It’s no secret that Google really doesn’t like it that people are installing Android applications from any other source than the Play Store. Last year they proposed locking everyone into their official software repository by requiring all apps to be signed by verified developers, an identity which would be checked against a Google-maintained list. After a lot of pushback a so-called ‘advanced flow’ for installing even unsigned APKs would be implemented, and we now know how this process is supposed to work.

Instead of the old ‘allow installing from unknown sources’ toggle, you are now going to have to dig deep into the Developer Options, to tap the Allow Unverified Packages setting and confirm that nobody is forcing you to do this. This starts a ‘security delay’ of twenty-four hours after you restart the device, following which you can finally enable the setting either temporarily or permanently. It would seem these measures are in place to make it more difficult for a scammer to coerce a user into installing a malicious app — whether or not that’s a realistic concern or not, we’re not sure.

When we last covered this issue this ‘advanced flow’ had just been introduced as an appeasement option. In addition to this a limited free developer account was also pitched, which now turns out to allow for up to only 20 device installations. If you want more than this, you have to pay the $25 fee and provide your government ID.

Although Google’s public pitch is still that this is ‘for user security’, it will also mean that third-party app stores are swept up in these changes, with developers who publish on these stores subject to the same verification rules. This means that Android users will have to learn quickly how to enable this new option as it will be rolled out to more countries over the coming months.

The reality is that scammers will simply work around this issue by buying up already verified developer accounts. At the same time, it’ll cripple third-party app stores and indie developers who had intended to distribute their Android app by simply providing an APK download.

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Diciamo che il manualetto che abbiamo presentato ci riguarda tutti, anche se è stato intitolato alla protezione dei giornalisti e degli attivisti.

Essere consapevoli dei rischi che si corrono quando si usa un telefono, un tablet o un computer, è la prima linea di difesa di fronte all’uso illecito dei nostri dati, delle informazioni che acquisiamo e delle relazioni che intratteniamo. La conoscenza del soggetto sotto osservazione rappresenta un vantaggio per chi chi lo sorveglia.

E guardate che la sorveglianza dei dati è la sorveglianza dei comportamenti più privati in un mondo datificato e iperconnesso.

Questa sorveglianza che si traduce in una conoscenza dettagliata del soggetto sorvegliato serve a modularne i comportamenti, in maniera diretta o indiretta, serve a modellarne lo stile di vita e i comportamenti sociali e di consumo. Il soggetto sotto osservazione non è mai libero.

Perciò non essere sorvegliati è la frontiera della libertà.

Nel caso dei giornalisti è particolarmente importante. In una fase di forti tensioni sociali e di frizioni geopolitiche i giornalisti restano un baluardo di civiltà, protagonisti della manutenzione dei valori liberali di una società aperta che fa della trasparenza dei comportamenti pubblici un elemento di bilanciamento dei poteri a cui siamo soggetti, siano essi di tipo politico, giudiziario o economico.

Quello che qui va garantita è quindi la privacy dei giornalisti, precondizione perché facciano il loro lavoro in maniera il più possibile serena e indipendente, per esercitare un’importante funzione sociale.

Immagino che molti di noi siano critici coi giornalisti, come possiamo esserlo verso medici che ci hanno curato male o verso giudici che hanno sbagliato. Ma immaginatevi un mondo senza di loro. Sarebbe come un mondo senza programmatori perché non hanno patchato un bug o introdotto una backdoor nei sistemi informatici che usiamo ogni giorno.

Per cui anche se ci sono molti giornalisti che fatichiamo a riconoscere e a rispettare come tali, il problema non sono loro, ma la tutela del giornalismo in quanto funzione sociale.

I giornalisti vanno protetti.

Avete sentito del giornalista israeliano minacciato perché coi suoi articoli aveva influenzato il corso di alcune scommesse su Polymarket; forse sapete anche degli insulti e delle minacce a Daniela Ranieri del Fatto per aver espresso delle opinioni fuori dalle righe sui social, o dei giornalisti sorvegliati con spyware avanzatissimi di cui non sappiamo ancora i responsabili.

Ecco l’autodifesa digitale riguarda loro, sicuramente, e riguarda tutti noi che grazie al giornalismo sappiamo cosa succede nei teatri di guerra o nelle segrete stanze del potere.

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We’re not exactly worried about Armageddon here at Hackaday, but should we end up facing the end of the world as we know it, having something to pass the time would be nice. That’s why we were intrigued by [Janus Cycle]’s latest video where he both plays and powers a Game Boy by candlelight.

You’ve probably figured out the trick already: he’s using a Peltier module as a thermoelectric generator. Candles, after all, release a lot more energy as heat than light, and all that high-quality heat is just begging to be put to use somehow. It’s hardly a new idea; [Janus] references space-age radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) in the video, but back in the day the Soviets had a thermoelectric collar that fit around a kerosene lantern to power their tube radios.

In [Janus]’s case, he’s using a commercial module sandwiched between two heatsinks with the rather-questionable choice of a cardboard box reinforced with wooden skewers to hold it over the candle. Sure, as long as the flame doesn’t touch the cardboard, it should be fine, but you will not be at all surprised to see the contraption catch fire in the video’s intro. For all that, he doesn’t get enough power for the Game Boy — one module gets him only 2 V with tea light, but he has a second module and a second candle.

Doubling the energy more than doubles the fun, since a working Game Boy is way more than twice as fun as an un-powered one. But one candle should be more than enough power, so [Janus] goes back and optimizes his single-Peltier setup with a tall candle and actual thermal grease, and gets the Game Boy going again. Any fire marshals in the audience should look away, though, as he never gives up on keeping a candle in a cardboard box.

The “power something with a Peltier module” project is probably a right of passage for electronics enthusiasts, but most are more likely to play with the irony of candle-powered LEDs, or fans to cool the cold-side heatsink. We did see a phone charger one time, and that didn’t even involve open flames, which seems much safer than this. Remember — no matter how much you want to game after the end of the world, it’s not worth burning down your fallout shelter.

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The Raspberry Pi line of single-board computers can be hooked up with a wide range of compatible cameras. There are a number of first party options, but you don’t have to stick with those—there are other sensors out there with interesting capabilities, too. [Collimated Beard] has been exploring the use of the IMX585 camera sensor, exploiting its abilities to capture HDR content on the Raspberry Pi.

The IMX585 sensor from Sony is a neat part, capable of shooting at up to 3840 x 2160 resolution (4K) in high-dynamic range if so desired. Camera boards with this sensor that suit the Raspberry Pi aren’t that easy to find, but there are designs out there that you can look up if you really want one. There are also some tricks you’ll have to do to get this part working on the platform. As [Collimated Beard] explains, in the HDR modes, a lot of the standard white balance and image control algorithms don’t work, and image preview can be unusable at times due to the vagaries of the IMX585’s data format. You’ll also need to jump some hurdles with the Video4Linux2 tools to enable the full functionality of these modes.

Do all that, recompile the kernel with some tweaks and the right drivers, though, and you’ll finally be able to capture in 16-bit HDR modes. Oh, and don’t forget—you’ll need to find a way deal with the weird RAW video files this setup generates. It’s a lot of work, but that’s the price of entry to work with this sensor right now. If it helps convince you, the sample shots shared by [Collimated Beard] are pretty good.

If you’re looking to record some really juicy, colorful imagery with the Raspberry Pi, this is a difficult but viable way to go. We’ve seen some other hardcore Raspberry Pi camera hacks of late, too.

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The test setup for the Battle Born LFP cycling. (Credit: Will Prowse, YouTube)
There has been quite a bit of news recently about the Battle Born LiFePO₄ (LFP) batteries and how they are dying in droves if not outright melting their plastic enclosures. Although the subsequent autopsies show molten plastic spacers on the bus bars and discolored metal in addition to very loose wiring, it can be educational to see exactly what is happening during repeated charge-discharge cycles at a fraction of the battery’s rated current. Thus [Will Prowse] recently sacrificed another Battle Born 75 Ah LFP battery to the Engineering QA Gods.

This time around the battery was hooked up to test equipment to fully graph out the charging and discharging voltage and current as it was put through its paces. To keep the battery as happy as possible it was charged and discharged at a mere 49A, well below its rated 100A.

Despite this, even after a mere 14 cycles the battery’s BMS would repeatedly disconnect the battery, as recorded by the instruments. Clearly something wasn’t happy inside the battery at this point, but the decision was made to push it a little bit harder while still staying well below the rated current.

This led to the observed failure mode where the BMS disconnects the battery so frequently that practically no current is flowing any more. Incidentally this is why you need to properly load test a battery to see whether it’s still good. In this failure mode there is still voltage on the terminals, but trying to pass any level of current leads to the rapid disconnecting by the BMS, even while as in this case the plastic spacer on the bus bar melts a little bit more.

Despite these very rapid disconnects and observed thermal issues, the BMS never puts the battery into any kind of safe mode as other LFP batteries do, leading to the melting plastic and other issues that have now been repeatedly observed. The discoloration of the battery terminals that originally started the investigation thus appears to be a result of higher charge currents and correspondingly higher temperatures.

Worryingly, Battle Born recently put out a statement – addressed in the video – in which they completely disavow these findings and insist that there is no issue at all with these LFP batteries. Naturally, if you still have any Battle Born LFP installed, you really want to test them properly, or ideally replace them with a less sketchy alternative until some kind of recall is issued.

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Sometimes the right tool for the right job appears almost out of nowhere. That was certainly the case for [Jonathan] who came across an unusual but well-designed robot at a secondhand shop. The robot needed a bit of work to get back into a usable condition, but after that it was ready for use. For such a unique machine, it needed a unique place to work as well, so in this build [Jonathan] uses it as a real robot to recreate a popular board game meant to teach programming to children.

In the original board game, called Robot Turtles, there are no actual robots. Instead, players use cards to control turtles to reach objectives in much the same way that a programmer would solve a similar problem with a computer. A board game with such a name almost demands a robot, so [Jonathan] found a larger playing surface in the form of soft matting blocks, each with a number or letter, that can be assembled into a grid. To make the game, he built a Python application on top of the interface he reverse-engineered in a previous build. It handles the robot interface, control, input, and a PyGame GUI. The game can either be played in real-time, or the robot’s moves can be queued.

In addition to keyboard input, the bot can also be controlled by putting cards from the actual board game itself on an NFC reader he made. [Jonathan] has a four-year-old at home, so he hopes that all of these projects will have an impression and encourage experimentation and discovery of computers and programming.

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Sometimes you really need to know what the weather is doing, but you don’t want to look at your phone. For times like those, this neat weather display from [Jordan] might come in handy with its throwback retro vibe.

The build is based around the ESP32-2432S028—also known as the CYD, or Cheap Yellow Display, for the integrated 320 x 240 LCD screen. [Jordan] took this all-in-one device and wrapped it in an attractive 3D-printed housing in the shape of an old-school CRT monitor, just… teenier. A special lever mechanism was built in to the enclosure to allow front panel controls to activate the tactile buttons on the CYD board. The ESP32 is programmed to check Open-Meteo feeds for forecasts and current weather data, while also querying a webcam feed and satellite and radar JPEGs from available weather services. These are then displayed on screen in a way that largely resembles the Windows 95 UI design language, with pages for current conditions, future forecasts, wind speeds, and the like.

We’ve seen some fun weather displays over the years, from graphing types to the purely beautiful. If you’ve found a fun way to display the weather (or change it) don’t hesitate to notify the tipsline. Particularly in the latter case.

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You have a tiny twenty-year-old hard drive with a weird interface. How do you read it? If you’re [Will Whang], by reverse engineering, and building an interface board.

In many of our portable, mobile, and desktop computers, we’re used to solid-state storage. It’s fast and low power, and current supply-chain price hikes notwithstanding, affordable in the grand scheme of things. It wasn’t always this way though, a couple of decades ago a large flash drive was prohibitively expensive. Hard drive manufacturers did their best to fill the gap with tiny spinning-rust storage devices which led to the smallest of them all: the Toshiba MK4001MTD. It crammed 4 GB onto a 0.85″ platter, and could be found in a few devices such as high-end Nokia phones.
Breaking out the Nokia’s hard drive interface.
The drive’s connector is a pattern of pads on a flexible PCB, one he couldn’t help noticing had a striking resemblance to an obscure SD card variant. Hooking it up to an SD reader didn’t work unfortunately, so a battered Nokia was called into service. It was found to be using something electrically similar to the SD cards, but with the ATA protocol familiar from the world of full-size hard drives.

The interface uses the PIO capability of the RP2040, and the board makes a tidy peripheral in itself. We’re guessing not many of you have one of these drives, but perhaps if you do, those early 2000s phone pics aren’t lost for good after all.

These drives are rare enough that this is the first time we’ve featured one here at Hackaday, but we’ve certainly ventured into hard drive technology before.

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But sir, it is wafer-thin. That’s how they get you! Just when you couldn’t possibly justify building another keyboard, let alone owning one, along comes the Kambala by [aroum2].

Image by [aroum2] via redditNow, ‘Kambala’ means a few things, but here it refers to fish, as evidenced by logo and matching themed PCB key chain shown in the gallery.

This catch is so flat because of the switches: PG1316S, and 42 of them. These are better known to some as Kailh butterfly switches, and are meant for laptops. But, this is Hackaday.

No matter what you call them, those switches are controlled by a nice!nano V2-compatible controller, which allows for ZMK firmware support. There’s a 110 mAh battery and four status LEDs, and best of all, the charging indicator is in the fish’s eyes.

[aroum2] might share the files later. Here’s hoping!

Let’s Talk DIY Palm Rests

Palm rests! Depending on the keyboard, they can be built right in. This here Kinesis Advantage comes to mind. That said, you can buy a pair of nice adhesive pads for your Kinesis once the ABS shine starts to bother you, or better yet, before that happens. Don’t make your own out of adhesive foam sheets. Just, trust me on this.

Image by [Ok-Obligation9605] via redditBut oftentimes, especially with travel keyboards, palm rests aren’t included. And that’s fair, because people want different things. Before you go printing some, or even rendering a pair from zebrawood, consider cheap alternatives like a large car-washing sponge cut in half and covered with the fabric of your choice.

On the slightly more expensive side, many employ a pair of Purple mattress samplers, which have doubled in price since I bought some 2022, but are still worth it.

Depending on your desk, you could do something as simple as cutting a pool noodle in half and shoving it onto the edge. Maybe you’ve done something even more temporary that turned out to be permanent. Tell me in the comments!
Squishy. Image via Purple
Even if you have built-in palm rests, sometimes you need to temporarily insert something like a spiral notebook between your desk edge and keyboard, pushing the thing further away and putting your delicate elbows at risk. This is me right now, and each elbow is on a mouse bag. Simple and effective.

Another consideration is attached versus unattached. I mean, if a travel keyboard is going to have palm rests, they should attach rather than just be placed in front. Maybe that’s just me.

The Centerfold: Telegraph Key Macro Pad is Dashing

Image by [Colin Norris] via Hackaday.IOThe system works! [Colin] sent a tip about his Telegraph Key Macro Pad, which is exactly what it sounds like. [Colin] says that his job these days mostly consists of copy/pasting from GPT, and it was quickly becoming a pain in the wrist. (Boy, can I relate.)

Using the thing is just as it should be: to copy, you long press the key like a Morse code dash. To paste, you do the short one. This enables [Colin] to paste many times, and quickly. [Colin] started with a Soviet-era telegraph key from the electronic bay, and a Pimoroni Tiny 2040 programmed with Arduino. It may be wildly overpowered for the application, but hey, it fits nicely in the base of the telegraph key.

The default is to make a sound when you do either action. [Colin] used a piezo disk so that it can handle different tones. This was done mostly for the luls, but it also lets him know when something is copied. There’s also a nifty silent mode that moves the mouse cursor in a quick loop-dee-loo when the deed is done.

Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad? Send me a picture along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!

Historical Clackers: the Crown Was a Machine for the Millions… Not!

You might wonder why I choose so many index typewriters for this portion of the program. I suppose it’s because they can be so differently designed, yet serve the same purpose. And that’s just cool to me.
Image via The Antikey Chop
The Crown index typewriter is no exception. Let’s start with the fact its creator, Byron Alden Brooks, was a celebrated inventor of early typewriters. You may have heard of the Brooks; he also had a hand in the People’s, the National, the Travis, and of course, the Crown index typewriter. Perhaps most unforgettable among his accomplishments, Brooks invented the Shift key.

The Crown was produced between 1888 and 1894, though it is thought that Brooks began work on it as early as 1881, evidenced by the date on the typewheel patent. It’s also thought that production really ceased in 1893.

That’s right, the Crown used a typewheel and a linear index from which the user selected each character. The ink came from a felt roller situated between the carriage and typewheel. Every time a character was selected, this roller would swing out of the way so the typewheel could strike the platen.

Originally, the Crown cost $20 (about $700 today), with the wooden case thrown in free. The price dropped to $16 by the middle of 1891. Despite being billed as ‘a machine for the millions’, the Crown was a failure.

Finally, There’s a Quiz To Find Your Switch Type

If you’re really up on things, you’re of course no stranger to KBD News and the corresponding newsletter. KBD is a great resource for all things keyboard, and now there’s a switch compatibility quiz to help you get started.
Image via KBD News
Of course, not all switches work with all PCBs, so you can’t begin this journey without knowing which path to head down. Choose MX, and you’ll have a bevvy of beauties to choose from. There are far fewer low-profile and Hall-effect switches out there, so keep that in mind.

Let’s say you go down the MX path. Your next choice is important: how much feedback do you need? None? A little? An audible click? Remember to keep your environment in mind.

If you’re me, you choose clicky. Now it’s time to think about actuation force. There are no light-force clicky switches; it’s just not a thing. So you can choose mid, heavy, or no preference, which takes you directly to RGB choices. Do you want a transparent housing? A light diffuser? Both? If you have no preference here, your final choice concerns factory lubrication. I ended up with 10 different switch recommendations, but of course, YMMV.

It’s important to note that KBD News has a comprehensive guide to choosing keyboard switches, which covers everything from actuation force to travel distance to RGB support, or lack thereof. And don’t miss the mechanical switch FAQ, just below the quiz.

Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards? Help me out by sending in a link or two. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to email me directly.

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