TechyMagThings

An interesting type of superconductors available to us today are the ones that achieve this property at room temperature, with only the small snag that they require crushing pressures that would render biological lifeforms into a very thin layer of molecules. What these however suggest is that something in these materials changes at these high pressures, and if we could retain that state upon releasing said pressure, we might be able to have our superconducting cake and eat it too.

This is effectively what researchers recently achieved, with a research article in PNAS Physics by [Liangzi Deng] et al. covering the pressure-quench protocol (PQP) that they used for this feat. There is also an associated easy-to-read press release by Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) as well as one by the University of Houston.

Target material was a cuprate, specifically HgBa₂Ca₂Cu₃O_8+δ, also known as the HBCCO series or Hg1223 for short. Hg1223 has been the subject of much research and experimentation since the 1990s, with it demonstrating a transition temperature (Tc) of 133 K (-140°C). With this quenching method – which sees the high pressures on the cooled sample suddenly released – this bumped the Tc up to 151 K, or -122°C.

While still a far cry from room temperature superconductors, managing to lock in these superconducting properties at an 18 K higher temperature using a straightforward procedure does raise the prospect of massively reducing the cooling needs for superconductors.

While DOOM remains the undisputed champion of ‘game you play on every piece of hardware’ it seems that the role of ‘game you play on everything just because you can’ is slowly being shifted to Minecraft, as we have yet another Minecraft server somewhere Minecraft has no business being served– in this case, a Samsung Printer.

The hack actually requires opening up the printer to get at the debug ports to bang your way in via serial, but as any security expert will tell you, once the black hats have physical access to a machine, they own it. That isn’t to say it’s easy– [vimpo] had to dump the firmware and find an exploit. Since it’s 2026 [vimpo] tried to get an LLM to do all that hard work for him, and while it helped with identifying functions in the dump, ultimately the hacking still fell upon [vimpo]’s human intelligence, though not before burning through millions of tokens.  Having found a good old fashioned UDP overflow exploit, he’s gets control of the printer and puts an improved version of his lightweight Minecraft server, UCraft, on it.  Like the server, the exploit is also on GitHub but you’ll very likely need the exact same printer to get it to work: a Samsung C410W with firmware V3.00.02.20, DEC-15-2015. One important caveat is that while you can still use the printer as intended after this hack, you cannot do so while playing Minecraft: it crashes the server if you try. Good to know.

In case you’re wondering, yes, this is the same guy who got a Minecraft server running on a light-bulb, which arguably more impressive. Where he might mine and/or craft next is anybody’s guess. Somebody else already did the ESP32-C3, and while we suspect nothing will ever beat the 1960s Univac implementation for sheer impracticality, we’re willing to be surprised.

The Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus was first introduced all the way back in 1992. It quickly became the standard way to interface add-on cards on the PC platform, supplanting earlier buses like ISA and various other oddball standards. You wouldn’t expect to see a PCI bus on a Motorola-based machine, but [maniek86]’s homebrew rig offers just that. 

This computer is a beautiful piece of homebrew engineering, constructed out of protoboard and loose wires rather than any fancy PCB. At the heart of the build lies a Motorola 68000 running at 10 MHz. It’s got 1 MB of SRAM, 4 KB of ROM, and a MC68681P acting as a UART, timer source, and I/O controller. Where things get special, though, is in the inclusion of a Xilinx Spartan II FPGA (XC2S100), which acts as a PCI bridge. It provides the machine with two 32-bit 5-volt PCI slots which are interrupt capable, albeit with no bus mastering. A XC95144XL CPLD also sits present to act as glue logic to help lace everything together.

[maniek86] does a great job of explaining exactly why the PCI bus was hard to implement, and how it was pulled off in the end. The guide also covers how the system was able to interface various cards, from a PCI serial expansion to a Cirrus VGA adapter. It’s all good stuff.

We’ve featured other work from [maniek86] before, too, like this brilliant 486-based single-board computer. Video after the break.

Much like Apple’s once vaunted super-slim butterfly keyboard, today’s range of portable devices featuring flexible OLED displays – which can fold said display into a much smaller form factor – are a marvel of engineering.

Unfortunately engineering can only do so much against fundamental flaws. In the case of both these flexible OLEDs and butterfly keyboards the main issue is that of dust intrusion, with a recent teardown by [iFixit] going over the reasons for this.

As test subject we got a Galaxy Z Fold 8, as an example of a modern-day foldable smartphone-tablet hybrid. This phone has an IP48 rating, meaning that it’s water-resistant, but not dust-resistant for particles smaller than 1 mm. To test this, [iFixit] used UV-reactive dust particles, making sure that they got literally everywhere inside the phone’s hinge mechanism.

After this treatment, trying to fold the phone caused the hinge mechanism to make absolutely horrific crunching noises, confirming that it’s reached dust-under-butterfly-keycap levels of unusable. During the subsequent teardown a quick pass with the UV lamp showed that not much of the dust had penetrated into the two halves of the device at least, but the hinge mechanism wasn’t as lucky.

Getting to the hinge is sadly rather destructive, as it involves removing the flexible OLED. Once the hinge was exposed and subjected to UV light the spectacle was something to marvel at, as can be seen in the above screenshot. With the dust caking literally every part of the mechanism, it was little wonder that the hinge had ceased to work.

Although this was obviously an extreme case of dust exposure, and the average flexible OLED screen’s hinge won’t see nearly as much dust, one can’t help but feel slightly disconcerted at that crunching noise, knowing that it’s just one big dust exposure away.

Quick Share is a useful tool for flipping files between Android smart phones in a fuss-free wireless manner. [unrealJune] has now implemented the feature on Kindle devices.

You’ll need a jailbroken Kindle to use this, which is running the Kindle Unified Application Launcher and KOReader as well. You’ll also want SSH access, and a machine that has Go and Docker for you to build the project. [unrealJune] steps through the steps to compile and install the Quick Share plugin to KOReader, as well as explaining how it works. Notably, it’s receive only—so you can spit files onto the Kindle, but you can’t send them from the Kindle to other devices. The Kindle will also automatically accept files, which is worth noting if you’re security conscious. If there’s no network, the Kindle is also able to appear as its own AP if needed.

Think of this as a nifty convenience if you find yourself regularly trying to truck files on to your jailbroken Kindle. It’s also a neat to see a Quick Share implementation from the open source world. Between-device sharing still sucks, as we’ve discussed before, but there are at least attempts being made to make it better. That’s something!

After the little Mars helicopter Ingenuity blew everyone away with its performance, it was clear that a future Mars mission should involve more helicopters like it, with even more capabilities. The main proposal here is NASA’s SkyFall mission which would involve three autonomous helicopters, capable of searching for resources like water. To this end they would need a ground-penetrating radar system, with the antenna somehow folding away for landings, an idea that JPL is currently testing.

The SkyFall mission is currently penciled in to commence in 2028, following which it will be deployed from the Space Reactor-1 fission reactor-powered spacecraft based around elements of the now discarded Lunar Gateway space station. This obviously poses some uncertainties around when and if this mission will actually take place, but that doesn’t prevent JPL engineers from solving issues with these SkyFall helicopters.

As the antenna for the ground-penetrating radar extends beyond the landing legs, it was crucial that said antenna was flexible enough to simply fold in on itself like fabric. For this they used an existing flexible antenna design called Vivaldi, which was downscaled for the helicopters and subsequently tested to see how many simulated Mars landings it would be able to resist, as well as the effect of the cold nights and warm days.

We’re looking forward to seeing these SkyFall helicopters zip over the Martian surface. Maybe they can even swing by Ingenuity while they’re in the neighborhood.

[Ayushmaan] states up front that most of his free time is spent “building things that probably didn’t need to exist”. Well, this one might be an anomaly, because it seems pretty useful to us.

HYDR8, as it says on the tin, is a wearable that knows when it’s time to hydrate. The impetus for this one was something we all chase: the flow state. [Ayushmaan] would sit down, get deep into work, and look up hours later to to find that he had a headache and a full water bottle. Phone reminders were soon swiped away in annoyance.

This wearable is based on a XIAO ESP32-C3. It reads heart rate, oxygenation, skin temperature, and both the ambient temperature and humidity. It also learns your personal resting numbers range.

Taking all of this into consideration, it generates a heat/hydration stress score between 0-100. The thing is, HYDR8 tells you specifically what to do; sometimes it’s ‘drink water’ and other times, it’s ‘find shade’.

The wearable itself, while somewhat chunky, is pretty simple: it only shows the time and a message when it matters. The ESP32 hosts a full dashboard on your phone.

Keep in mind that this is not a medical device, it’s an experiment, a prototype. It can’t measure how hydrated you are. Instead, it measure hydration stress.

If you don’t want to wear anything, here’s a smart straw that uses a tiny turbine flowmeter and a Hall effect sensor to record the volume sipped, and detect whether the sipper is low on fluids. And if you find yourself under the hot lights of a wet bulb event, here’s how to survive it.