the video embedded after the break.
He says “Polaroid’ but we see Game Boy.
At its core, it’s a simple project: an ESP32-CAM for the image (these were never great cameras, remember, so ESP32 is fine– and do you really get to call it an instant camera if you have to wait for a Raspberry Pi to boot up?) and a serial thermal printer for the “instant photo”part. This admittedly limits the project to black and white, and pretty low res, but B/W is artistic and Lo-Fi is hip, so this probably gives the [Mellow Labs] camera street cred with the kids, somehow. Honestly, this reminds us more of the old Gameboy Camera and its printer than anything made by Polaroid, and we are here for it.

The build video goes through the challenges [Mellow Labs] found interfacing the serial printer to the ESP32–which went surprisingly well for what looks like mostly vibe coding, though we’re not sure how much time he spent fixing the vibe code off camera–as well as a the adventure of providing a case that includes the most absurdly beefy battery we’ve ever seen on a camera. Check out the full video below.

Instant cameras are no stranger to Hackaday: this one used e-ink; this one uses film, but is made of gingerbread. In 2022 we wondered if we’d ever shake the Polaroid picture, and the answer appears to be “no” so far.

Thanks to [Mellow] for tooting his own horn by submitting this project to the tip line. We love to see what our readers get up to, so please– toot away!

youtube.com/embed/8lnDPz4QZjQ?…

hackaday.com/2025/05/16/hack-a…

We love clocks, but we especially love unusual timepieces that aren’t just about showing the hour of the day. [Simone Giertz] built a flip clock moon phase tracker for a friend.

While in Egypt for Cairo Maker Faire, [Giertz] and [dina Amin] found some old flip clocks at a flea market and had to have them. [Amin] mentioned wanting to make a moon phase tracker with one, and [Giertz] decided to try her hand at making her own version. A side quest in more comfortable flying is included with the price of admission, but the real focus is the process of figuring out how to replicate the flip clocks original mechanism in a different size and shape.

[Giertz] cut out 30 semi-circle flaps from polystyrene and then affixed vinyl cut-outs to the flaps. The instructions for the assembly suggest that this might not be the best way to do it, and that printing stickers to affix to the flaps might work better since the cut vinyl turned out pretty fiddly. We really like the part where she built a grid jig to determine the optimal placement of the beams to keep the flaps in the right position after a disheartening amount of difficulties doing it in a more manual way. Her approach of letting it rest for twenty minutes before coming back to it is something you might find helpful in your own projects.

Best of all, if you want to build your own, the files are available for the flip moon station on the Yetch website. You’ll have to come up with your own method to drive it though as that isn’t in the files from what we saw.

youtube.com/embed/-4VeoAkKFg4?…

hackaday.com/2025/05/16/moon-p…

Recently in material science news from China we hear that [Hailin Peng] and his team at Peking University just made the world’s fastest transistor and it’s not made of silicon. Before we tell you about this transistor made from bismuth here’s a whirlwind tour of the history of the transistor.

The Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT, such as NPN and PNP) was invented by Bell Labs in 1947. Later came Transistor-Transistor Logic (TTL) made with BJTs. The problem with TTL was too much power consumption.

Enter the energy-efficient Field-Effect Transistor (FET). The FET is better suited to processing information as it is voltage-controlled, unlike the BJT which is current-controlled. Advantages of FETs include high input impedance, low power consumption, fast switching speed, being well suited to Very-Large-Scale Integration (VLSI), etc.

The cornerstone of Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) technology which came to replace TTL was a type of FET known as the Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor (MOSFET). The type of MOSFET most commonly used in CMOS integrated circuits is the Enhancement-mode MOSFET which is normally off and needs gate voltage to conduct.

A transistor’s technology generation is given with the “process node”, in nanometers (nm). This used to mean the size of the smallest feature that could be fabricated, but these days it’s just a marketing term (smaller is “better”). Planar CMOS MOSFETs were initially dominant (through ~28nm), then came SOI MOSFETs (28nm to 16nm), then FinFETs (16nm to 5nm), and now finally Gate-All-Around FETs (GAAFETs, 3nm and beyond).

All of that in order to say that this new transistor from [Hailin Peng] and his team is a GAAFET. It’s made from bismuth oxyselenide (Bi₂O₂Se) for the channel, and bismuth selenite oxide (Bi₂SeO₅) as the gate material. See the article for further details.

Keep in mind that at this point in time we only have a prototype from a lab and the gory details about how to mass-produce these things, assuming that’s even possible, haven’t yet been worked out. We have previously discussed the difficulty of manufacturing state-of-the-art transistors. If you’re interested in bismuth be sure to check out how to use bismuth for desoldering.

hackaday.com/2025/05/16/new-bi…

Da qualche settimana nella redazione di Ristretti Orizzonti, storica rivista del carcere di Padova scritta da persone detenute, lavorano otto detenuti in meno, su una quarantina in totale. Sono quelli provenienti dall’Alta Sicurezza, la sezione del carcere riservata a persone condannate per alcuni tipi di reati associativi in cui si è normalmente sottoposti a una sorveglianza più stretta: non lavorano più in redazione per via di una recente circolare sulla gestione di questa categoria di detenuti diffusa dal Dipartimento dell’amministrazione penitenziaria (DAP), l’ufficio del ministero della Giustizia che si occupa di carceri

ilpost.it/2025/05/16/ristretti…

The Mac mini is the closest to an Apple-based SBC you can get, so it lends itself to unusual portable computers. [Scott Yu-Jan] is back to tackle a portable build using the latest and greatest M4 mini.

[Yu-Jan] walks us through his thought process of how to maximize the portability of the system without all that tedious mucking about with setting up a separate keyboard, monitor, and the mini while on the go. With the more complicated electronics, the monitor risked tipping the keyboard over when attached, particularly since [Yu-Jan] isn’t a fan of batteries for his portables.

By affixing the Mac mini to the side of the keyboard, it makes the whole thing easier to slip into a bag without being overly thick. We get a peek into his iterative process as well when he evaluates the build and decides that the closing of the lid wasn’t what he was hoping for. By adding some TPU rests for the monitor to rest on in the closed position, he says it’s really brought the whole project up a notch. We certainly have had our own projects where one little detail really moves it from sketchy to polished, and we appreciate when makers clue us in on where that happened for them.

You may recognize [Yu-Jan] from our previous coverage of his older portable all-in-one Mac mini and this luggable version where he explains why he doesn’t like laptops. If you like your computers more stationary, how about some G4 iMacs with the newer internals from an M-series mini?

youtube.com/embed/MNnpzamnX84?…

hackaday.com/2025/05/16/a-port…

Remember The Clapper? It was a home automation tool (of sorts) that let you turn appliances on and off by clapping. [Kevin O’Connor] has built something rather similar, if more terrifying. It’s called The Screamer.

The build is based around a Sonoff S31 smart switch. [Kevin] selected an off-the-shelf device because he wanted something that was safe to use with mains power out of the box. But specifically, he selected the S31 because it has an ESP8266 inside that’s easy to reprogram with the aid of ESPHome. He ended up hooking up a whole extra ESP32 with an INMP441 microphone over I2S to do the scream detection. This was achieved with a simple algorithm that looked for high amplitude noises with lots of energy in the 1000 – 4000 Hz frequency range. When a scream is detected, it flips a GPIO pin which is detected by the S31, which then toggles the state of the smart switch in turn. Job done.

It’s a simple project that does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s The Screamer! If you’d like to learn more about the original Clapper that inspired this build, we’ve looked at that before, too. Meanwhile, if you’re cooking up your own excuses to scream at the lights and walls in your home, please only notify the tipsline if it has something vaguely to do with electronics or hackery.

hackaday.com/2025/05/16/the-sc…

][/url]

For a while now part of my email signature has been a quote from a Hackaday commenter insinuating that an article I wrote was created by a “Dumb AI”. You have my sincerest promise that I am a humble meatbag scribe just like the rest of you, indeed one currently nursing a sore shoulder due to a sporting injury, so I found the comment funny in a way its writer probably didn’t intend. Like many in tech, I maintain a skepticism about the future role of large-language-model generative AI, and have resisted the urge to drink the Kool-Aid you will see liberally flowing at the moment.

Hackaday Is Part Of The Machine

As you’ll no doubt be aware, these large language models work by gathering a vast corpus of text, and doing their computational tricks to generate their output by inferring from that data. They can thus create an artwork in the style of a painter who receives no reward for the image, or a book in the voice of an author who may be struggling to make ends meet. From the viewpoint of content creators and intellectual property owners, it’s theft on a grand scale, and you’ll find plenty of legal battles seeking to establish the boundaries of the field.

Anyway, once an LLM has enough text from a particular source, it can do a pretty good job of writing in that style. ChatGPT for example has doubtless crawled the whole of Hackaday, and since I’ve written thousands of articles in my nearly a decade here, it’s got a significant corpus of my work. Could it write in my style? As it turns out, yes it can, but not exactly. I set out to test its forging skill.

In Which I Meet My Digital Impostor

A couple of weeks ago I covered the news of the impending re-entry of a failed Soviet Venus mission stuck in orbit since 1972. It’s a fascinating story because the craft may survive the experience, and it’s possible that by the time you read this it might have been retrieved. I asked ChatGPT to provide me with a 200 word article on the story “in the voice of the Hackaday writer Jenny List”. Here’s what it came up with:

In the early days of the Space Race, the Soviet Union launched a bold bid to reach Venus: the Venera missions. Among them was Kosmos 482, a 1972 mission that never made it past Earth’s gravity. Now, over five decades later, its descent craft is finally coming home—with a bang.

Kosmos 482 was intended to deliver a lander to Venus, but due to a malfunction in its upper stage, it was stranded in a highly elliptical orbit around Earth. Encased in a semi-spherical titanium shell, the descent craft—designed to survive the brutal atmosphere of Venus—has been orbiting quietly, steadily losing altitude. By early May 2025, that orbit had decayed to a precarious 232 x 136 km, setting the stage for an uncontrolled reentry around May 10th.

Unlike typical space debris, Kosmos 482’s reentry carries a bit more drama. Built to endure Venus’s hellish surface, the lander is expected to survive Earth’s atmospheric plunge mostly intact. Impact predictions estimate it will hit the ground at about 65-70 m/s, roughly the speed of a meteorite, packing the punch of a 500 kg hunk of Soviet engineering.

With an orbital inclination of 51.95 degrees, it could come down anywhere between 52°N and 52°S, adding an element of unpredictability. One thing is certain: after 53 years in limbo, Kosmos 482 is finally coming back to Earth—whether we’re ready or not.

Reading it is a fascinating experience, because superficially it feels like a Hackaday piece. It has my vague style with some phrases such as “packing the punch of a 500 kg hunk of Soviet engineering“. It’s casual in its language, and it’s captured my wordiness; in contrast to the more terse style it does when for example I ask it to do the same thing in the voice of my colleague Al Williams. It fails though in several senses, I feel it doesn’t capture my sentence style and the very British way I use punctuation, it relies on far more figures than I would put in a piece, and perhaps most importantly it has no inference. It relies only on the facts it can find, indeed those figures are a sign of it overusing them, and it doesn’t go further in commenting on any likely outcomes. In my human-written version of the same piece I finished up by speculating on who would own it if retrieved, and anything of that nature is absent in its output.

Don’t Worry, Humans Still Needed

So it’s clear from the above that while it can write something which is superficially coverage of the same story in my voice when writing a Hackaday piece, it still fails at the task in hand. Where we would try to give a little introduction, background and comment to the story, it instead presents only a summary of facts it has found. The fact that it can’t infer beyond the story is reassuring, because it means we meat-based Hackaday scribes still have the edge. There are many people who will tell you to look for certain words as clues to AI-written text, but the truth is much simpler. Look for the human touch.

hackaday.com/2025/05/16/chatgp…

Join Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi as they take a whirlwind tour of the best and brightest hacks of the last week. This episode starts off with an update about that Soviet Venus lander that’s been buzzing the planet, then moves on to best practices for designing 3D printed parts, giving Chrome OS devices a new lease on life, and a unique display technology that brings a Star Wars prop to life.

You’ll also hear about designing new motherboards for beloved old computers, why you might want to put your calipers on a flatbed scanner, and a NASA science satellite that’s putting in double duty as a wartime reporter. Finally, they’ll cover the interesting physics of meteor burst communications, and the latest developments in the ongoing libogc license kerfuffle.

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.

Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast

Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:

• iTunes
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• Check out our Libsyn landing page

Episode 321 Show Notes:

News:

• Reentry prediction Soviet-era Venera Venus lander – Rocket Science
• Telegram: View @roscosmos_gk

What’s that Sound?

• Know that sound? Fill out this form for a chance to win!

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• Best Practices For FDM Printing
  
  • Learn 15 Print-in-Place Mechanisms In 15 Minutes

  
  

• Turning A Chromebox Into A Proper Power-Efficient PC
• Let The Wookie Win With This DIY Holochess Table
  
  • Aska3D
  • A Little Optical Magic Makes This Floating Display Pop
  • What’s Inside A Neonode Laser Sensor?

  
  

• A Brain Transplant For A Philips Smart Lamp
• Tearing Down A Forgotten Video Game
  
  • Pong-Story : PONG in a Chip

  
  

• Another Old ThinkPad Gets A New Motherboard
  
  • Replacement Motherboard Brings New Lease Of Life To Classic Thinkpads
  • Revive A Sony Vaio P-Series With KiCad’s Background Bitmaps

  
  

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks:
  
  • Move Over, Lithophane: 3D Printed 3D Photos With Gaussian Splats
  • A Single-Pixel Camera Without Moving Parts Using Compressed Sensing
  • Scan Your Caliper For Physical Part Copies

  
  

• Tom’s Picks:
  
  • Studying QR Code Degradation
  • The World’s Longest Range LED Flashlight
  • Open Source ELINT Accidentally From NASA

  
  

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• Radio Apocalypse: Meteor Burst Communications
• RTEMS Statement Deepens Libogc License Controversy
  
  • Libogc Allegations Rock Wii Homebrew Community

  
  

hackaday.com/2025/05/16/hackad…

Intuitively, you think that everything that you stretch will pull back, but you wouldn’t expect a couple of pieces of plastic to win. Yet, researchers over at [AMOLF] have figured out a way to make a mechanism that will eventually shrink once you pull it enough.

Named “Counter-snapping instabilities”, the mechanism is made out of the main sub-components that act together to stretch a certain amount until a threshold is met. Then the units work together and contract until they’re shorter than their initial length. This is possible by using compliant joints that make up each of the units. We’ve seen a similar concept in robotics.

Potentially this may be used as a unidirectional actuator, allowing movement inch by inch. In addition, one application mentioned may be somewhat surprising: damping. If a structure or body is oscillating through a positive feedback loop it may continue till it becomes uncontrollable. If these units are used, after a certain threshold of oscillation the units will lock and retract, therefore stopping further escalation.

Made possible by the wonders of compliant mechanics, these shrinking instabilities show a clever solution to some potential niche applications. If you want to explore the exciting world of compliance further, don’t be scared to check out this easy to print blaster design!

youtube.com/embed/KxtkcL0z5j0?…

Thanks to [I’m Not Real] for the tip!

hackaday.com/2025/05/16/compli…