Hacker News with Generative AI: Hardware

The Raspberry Pi RP2040 Gets a Surprise Speed Boost, Unlocks an Official 200MHz (hackster.io)
Raspberry Pi has released a new version of its pico-sdk software development kit for the RP2040 and RP2350 microcontroller families — and it comes with a speed boost for the RP2040, bumping its maximum rated clock speed to 200MHz.
Raspberry Pi, Microcontrollers, Software Development, Hardware, Speed Boost
32 points by todsacerdoti 15 hours ago | 2 comments
Microsoft announces quantum computing breakthrough with new Majorana 1 chip (theverge.com)
Microsoft believes it has made a key breakthrough in quantum computing, unlocking the potential for quantum computers to solve industrial-scale problems.
Quantum Computing, Microsoft, Technology, Hardware
16 points by rvb 1 day ago | 12 comments
Microsoft's Majorana 1 chip carves new path for quantum computing (microsoft.com)
Microsoft today introduced Majorana 1, the world’s first quantum chip powered by a new Topological Core architecture that it expects will realize quantum computers capable of solving meaningful, industrial-scale problems in years, not decades.
Quantum Computing, Microsoft, Technology, Hardware
116 points by meetpateltech 1 day ago | 3 comments
Debugging Hetzner: Uncovering failures with powerstat, sensors, and dmidecode (ubicloud.com)
At Ubicloud, we build software that turns bare metal providers into cloud platforms. One of the providers we like is Hetzner because of their affordable and reliable servers.
Debugging, Hardware, Cloud Computing, Hetzner
328 points by ngalstyan4 1 day ago | 105 comments
Are SSDs more reliable than hard drives? (2021) (backblaze.com)
Solid-state drives (SSDs) continue to become more and more a part of the data storage landscape. And while our SSD 101 series has covered topics like upgrading, troubleshooting, and recycling your SSDs, we’d like to test one of the more popular declarations from SSD proponents: that SSDs fail much less often than our old friend, the hard disk drive (HDD).
Data Storage, Hardware, Reliability, SSDs, HDDs
75 points by fanf2 1 day ago | 66 comments
The Unbrickable Pledge (usetrmnl.com)
We made a promise to never brick your device. Here's a progress report:1. July 2024 - open sourced our firmware2. December 2024 - built or commissioned BYOS clients in Ruby, Elixir, and Python3. January 2025 - began selling BYOD licenses - DIY build docs coming soon4. February 2025 - launched Framework, a beautiful and free UI kit 5.
Software, Open Source, Security, Hardware
99 points by MBCook 2 days ago | 60 comments
HP to Acquire Parts of Humane for $116M (bloomberg.com)
HP Inc. will acquire assets from Humane Inc., the maker of a wearable Ai Pin introduced in late 2023, for $116 million.
Acquisitions, Hardware, Wearables, Artificial Intelligence, Technology
46 points by quadrige 2 days ago | 20 comments
Tariffs result in 10% laptop price hike in U.S. says Acer CEO (tomshardware.com)
Tariffs, Laptops, Hardware, Consumer Electronics, Economics
282 points by pseudolus 2 days ago | 513 comments
Linux’s Sole Wireless/WiFi Driver Maintainer Is Stepping Down (phoronix.com)
Days after a DRM driver developer orphaned his drivers due to health reasons in stepping down, the sole maintainer at large of the Linux wireless (WiFi) drivers is stepping down and without any immediate replacement.
Linux, Open Source, Software, Wireless, Hardware
134 points by diggan 2 days ago | 132 comments
Ray-Ban Meta glasses have sold 2M units, production to be increased (uploadvr.com)
Ray-Ban Meta glasses have sold 2 million units so far, and the annual production capacity is being increased to 10 million by the end of 2026.
Hardware, Augmented Reality, Meta, Sales, Production
120 points by achow 2 days ago | 127 comments
Just Barely Fitting a Full Wi-Fi Stack on the NRF9151 (danielmangum.com)
In my last post on the Nordic Semiconductor Thingy:91 X IoT prototyping platform, I outlined the features and architecture of the device. The combination of wireless protocols on the Thingy:91 X (Bluetooth LE, LTE-M, Wi-Fi) make it a compelling foundation for a wide variety of applications. However, there are a few intricacies to the protocol support.
IoT, Hardware, Wireless Networking, Nordic Semiconductor, Wi-Fi
5 points by ingve 2 days ago | 0 comments
Native Sparse Attention: Hardware-Aligned, Natively Trainable Sparse Attention (arxiv.org)
Long-context modeling is crucial for next-generation language models, yet the high computational cost of standard attention mechanisms poses significant computational challenges.
Sparse Attention, Machine Learning, Hardware, Computer Science
15 points by mfiguiere 3 days ago | 2 comments
The future of AI is analog? $100M to push GPU-like brains on less juice (theregister.com)
Interview AI chip startup EnCharge claims its analog artificial intelligence accelerators could rival desktop GPUs while using just a fraction of the power. Impressive — on paper, at least. Now comes the hard part: Proving it in the real world.
Artificial Intelligence, Hardware, Energy Efficiency
4 points by rntn 3 days ago | 0 comments
F8 – an 8 bit architecture designed for C and memory efficiency [video] (fosdem.org)
Even in modern devices, 8-bit processors are found, but the architectures used are often not well-suited to programming in high-level languages, such as C. E.g. MCS-51 (8051, 8052) based microcontrollers in the Realtek WiFi chipsets. The f8 is an architecture based on the experience and lessons learned from maintaining Small Device C Compiler (SDCC) and the many 8-bit architectures it supports.
Hardware, Programming, C, Microcontrollers, 8-bit Architecture
62 points by mpweiher 3 days ago | 35 comments
Hybrid e-reader game console design puts a delightful twist on a retro format (creativebloq.com)
Gaming, Design, Retro Gaming, Technology, Hardware
5 points by FiddlerClamp 3 days ago | 2 comments
SanDisk puts petabyte SSDs on the roadmap, has yet to reveal release date (tomshardware.com)
Storage, Hardware, SSDs, Roadmaps
5 points by LorenDB 3 days ago | 0 comments
Espargos: ESP32-based WiFi sensing array (espargos.net)
Develop and deploy WiFi sensing applications effortlessly: ESPARGOS is a phase-coherent ESP32 antenna array.
ESP32, WiFi, Sensors, Hardware
196 points by leoedin 3 days ago | 33 comments
I helped fix sleep-wake hangs on Linux with AMD GPUs (gitlab.io)
I dual-boot my desktop between Windows and Linux. Over the past few years, Linux would often crash when I tried to sleep my computer with high RAM usage. Upon waking it would show a black screen with moving cursor, or enter a "vegetative" state with no image on-screen, only responding to magic SysRq or a hard reset. I traced this behavior to an amdgpu driver power/memory management bug, which took over a year to brainstorm and implement solutions for.
Linux, AMD GPUs, Debugging, Operating Systems, Hardware
756 points by fanf2 4 days ago | 208 comments
The 8-Bit Era's Weird Uncle: The TI-99/4A (wordpress.com)
It’s been awhile since I’ve looked at an architecture that’s completely new to me, and I haven’t done any since creating my new scheme for dedicated platform guides. I’ve now gotten enough material together that I can kick off an exploration of a new platform for me: the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. For this new introduction, I’ll be splitting it into three parts, two of which go live today:
Retro Computing, Texas Instruments, Hardware, History, Technology
147 points by rbanffy 4 days ago | 92 comments
Flea-Scope: $18 Source Available USB Oscilloscope, Logic Analyzer and More [pdf] (rtestardi.github.io)
Hardware, Open Source, Electronics, DIY, Testing
356 points by burgerone 4 days ago | 107 comments
Requesting SDK for Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses for Visually Impaired Users (atmeta.com)
Accessibility, Meta, Hardware, Smart Glasses
51 points by walterbell 4 days ago | 7 comments
Show HN: I made a desk toy for people in long-distance relationships (theattentionbutton.in)
Instant connection with your special someone. Available now.
Creative Projects, Relationships, Hardware, Design
12 points by _shantaram 5 days ago | 4 comments
Create a QubesOS Gaming HVM with GPU PCI passthrough (2023) (qubes-os.org)
Virtualization, Gaming, Security, Hardware, QubesOS
92 points by transpute 5 days ago | 28 comments
ESP32 Antenna Array Can See WiFi [video] (youtube.com)
ESP32, WiFi, Hardware, Electronics, Video
75 points by qwertox 5 days ago | 3 comments
Watt The Fox? (h.43z.one)
I recently got a new notebook and noticed that the speakers would occasionally emit a faint but annoying white noise. This issue was only noticeable in a quiet room when no music or other audio was playing through the speakers.
Hardware, Troubleshooting, Notebooks
342 points by h43z 5 days ago | 74 comments
PAROL6: 3D-printed desktop robotic arm (source-robotics.github.io)
PAROL6 is a high-performance 3D-printed desktop robotic arm. The design approach of PAROL6 was to be similar to industrial robots in terms of mechanical design, control software, and usability. Control software, GUI, and robots STL files are open-source. You can build your own PAROL6 robot by following the instructions located in Github respository.
Robotics, 3D Printing, Open Source, DIY, Hardware
175 points by bo0tzz 5 days ago | 46 comments
Deepseek R1 Distill 8B Q40 on 4 x Raspberry Pi 5 (github.com/b4rtaz)
Deepseek R1 Distill 8B Q40 on 4 x Raspberry Pi 5 8GB
Hardware, Raspberry Pi, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning
305 points by b4rtazz 5 days ago | 154 comments
ESP32 Antenna Array Can See WiFi [video] (youtube.com)
ESP32, Electronics, WiFi, Hardware
12 points by roeles 5 days ago | 1 comments
Pocket386 Retro DOS Computer 386SX-40Mhz (tindie.com)
Pocket386 Retro DOSComputer 386SX-40 CPU DOS Computer Hand386 upgrade
Retrocomputing, Hardware, DOS, Computers, DIY
32 points by AlexeyBrin 5 days ago | 7 comments
The Joy of Nand2Tetris (tristanrhodes.com)
For the last month, I have been working through Nand2Tetris: The Elements of Computing Systems; Building a Modern Computer from First Principles.
Computer Science, Programming, Education, Hardware, Educational Resources
160 points by partypete 6 days ago | 41 comments