Yes, you read that right– not benchy, but beanie, as in the hat. A toque, for those of us under the Maple Leaf. It’s not 3D printed, either, except perhaps by the loosest definition of the word: it is knit, by [Kevr102]’smotorized turbo knitter.

The turbo-knitter started life as an Addi Express King knitting machine. These circular knitting machines are typically crank-operated, functioning with a cam that turns around to raise and lower special hooked needles that grab and knit the yarn. This particular example was not in good working order when [Kevr102] got a hold of it. Rather than a simple repair, they opted to improve on it.

A 12 volt motor with a printed gear and mount served for motorizing the machine. The original stitch counter proved a problem, so was replaced with an Arduino Nano and a hall effect sensor driving a 7-digit display. In theory, the Arduino could be interfaced with the motor controller and set to run the motor for a specific number of stitches, but in practice there’s no point as the machine needs babysat to maintain tension and avoid dropping stitches and the like. Especially, we imagine, when it runs fast enough to crank out a hat in under six minutes. Watch it go in the oddly cropped demo video embedded below.

Five minutes would still be a very respectable time for benchy, but it’s not going to get you on the SpeedBoatRace leaderboards against something like the minuteman we covered earlier.

If you prefer to take your time, this knitting machine clock might be more your fancy. We don’t see as many fiber arts hacks as perhaps we should here, so if you’re tangled up in anything interesting in that scene, please drop us a line.

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hackaday.com/2025/07/08/five-m…

Many people who get analog electronics still struggle a bit to design oscillators. Even common simulators often need a trick to simulate some oscillating circuits. The Barkhausen criteria state that for stable oscillation, the loop gain must be one, and the phase shift around the feedback loop must be a multiple of 360 degrees. [All Electronics Channel] provides a thorough exploration of oscillators and, specifically, negative resistance, which is punctuated by practical measurements using a VNA. Check it out in the video below.

The video does have a little math and even mentions differential equations, but don’t worry. He points out that the universe solves the equation for you.

In an LC circuit, you can consider the losses in the circuit as a resistor. That makes sense. No component is perfect. But if you could provide a negative resistance, it would cancel out the parasitic resistance. With no loss, the inductor and capacitor will go back and forth, electrically, much like a pendulum.

So, how do you get a negative resistance? You’ll need an active device. He presents some example oscillator architectures and explains how they generate negative resistances.

Crystals are a great thing to look at with a VNA. That used to be a high-dollar piece of test gear, but not anymore.

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hackaday.com/2025/07/08/oscill…

PPI´s main delegate in at the UN Office of Geneva, Carlos Polo, attended the 113th International Labour Organization Conference. The event took place in June 2-13, 2025. The ILO predates the UN, and it has a very important place in history. It was founded when World War One came to a close with the Treaty of Versailles. It became the first specialized agency of the United Nations in 1946 with a specialization in social justice. This year´s conference focused on biological hazards in the workplace, but a wide range of employment issues were discussed.

The ILO is an organization that PPI would like to be involved with more to help strive for digital freedom in the workplace. Many freelance workers and small businesses have contacted us about problems they have with antiquated copyright legislations and big corporations that tie up workers with legal malaise that prohibits them from ever gaining an advantage. Engaging with the ILO helps us advance international policies. By neglecting the rights of workers, big corporations stifle innovation and keeps small players from ever gaining a foothold in making their own technological advancements.

We share some photos of Carlos from the event. Pirate Parties International will continue to join these events and update our community about our activities at the UN. We also currently have represenatives at the World Summit on Information Society, WSIS +20. We will be updating soon with pictures from that event as well.

If you or any other Pirates you know would like to participate in ILO or other UN events, please let us know by filling out the volunteer form: lime.ppi.rocks/index.php?r=sur…

If you would like to help PPI continue to send representatives to these meetings, please consider making a small donation to our organization or becoming a member. If you would like to be involved personally in the movement, by writing about these issues or attending events, please let us know.

Donations

pp-international.net/donations…

pp-international.net/2025/07/i…

Bees are incredible insects that live and die for their hive, producing rich honey in complicated hive structures. The problem is as the average beekeeper, you wouldn’t see much of these intricate structures without disturbing the hive. So why not 3D print an observation hive? With [Teddy Hatcher]’s 3D printing creativity, that is exactly what he did.

Hexagonal sections allow for viewing of entire panels of hexagonal cells, growing new workers, and storing the rich syrup we all enjoy. Each module has two cell panels, giving depth to the hive for heat/humidity gradients. The rear of a module has a plywood backing and an acrylic front for ample viewing. [Teddy] uses three modules plus a Flow Hive for a single colony, enough room for more bees than we here at Hackaday would ever consider letting in the front door.

As with many 3D printed projects involving food or animals, the question remains about health down the line. Plastic can bio-accumulate in hives, which is a valid concern for anyone wanting to add the honey to their morning coffee. On the other hand, the printed plastic is not what honey is added to, nor what the actual cell panels are made from. When considering the collected honey, this is collected from the connected Flow Hive rather than anything directly in contact with 3D printed plastic.

Beehives might not always need a fancy 3D printed enclosure; the standard wooden crates seem to work just fine for most, but there’s a time and place for some bio-ingenuity. Conditions in a hive might vary creating problems for your honey production, so you better check out this monitoring system dedicated to just that!

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Thanks to [George Graves] for the tip!

hackaday.com/2025/07/08/view-a…

If you need to cool something, the gold standard is using a gas compressor arrangement. Of course, there are definite downsides to that, like weight, power consumption, and vibrations. There are solid-state heat pumps — the kind you see in portable coolers, for example. But, they are not terribly efficient and have limited performance.

However, researchers at Johns Hopkins, working with Samsung, have developed a new thin-film thermoelectric heat pump, which they claim is easy to fabricate, scalable, and significantly more efficient. You can see a video about the new research below.

Manufacturing requires similar processes to solar cells, and the technology can make tiny heat pumps or — in theory — coolers that could provide air conditioning for large buildings. You can read the full paper in Nature.

CHESS stands for Controlled Hierarchically Engineered Superlattice Structures. These are nano-engineered thin-film superlattices (around 25 μm thick). The design optimizes their performance in this application.

The new devices claim to be 100% more efficient at room temperature than traditional devices. In practical devices, thermoelectric devices and the systems using them have improved by around 70% to 75%. The material can also harvest power from heat differences, such as body heat. The potential small size of devices made with this technology would make them practical for wearables.

We’ve looked at the traditional modules many times. They sometimes show up in cloud chambers.

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hackaday.com/2025/07/08/better…

The Rigol oscilloscopes have a long history of modifications and hacks, and this latest from [Matthias] is an impressive addition; he’s been working on adding a function generator to the DHO800 line of scopes.

The DHO800 series offers many great features: it’s highly portable with a large 7-inch touchscreen, powered by USB-C, and includes plenty of other goodies. However, there’s room for enhancements. [Matthias] realized that while software mods exist to increase bandwidth or unlock logic analyzer functions, the hardware needed to implement the function generator—available in the more expensive DHO900 series—was missing.

To address this, he designed a daughterboard to serve as the function generator hardware, enabling features that software tweaks can unlock. His goal was to create an affordable, easy-to-produce, and easy-to-assemble interface board that fits in the space reserved for the official daughterboard in higher-end scopes.

Once the board is installed and the software is updated, the new functionality becomes available. [Matthias] clearly explains some limitations of his implementation. However, these shortcomings are outweighed by the tremendous value this mod provides. A 4-channel, 200 MHz oscilloscope with function generator capabilities for under $500 is a significant achievement. We love seeing these Rigol mods enhance tool functionality. Thanks, [Matthias], for sharing this project—great job bringing even more features to this popular scope.

hackaday.com/2025/07/08/budget…

Quanti di voi conoscono il celebre client SSH Putty? E quanti di voi l’ha installato scaricandolo da internet senza fare attenzione alla firma rilasciata dal produttore? Se ricadi in questo caso, la prossima volta potrebbe capitare a te!

Gli esperti di sicurezza di Arctic Wolf hanno identificato una nuova ondata di attacchi di avvelenamento SEO volti a distribuire un noto downloader dannoso chiamato Oyster, noto anche come Broomstick o CleanUpLoader. I truffatori utilizzano siti web falsi che imitano le risorse ufficiali di utility popolari come PuTTY e WinSCP per ingannare gli utenti, principalmente professionisti IT, che cercano questi strumenti sui motori di ricerca.

Il sito web dannoso offre il download di una versione falsa del programma desiderato. Una volta avviata, la backdoor Oyster viene installata sul dispositivo della vittima. Gli aggressori ne garantiscono il funzionamento costante creando un’attività pianificata che esegue la libreria DLL dannosa ogni tre minuti utilizzando l’utility “rundll32.exe”. Ciò indica l’utilizzo del meccanismo di registrazione delle DLL per infiltrarsi nel sistema.

I siti falsi utilizzati per distribuire il malware includono domini come updaterputty[.]com, zephyrhype[.]com, putty[.]run, putty[.]bet e puttyy[.]org. Gli esperti sospettano che l’elenco dei programmi utilizzati per distribuire il downloader non si limiti a PuTTY e WinSCP.

Inoltre, sono diventate più attive anche altre campagne che sfruttano il SEO poisoning per promuovere malware correlati all’intelligenza artificiale. Ad esempio, durante la ricerca di strumenti di intelligenza artificiale, gli utenti potrebbero essere indirizzati a siti con codice JavaScript incorporato che verifica la presenza di ad-blocker e raccoglie informazioni sul browser. Questo avvia una serie di reindirizzamenti che portano a una pagina di phishing che offre il download di un archivio ZIP contenente malware.

Secondo Zscaler, il risultato finale del download è spesso Vidar Stealer o Lumma Stealer, entrambi distribuiti come archivi con una password specificata nella pagina di download. L’archivio contiene un programma di installazione NSIS da 800 MB, che crea l’illusione di legittimità e aiuta a bypassare gli antivirus che si concentrano sulle dimensioni dei file. Il programma di installazione esegue uno script AutoIt, responsabile dell’attivazione del payload malware. La variante Legion Loader utilizza un file MSI e uno script BAT per distribuire il malware.

Un’altra campagna simile si basa sullo spoofing delle pagine CAPTCHA di Cloudflare. Gli utenti vengono attirati su pagine false di popolari servizi web che utilizzano la nota tecnica ClickFix per installare RedLine Stealer tramite Hijack Loader.

Secondo Kaspersky Lab, le piccole e medie imprese sono sempre più prese di mira. Solo nei primi quattro mesi del 2025, si sono verificati circa 8.500 attacchi in cui malware o programmi potenzialmente indesiderati si presentavano come strumenti come OpenAI ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Cisco AnyConnect, Google Drive, Microsoft Office, Teams, Salesforce e Zoom. Zoom ha rappresentato il 41% di tutti i file dannosi unici, seguito da Outlook e PowerPoint (16% ciascuno), Excel (12%), Word (9%) e Teams (5%). Il numero di file falsi mascherati da ChatGPT è aumentato del 115%, raggiungendo quota 177.

Gli attacchi che sfruttano il supporto tecnico di marchi famosi nei motori di ricerca sono particolarmente pericolosi. Cercando le pagine di servizio di Apple, Microsoft, Netflix o PayPal, un utente potrebbe finire su un sito falso che sembra ufficiale. Ma invece del vero numero di assistenza, ne viene visualizzato uno fraudolento . Questa tecnica viene implementata inserendo parametri di ricerca, che consentono di modificare la visualizzazione della pagina senza modificarne l’URL nei risultati di ricerca. Queste pagine vengono attivamente promosse tramite risultati a pagamento su Google.

Questi incidenti dimostrano come gli aggressori sfruttino aggressivamente la fiducia in marchi noti, piattaforme pubblicitarie e motori di ricerca per diffondere malware. La combinazione di trucchi social, trucchi tecnici e una portata su larga scala attraverso l’avvelenamento SEO trasforma le normali query di ricerca in potenziali trappole.

L'articolo PuTTY si trasforma in Trojan! Con Malwertising e SEO Poisoning, una falsa App installa Redline Stealer proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

Humans have forever been using all manner of techniques to better secure the food we need to sustain our lives. The practice of agriculture is intimately tied to the development of society, while techniques like selective breeding and animal husbandry have seen our plants and livestock deliver greater and more nourishing bounty as the millennia have gone by. More recently, more direct tools of genetic engineering have risen to prominence, further allowing us to tinker with our crops to make them do more of what we want.

Recently, however, scientists have been pursuing a bold new technique. Researchers have explored using radiation from space to potentially create greater crops to feed more of us than ever.

“Cosmic Crops”

Most recently, an effort at “space mutagenesis” has been spearheaded by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a body which has been rather more notable for other works of late. In partnership with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), it has been examining the effects that the space-based environment might have on seeds. Ideally, these effects would be positive, producing hardier crops with greater yields for the benefit of humanity.
The sorghum seeds that spent five months on the ISS as part of the joint FAO/IAEA research project. Credit: Katy Laffan/IAEA, CC BY 2.0
The concept is simple enough—put a bunch of seeds on the International Space Station (ISS), and see what happens. Specifically, researchers placed half the seeds outside the ISS, where they would be exposed to extreme cold and maximum doses of cosmic radiation. The other half were left inside the station as a control, where they would experience microgravity but otherwise be safe from temperature and radiation extremes. The hope was that the radiation may cause some random but beneficial mutations in the seed’s genetics which provide better crops for use on Earth.
Plant breeder and geneticist Anupama Hingane examines a sorghum plant grown at the FAO/IAEA Plant Breeding & Genetics Laboratory. Credit: Katy Laffan / IAEA, CC BY 2.0
Two types of seeds were sent up for the first trial by the IAEA and UN—sorghum, a nutrient-filled cereal grain, and arabidopsis, a fast-growing cress. After their flight on the ISS, they were returned to Earth to be germinated, grown, and examined for desirable traits. Of course, DNA sequencing was also on the table, to compare mutations generated in space with seeds kept inside the ISS and those irradiated under laboratory conditions.

The only thing missing from the IAEA’s experiment? A research paper. The seeds returned from space in April 2023, and were sent to the Plant Breeding and Genetics Laboratory in Seibersdorf, Austria soon after. We’ve seen pictures of the plants that sprouted from the seeds in space, but researchers are yet to publish full results or findings from the project.

Proven Benefits

It might sound like an oddball idea, particularly given the results from the IAEA’s project are yet to be delivered. However, space mutagenesis has been tried and tested to a greater degree than you might think. Chinese scientists have been experimenting with the technique of space mutagenesis for over 30 years, finding that it often delivers more beneficial mutations compared to using gamma rays in terrestrial labs.

Chinese efforts have seen many thousands of seeds irradiated via satellites and space stations, including a trip around the moon on the Chang’e-5 mission. Having been exposed to space radiation for anywhere from days to months, the seeds have returned to Earth and been planted and examined for beneficial mutations. While not every seed comes back better than before, some show rare mutations that offer breakthrough benefits in yield, drought resistance, fruit size, or temperature hardiness. These crops can then be bred further to refine the gains. Chinese efforts have experimented with everything from cotton to tomatoes, watermelons and corn, beyond others. A particular success story was Yujiao 1 – a sweet pepper variety released in 1990 boasting better fruit and resistance to disease, along with 16.4% higher yield than some comparable varieties.
A comparison of mutated peppers Yujiao 1 (Y1), Yujiao 2 (Y2), and Yujiao 3 (Y3) with comparable Longjiao wild types (marked W1,W2). Credit: research paper
The results of space mutagenesis are tracked very carefully, both by researchers involved and wider authorities. Notably, the IAEA maintains a Mutant Variety Database for plants that have been modified either by space-based radiation or a variety of other physical or chemical methods. This is important, and not only for reaping the benefits from mutagenic organisms. It’s also important to help researchers understand the mechanisms involved, and to help make sure that the risk of any negative traits breaking out into broader wild plant populations are mitigated.

Ultimately, space mutagenesis is just another tool in the toolbox for scientists looking to improve crops. It’s far from cheap to send seeds to space, let alone to do the research to weed out those with beneficial mutations from the rest. Still, the benefits on offer can be huge when scaled to the size of modern agriculture, so the work will go on regardless. It’s just another way to get more, something humans can never quite get enough of.

hackaday.com/2025/07/08/could-…

Over the course of evolution microorganisms have evolved pathways to break down many materials. The challenge with the many materials that we humans have created over just the past decades is that we cannot wait for evolution to catch up, ergo we have to develop such pathways ourselves. One such example is demonstrated by [Nick W. Johnson] et al. with a recent study in Nature Chemistry that explicitly targets PET plastic, which is very commonly used in plastic bottles.

The researchers modified regular E. coli bacteria to use PET plastic as an input via Lossen rearrangement, which converts hydroxamate esters to isocyanates, with at the end of the pathway para-aminobenzoate (PABA) resulting, which using biosynthesis created paracetamol, the active ingredient in Tylenol. This new pathway is also completely harmless to the bacterium, which is always a potential pitfall with this kind of biological pathway engineering.

In addition to this offering a potential way to convert PET bottles into paracetamol, the researchers note that their findings could be very beneficial to studies targeting other ‘waste’ products from biological pathways.

Thanks to [DjBiohazard] for the tip.

hackaday.com/2025/07/08/turnin…