This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Contributor Emeritus Kristina Panos chewed the fat about the coolest hacks of the previous week. But first, a bit of news -- our Low Power Challenge fizzled out this week, and boy did we have a lot of entries at the last minute. We love to see it though, and we're going to get judging done ASAP. Don't forget, this weekend is Hackaday Berlin! Livestreaming for this one may be iffy, but we'll have the talks up for you eventually, so don't fret too muc...
Mar 24, 2023•40 min•Season 5Ep. 211
Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams is joined this week by newly minted Development Editor (and definitely not brother) Al Williams to bring you the weekly highlights from our little corner of the Internet. Between the rapidly approaching deadline for the Low-Power Challenge to Samsung creating a fake Moon with artificial intelligence, there's plenty in the news to get this episode started. From there, the Williams plural discuss using a webcam for cheap virtual reality thrills, an impressive expans...
Mar 17, 2023•57 min•Season 5Ep. 210
It was one of those weeks, where Elliot and Dan found a bounty of interesting hacks to choose from for the podcast, making it hard to pick. But pick we did, and we found so many deep and important questions. What good is a leaky HCMI cable? Good for falling down a TEMPEST-like rabbit hole, that's what. Why would you use a ton of clay to make a car? Because it's cool, that's why. What does an electron look like? A little like a wiggling wire, but mostly it looks like a standing wave... of waves. ...
Mar 10, 2023•56 min•Season 5Ep. 209
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and (former Assignments Editor) Kristina Panos stood around talking about the greatest hacks of the previous week. But first, we've got a contest running now through March 21st -- the Low Power Challenge ! Kristina almost got What's That Sound this week, but could only describe it as some sort of underwater organ, so still no t-shirt for her. But [BalkanBoy] knew exactly what it was -- the Zadar Sea Organ in Croatia. Then it's on to the hacks, beginning...
Mar 03, 2023•41 min•Season 5Ep. 208
Join Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi as they explore the best and most interesting stories from the last week. The top story if of course the possibility that at least some of the unidentified flying objects the US Air Force valiantly shot down were in fact the work of amateur radio enthusiasts, but a quantitative comparison of NASA's SLS mega-rocket to that of popular breakfast cereals is certainly worth a mention as well. Afterwards the discussion will range from ...
Feb 24, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Season 5Ep. 207
Under the weather though they both were, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney got together to take a look under the covers of this week's best and brightest hacks. It was a banner week, with a look at the changes that KiCad has in store, teaching a CNN how to play "Rock, Paper, Scissors," and going deep into the weeds on JPEG. We dipped a toe into history, too, with a look at one of the sexiest early hobbyist computers, seeing how citizen scientists are finding ancient bu...
Feb 17, 2023•1 hr•Season 5Ep. 206
Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start this week's episode off with the announcement of Hackaday Berlin on March 25th. It's been quite some time since we've been on the other side of the pond, because we had to cancel 2020's Hackaday Belgrade due to COVID-19, so excitement is high for all three days of this "one-day" event. After a new What's that Sound, discussion moves on to an impressive collection of DIY sundials, the impact filament color has on the strength of ...
Feb 10, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 5Ep. 205
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos met up over thousands of miles to discuss the hottest hacks of the past seven days. There's a whole lot of news this week, and the really good part is the the small radioactive source that went missing in Australia has been found. Phew! Kristina is still striking out on What's That Sound, but we're sure you'll fare better. If you think you know what it is, fill out the form and you'll be entered to win a coveted Hac...
Feb 03, 2023•42 min•Season 5Ep. 204
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi meet up virtually to talk about all the hacks that are fit to print. This week's episode starts off with a discussion about the recently unveiled 2023 Hackaday.io Low-Power Challenge, and how hackers more often than not thrive when forced to work within these sort of narrow parameters. Discussion then continues to adding a virtual core to the RP2040, crowd-sourced device reliability information, and mechanical Soviet space ...
Jan 27, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Season 5Ep. 203
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos stood around and marveled at machinery in its many forms, from a stone-cutting CNC to an acrobatic robot to an AI-controlled Twitch v-tuber. But before all of that, we took a look at the winners of our FPV Vehicle Contest, poured one out for Google Stadia, and Elliot managed to stump Kristina once again with this week's What's That Sound. Will you fare better? Later, we drooled over an open-source smart watch, argue...
Jan 20, 2023•40 min•Season 5Ep. 202
Even for those with paraskevidekatriaphobia, today is your lucky day as Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney sit under ladders with umbrellas while holding black cats to talk about the week in awesome hacks. And what a week it was, with a Scooby Doo code review, mushrooms in your PCBs, and the clickiest automatic transmission that never was. Have you ever flashed the firmware on a $4 wireless sensor? Maybe you should try. Wondering how to make a rotary Hall sensor detect ...
Jan 13, 2023•1 hr•Season 5Ep. 201
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi ring in the New Year with...well, pretty much the same stuff they do every other week. After taking some time to talk about the nuts and bolts of the podcast in honor of Episode 200, discussion moves on to favorite stories of the week including an impeccably cloned Dyson lamp, one hacker's years-long quest to build the ultimate Game Boy, developing hardware in Python, building a breadboard computer with the 6502's simplifie...
Jan 06, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Season 4Ep. 200
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos decided against using one of Kristina's tin can microphones to record the podcast, though that might be a cool optional thing to do once (and then probably never again). After a brief foray into the news that the Chaos Communications Congress will be decentralized once again this year, as COVID restrictions make planning this huge event a complete headache (among other notable symptoms), we discuss the news that the...
Dec 30, 2022•44 min•Season 3Ep. 199
As we slide into the Christmas, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney look at the best and brightest of this week's hacks. It wasn't an easy task -- so much good stuff to choose from! But they figured it out, and talked about everything from impossible (and semi-fractal) 3D printing overhangs and the unfortunate fishies of Berlin's ex-aquarium, to rolling your own FM radio station and how a spinning Dorito of doom is a confusing way to make an electric vehicle better. Thin...
Dec 23, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 3Ep. 198
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos delighted in the aural qualities of Kristina's brand new, real (read: XLR) microphone before embarking on creating a podcast highlighting the best of the previous week's hacks. This week in the news, NASA returned to the Moon with Artemis I, and this time, there are CubeSats involved. After that, it's on to the What's That Sound results show, marred by Kristina's cheating scandal (listening ahead of time) and Elliot...
Dec 16, 2022•43 min•Season 3Ep. 197
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start the Hackaday Podcast by talking about another podcast that's talking about...Hackaday. Or more accurately, the recent Hackaday Supercon. After confirming the public's adoration, conversation moves on to designing flexible PCBs with code, adding a rotary dial to your mechanical keyboard, and a simulator that lets you visualize an extinction-level event. We'll wrap things up by playing the world's smallest violin for mi...
Dec 09, 2022•58 min•Season 3Ep. 196
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi find themselves in the middle of a slow news week, so they dispense with the usual timely chit-chat and dive right into the results of a particularly tricky "What's that Sound" challenge. From there they'll cover the new breed of ATtiny microcontollers (and why you probably won't be buying them), a recently unearthed Z-80 consumer gadget that's begging to be reverse engineered, the fine art of electrifying watercraft, and a...
Dec 02, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Season 3Ep. 195
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos fumbled through setting up Mumble on Kristina's new-ish computer box before hitting record and talking turkey. First off, we've got a fresh new contest going on, and this time it's all about the FPVs. Then we see if Kristina can stump Elliot once again with a sound from her vast trove of ancient technologies. Then there's much ado about coffee roasters of all stripes, and you know we're both coffee enthusiasts. We h...
Nov 25, 2022•49 min•Season 3Ep. 194
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney review the literature on a hack-packed week of action. We'll find a Linux machine inside just about anything, including curb-side TVs and surprisingly secure EV chargers. No Internet? No problem -- just tunnel IP through WhatsApp! We'll see that 3D printers can be repurposed for lab automation of the cheap, build the worst -- but coolest -- 2FA dongle of all time, and see how a teetering tower of cards can make your old moth...
Nov 18, 2022•59 min•Season 3Ep. 193
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi are still flying high on their post-Supercon buzz (and are a bit jet lagged) this week. We'll start with some of the highlights from our long-awaited Pasadena meetup, and talk a bit about the winner of this year's Hackaday Prize. Talk will then shift over to shaved down NES chips, radioactive Dungeons and Dragons gameplay, an impressive 3D printed telescope being developed by the community, and the end of the Slingbox. Stic...
Nov 11, 2022•59 min•Season 3Ep. 192
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney get together for a look at everything cool under the hardware-hacking sun. Think you need to learn how to read nerve impulses to run a prosthetic hand? Think again -- try spring-loaded plungers and some Hall effect sensors. What's Starlink saying? We're not sure, but if you're clever enough you can use the radio link for ad hoc global positioning. Historically awful keyboards, pan-and-scan cable weather stations, invisibilit...
Oct 28, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 191
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos rendezvoused in yet another secret, throwaway location to rap about the hottest hacks from the previous week. We start off by gushing about the winners of the Cyberdeck Contest, and go wild over the Wildcard round winners from the Hackaday Prize. It's the What's That Sound? results show, and Kristina was ultimately stumped by the sound of the Kansas City Standard, though she should have at least ventured a guess af...
Oct 21, 2022•46 min•Season 3Ep. 190
This week Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi will discuss the return of the East Coast RepRap Festival, the scientific application of slices of baloney, and the state of the art in homebrew e-readers. The discussion weaves its way through various reimaginings of the seven (or more) segment display, an impressive illuminated headboard that comes with its own science-fiction film, and the surprising difficulty of getting a blinking LED to actually look like a fl...
Oct 14, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Season 189Ep. 3
It's déjà vu all over again as Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams gets together with Staff Writer Dan Maloney to look over the best hacks from the past week. If you've got a fear of giant cockroaches, don't worry; we'll only mention the regular ones when we talk about zapping them with lasers. What do you need to shrinkify an NES? Just a little sandpaper and a lot of finesse. Did you know that 3D scanning is (sort of) over a century old? Or that the first real microcomputer dates all the w...
Oct 07, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Season 3Ep. 188
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos gushed about NASA's live obliteration of minor planet Dimorphos using a probe outfitted with a camera. Spoiler alert: the probe reaches its rock-dappled rocky target just fine, and the final transmitted image has a decidedly human tinge. Kristina brought the mystery sound again this week, much to Elliot's sonic delight. Did he get it? Did he figure it out? Well, maybe. The important thing is one of you is bound to g...
Sep 30, 2022•47 min•Season 3Ep. 187
Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams took time out from Supercon planning to join Staff Writer Dan Maloney for a look through the hacking week that was. We always try to keep things light, but it's hard sometimes, especially when we have to talk about wars past and present and the ordnance they leave behind. It's also not a lot of fun to talk about a continent-wide radio outage thanks to our angry Sun, nor is learning that a wafer-thin card skimmer could be lurking in your ATM machine. But t...
Sep 23, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 3Ep. 186
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start off by talking about the chip shortage...but not how you think. With a list that supposedly breaks down all of the electronic components that the Russian military are desperate to get their hands on, we can see hackers aren't the only ones scrounging for parts. If you thought getting components was tricky already, imagine if most of the world decided to put sanctions on you. We'll also talk about kid-friendly DIY ster...
Sep 16, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 3Ep. 185
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos had a lot of fun discussing the best of the previous week's hacks in spite of Elliot's microphone connectivity troubles. News-wise, we busted out the wine and cheese to briefly debate whether a Colorado man should have won an art competition by entering an image created by AI. Afterward, we went around a bit about floppies, which are being outlawed in Japan. Then it's on to the What's That Sound Results Show, but si...
Sep 09, 2022•1 hr•Season 3Ep. 184
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos met up on a secret server to discuss the cream of this week's crop of hacks. After gushing about the first-ever Kansas City Keyboard Meetup coming up tomorrow -- Saturday the 27th, we start off by considering the considerable engineering challenge of building a knife-throwing machine, the logistics of live-streaming on the go, and the thermodynamics of split-level homes. This week, Kristina came up with the What's-T...
Aug 26, 2022•40 min•Season 3Ep. 183
Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi are here to bring you the best stories and hacks from the previous week (and maybe a little older). Things kick off with news that the Early Bird tickets for the 2022 Hackaday Supercon tickets sold out in only two hours -- a good sign that the community is just as excited as we are about the November event. But don't worry, regular admission tickets are now available for those who couldn't grab one out of the first batch. This week th...
Aug 19, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Season 3Ep. 182
