The 1 kB Challenge deadline has come and gone. The judges have done their work, and we’re ready to announce the winners. Before you jump down to find out who won, I’d like to take a mom…

Secret keys are quite literally the key to security in software development. If a malicious actor gains access to the keys securing your data, you're toast. The problem is, to use keys, you've got t...

When you want to play around with a new technology, do you jump straight to production machinery? Nope. Nothing beats a simplified model as proof of concept. And the only thing better than a good p…

The best thing about owning a 3D printer or CNC router may not just be what you can additively or subtractively create with it. With a little imagination you can turn your machine into a 3D scanner, a...

We are always surprised how much useful hacking gear is in the typical craft store. You just have to think outside the box. Need a hot air gun? Think embossing tool. A soldering iron? Check the sta…

The Raspberry Pi single board computer has been an astounding success since its launch nearly five years ago, to the extent that as of last autumn it had sold ten million units with no sign of sale…

There’s a lot of reasons you might want to emulate the keyboard on your Commodore 64. The ravages of time and dust may have put the original keyboard out of order, or perhaps you need to type…

Right now, I’m at Shmoocon, and it’s living up to all expectations. That’s a tall order — last year, the breakout talk was from [Travis Goodspeed] on his efforts to reverse …

Some time back, we posted about [Gavin]'s laser-cut/3D printed Dymaxion Globe -- if you haven't read about it yet, you should check it out. [noniq] loved the idea, and like a true hacker, built and s...

If you remember old computer magazines (or browse them today), you'll see that back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, you weren't always sure what you were going to do with a computer. Games were a s...

Just before the dawn of the PC era, IBM typewriters reached their technical zenith with the Wheelwriter line. A daisy-wheel printer with interchangeable print heads, memory features, and the beginn…

The renaissance of Nixie tube popularity amid the nostalgia surrounding older tech has made them almost prohibitively expensive for individual projects. Seeing an opportunity to modernize the belov…

Over the last semester, Cornell student [Ope Oladipo] had the chance to combine two of his passions: engineering and photography. He and teammates [Sacheth Hegde] and [Jason Zhang] used their time …

It's OK, you can admit it -- from the time you first saw those huge electromagnetic cranes in scrap yards you've wanted to have one. While it may not fling around a car, parts donated from scrapped mi...

Far too much stuff is wireless these days. Home security systems have dozens of radios for door and window sensors, thermostats aren't just a wire to the furnace anymore, and we are annoyed when we ca...

Emulators are a great way to reminisce about games and software from yesteryear. [Jorj Bauer] found himself doing just that back in 2002, when they decided to boot up Three Mile Island for the Appl…

After following along with all the Magic Mirror builds, [Troy Denton] finally caved in and started building one for his girlfriend for Christmas. These popular builds are all pretty much bespoke, and ...

A garage door opener is a pretty classic hack around these parts. IR, Bluetooth, WiFi, smartphone controlled, web interfaces -- we've seen it all.  But if you want to keep track of people going in an...

Anyone can hack a radio, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy: there’s a lot of mechanics that go into formatting a signal before you can decode the ones and zeros. At his Shmoocon tal…