This week the Hackaday Podcast is on vacation, but we’d like to wish you all happy holidays and a great 2026.  Thanks for tuning in!  We’ll be back next week. …read more (https://hackaday.com/2025/12/26/hackaday-podcast-2025-holiday-placeholder-edition/)

Retrotechtacular: IBM’s The World of OCR
https://hackaday.com/2025/12/26/retrotechtacular-ibms-the-world-of-ocr/

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) forms the bridge between the analog world of paper and the world of machines. The modern-day expectation is that when we point a smartphone camera at …read more (https://hackaday.com/2025/12/26/retrotechtacular-ibms-the-world-of-ocr/)

Pocket-sized Test Pattern Generator Helps Check those CRTs
https://hackaday.com/2025/12/26/pocket-sized-test-pattern-generator-helps-check-those-crts/

[Nicholas Murray]’s Composite Test Pattern Generator is a beautifully-made, palm-sized tool that uses an ESP32-based development board to output different test patterns in PAL/NTSC. If one is checking out old …read more (https://hackaday.com/2025/12/26/pocket-sized-test-pattern-generator-helps-check-those-crts/)

Mini Battery-Powered Vapor-Compression Air Conditioner
https://hackaday.com/2025/12/26/mini-battery-powered-vapor-compression-air-conditioner/

When you think of air conditioners, you tend to think of rather bulky units, with the window-mounted appliances probably among the most compact. There’s however no real minimum size limit …read more (https://hackaday.com/2025/12/26/mini-battery-powered-vapor-compression-air-conditioner/)

Simulating Driven-Dissipative Quantum Spin Dynamics on Consumer Hardware
https://hackaday.com/2025/12/26/simulating-driven-dissipative-quantum-spin-dynamics-on-consumer-hardware/

Physics simulations using classical mechanics is something that’s fairly easily done on regular consumer hardware, with real-time approximations a common feature in video games. Moving things to the quantum realm …read more (https://hackaday.com/2025/12/26/simulating-driven-dissipative-quantum-spin-dynamics-on-consumer-hardware/)

Drunken eBay Purchase Becomes Motorized, Speaking Dalek
https://hackaday.com/2025/12/26/drunken-ebay-purchase-becomes-motorized-speaking-dalek/

Not every impulsive purchase on eBay leads to possession of a wooden Dalek, but when a friend did exactly that, [Tony Goacher] did his part to turn ‘Dalek Bob’ into …read more (https://hackaday.com/2025/12/26/drunken-ebay-purchase-becomes-motorized-speaking-dalek/)