2026-04-21 13:00:35
Cyberdecks are typically reminiscent of weird computers in futuristic sci-fi films, moreso than the computers of today. The cool thing about cyberdecks, though, is you get to build them however you like. [WillTechBuilds] has put together a deck of his own that diverges from cyberdeck norms and ends up closer to something you might have bought off the shelf at Best Buy.
For a start, the build eschews the typical Raspberry Pi or other single-board computer that normally lives at the heart of a cyberdeck. In its place is a motherboard harvested from a GMKTec NucBox G5. It runs the Intel N97 CPU. It’s an x86 processor that’s roughly equivalent in power to an i5 from 10 years ago, but it only sips 12 watts. The compact motherboard is installed in a compact 3D-printed case along with a porbable USB-C battery pack, a small widescreen LCD, and a Lenovo ThinkPad trackpoint keyboard. This latter design choice, along with the x86 chip, is what gives this build so much of a laptop feel. There’s no weird Linux desktop, green-glowing terminal, or chunky mechanical keyboard here, let alone any GPIO pins. Definitely an oddball entry to the cyberdeck world, but valid nonetheless.
We’ve featured cyberdecks built out of everything from CRT TVs to event badges. As always, we’d love to see your latest innovative creation on the tipsline. Video after the break.
[Thanks to Heath Kit for the tip!]
2026-04-21 10:00:34
Having molten aluminium interact with atmospheric water forms a source of hydrogen which can be rather problematic if you’re trying to cast aluminium parts. As the molten metal cools down, the dissolved hydrogen is forced out, creating bubbles and other flaws that make aluminium foundries rather upset. While you can inject inert gases to solve the problem, you can also lean into this issue to make some rather fascinating aluminium crystals and geodes, as [Electron Impressions] recently did.
The key here is to use a eutectic Al-Cu alloy at around 45% Cu by weight, as this alloy readily forms large crystals as it cools down. With hydrogen injected into the molten metal, this hydrogen forms large bubbles inside the cooling metal with crystals clearly visible.
A way to create proper geodes involves very slow cooling and pouring off the still molten metal before the eutectic point is reached. As can be seen in this video, this creates a rather impressive looking geode after it’s been smashed open. This also gives a good clue as to how these geological features form in nature, although one does not typically observe Al-Cu alloy geodes in the wild.
2026-04-21 07:00:06
Throughout the centuries the art of lock-making and lock-picking have been trapped in a constant struggle, with basic lock designs being replaced by ever more complex ones that seek to thwart any lockpicking attempts, as well as less gentle approaches. When it comes to the very common pin-and-tumbler lock design, the main issue here is that the keyway also provides direct access to the lock’s mechanism. This led [Works By Design] to brainstorm a lock design in which the keyway is hidden.
The ingenious part here is that because the actual key is rotated away after insertion, there is no clear path to the pins. This did require some creative thinking to have a somewhat traditional style key as well as a way to turn the internal mechanism so that the key would be pressed against the pins. Here inspiration was drawn from the switchable magnet mechanism as seen with e.g. magnetic bases. This ensures the key and key handle can be detached and attached quite firmly.
After many 3D printed prototypes, a metal version was CNCed and subjected to some early testing by a locksmith, who even with having seen the CAD model of the lock was stumped. With this initial result and some user feedback in the bag, it was time for large-scale testing with more lockpick enthusiasts, as there are many more ways to open a lock beyond pushing pins. That said, a mechanism was also added to the lock to prevent bumping attacks.
The next testers were found in the Lock Pickers United community, one of whom raised the issue of an impressioning attack. With a couple of test locks on their way to said lockpicking enthusiasts it’ll be exciting to see whether this new lock design will set the standard for future locks or not.
2026-04-21 04:00:06
Perhaps at this point, getting NetBSD running on an obscure piece of hardware is a dog-bites-man story, and not worth reporting– their motto, after all, is “Of course it runs NetBSD”. So, the fact that [RetroComputingRanch] has got NetBSD running on a vintage Chyron Maxine broadcast computer is perhaps remarkable only for the fact that few people have even heard of Chyron before.
He’s already done a series of videos in which they explore this odd, old computer, which is powered by a Motorola 68040 on a VME bus and was once used to generate digital overlays– text and the like– on broadcast TV. NetBSD does have a port for the Motorolla VME SBCs, so he was able to vibe it onto the specific vme168 board that the Chyron is based on. It happens off screen, but apparently it was AI agent work that went into condensing the documentation for this machine as well as getting the NetBSD port set up. That’s a bit ironic, since NetBSD would never allow that in its commits.
Again, the Chyron Maxine was never intended to be a general-purpose-computer, and certainly never intended to run UNIX– it was meant to overlay text onto TV signals. With 4 MB of RAM, NetBSD leaves very little free once booted in single-user mode, but he realized that with a few extra chips the proprietary RAM board could become an 8 MB module. It seems like a pittance nowadays, but anyone who’s played with classic UNIX knows you can do a lot in 8 MB– even if only about 3MB is ‘free’ according to TOP.
There’s work still to be done– right now, it boots, but he wants to use NetBSD to really own this machine, so that’ll mean getting the vintage video hardware set up. Last time we saw a NetBSD user, they were doing game dev on a G4 Macbook, but nothing will ever match the legendary NetBSD toaster– not even toaster-shaped callbacks.
2026-04-21 01:35:18
One of the more interesting categories of our ongoing Green Power Challenge is “anything but PV” — and since the radiated power of Near Field Communication is decidedly not photovoltaic, this hack by [caspar] to control a Pi Pico W from his phone using a tuned antenna absolutely counts.
Now, of course you’re not going to power the whole microcontroller that way, but [caspar] figures you don’t need to: the MCU is hooked to a battery, but through a transistor. That means it’s not asleep, but fully un-powered: only the leakage current of the transistor is draining that battery, so it can last a very long time. The waking is handled with a tuned NFC antenna hooked to a ST25DV04KC NFC chip. This chip is designed to be powered via NFC, and of course to accept commands. The ST25 then wakes the Pico — one GIPO on the MCU is used to latch that power transistor ON — and passes on the command via I2C.
Our favorite part might be the script he put on the Pico to live-tune the antenna coil, which you can see demoed in a video below, along with simplest possible demonstration of starting blinky on the Pico from the phone.
You aren’t limited to just a Pico and a blinky LED as in his proof-of-concept demo: [caspar] also uses the same technique with an e-ink display, which is pretty similar to the e-ink price tags you’ve likely seen at the grocery store, without the joy of reverse engineering.
Also without batteries, which is pretty neat, and arguably pretty green. If you’ve been hacking away at something that uses alternative energy, this challenge is still open — just get your project onto Hackaday.io and submitted by April 27.
2026-04-20 23:30:22
You’re probably not going to hang out around Chernobyl any time soon. Still, knowing the conditions there can both satisfy your curiosity and provide scientific value. To that end, [Yury Ilyin] has spent the last couple decades installing homebrew weather stations across the Exclusion Zone for his own interest.
The remote weather stations that [Yury] builds all follow a similar design. Each runs on three 18650 lithium cells, charged via a small solar panel. Most of these cells were salvaged from old laptop battery packs. These cells are used to power a GPRS or WiFi communications module, along with a temperature, humidity, and pressure sensor, and a Geiger counter, because, well… it’s Chernobyl.
He has been lucky enough to keep costs down by finding an old generation GPRS SIM card that could be cloned and used across multiple devices, and thus far has had no trouble receiving signals from his many distributed stations. He’s been able to use his sensor network to track the gradual decline of radioactive emissions in the area from Cs-137, as well as keep an eye on the local weather conditions in an area few ever tread.
[Yury] has built over two dozen of these devices, and several have passed the test of time—with the lithium cells and cellular hardware surviving both high and freezing temperatures as well as the ravages of rain and time. He’s continued to refine the design over the years, starting out with an ATmega644 running the show, and later upgrading to STM32 microcontrollers.
We’ve explored distributed radiation sensor networks before, too, as well as many a remote weather station.
Thanks to [Luc Van Braekel] and [Paulo Ramos] for the tip!
