Although DIY PCB making has made great strides since the early days of chemical etching, there’s one fly in the ointment: vias. These connect individual layers of the board with a conductive tube, and are essential for dual-layer PCBs, never mind boards with a larger layer stack. The industry standard way of producing them is…

Chalk is fun to draw with, and some people even get really good at using it to make art on the sidewalk. If you don’t like tediously developing such skills, though, you could go another route. [MrDadVs] built a robot to scrawl chalk pictures for him, and the results speak for themselves. The robot is…

Quadcopters are flying machines. Traditionally, that would mean you’d optimize the design for lightweight and minimum drag, and you’d do everything in a neat and tidy fashion. The thing is, brushless motors and lithium batteries are so power-dense that you really needn’t try so hard. A great example of that is this barebones quadcopter build…

Was your 3D printer working fine over the summer, and now it’s not? With colder temperatures comes an overall surge in print failure reports — particularly with resin-based printers that might reside in outbuildings, basements, or garages. If you think this applies to you, don’t miss [Jan Mrázek]’s tips on improving cold-weather print results. His…

It was Dan and Elliot behind the microphones today for a transatlantic look at the week in hacks. There was a bucket of news about AI, kicked off by Deepseek suddenly coming into the zeitgeist and scaring the pants off investors for… reasons? No matter, we’re more interested in the tech anyway, such as a…

Remember the ZEOS Pocket PC? Perhaps you knew it as the Tidalwave PS-1000. Either way, it was a small clamshell computing device that was first released all the way back in 1992, and perhaps most accurately known as a DOS-based palmtop. Over at [Robert’s Retro] on YouTube, one of these fine devices was put through…

DeepSeek has captured the world’s attention this week, with an unexpected release of the more-open AI model from China, for a reported mere $5 million training cost. While there’s lots of buzz about DeepSeek, here we’re interested in security. And DeepSeek has made waves there, in the form of a ClickHouse database unintentionally opened to…

In January 2025, the European Union’s new Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) came into effect. If you’re an MSP and you have clients in the financial services sector, they will likely be turning to you for help with DORA compliance So, where should you begin? In this article, we provide some pointers for MSPs operating…

In a move to enhance user privacy, WhatsApp has rolled out a significant update allowing users to control who can view their profile photos. This feature, available on both iOS and Android devices, provides users with more granular control over their privacy settings. Previously, WhatsApp users could choose from three options for profile photo visibility:…

Google announced today it blocked a record 2.28 million policy-violating apps from entering the Play Store in 2023, leveraging advanced machine learning, stricter developer vetting, and cross-industry collaborations to combat evolving cyberthreats.  The milestone underscores efforts to uphold its SAFE principles (Safeguard Users, Advocate for Developer Protection, Foster Responsible Innovation, Evolve Platform Defenses), which anchor…