Archive for April 2018

Helvar TS300 dimmer teardown

Helvar TS300 light dimmer is designed to dim incandescent light bulbs that are powered from 220-230V 50Hz AC power source. It is designed to be installed to wall in place of light switch. This is an old device that might not have been sold for ages. Once this type of dimmer was quite common on

Friday Fun: 10+ Reasons Not To Trust Photos You See On Social Media

https://www.boredpanda.com/reality-behind-photography/ Behind the majority of great pictures there’s a skilled and creative photographer, but how creative can they get? Sure, nowadays digital manipulation is a big part of the final image but a lot of photographers still use physical work in ways that the rest of us couldn’t even come up with. Compiled by Bored

A faked hotel master key could open the door of every room | WIRED UK

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/hotel-hack-digital-lock-door-system-fsecure-assa-abloy Finnish cybersecurity firm F-Secure has revealed it found a flaw in the 20 years old digital lock system that may be used in millions of hotels worldwide. VingCard digital lock technology master key – which specifically worked on the Assa Abloy’s Vision lock – could be generated from any ordinary electric keycard, even ones

USB VGA adapter as RF transmitter

Hackaday article Spoofing Cell Networks with a USB to VGA Adapter tells that at OsmoDevCon [Steve Markgraf] released osmo-fl2k, a tool which allows transmit-only SDR through cheap USB 3.0 to VGA adapters based on the Fresco Logic FL2000 chip. Available through the usual overseas suppliers for as little has $5 USD. The claim is that these devices

Earth Day Today: Over 95 Percent Of The World Is Breathing Unsafe Air | IFLScience

http://www.iflscience.com/environment/over-95-percent-of-the-world-is-breathing-unsafe-air/ Seven billion people, over 95 percent of the world’s population, are breathing air that contains unhealthy levels of pollution. 60 percent of the world is living in areas that don’t even meet the most basic standards of air quality. The findings come from the State of Global Air 2018 (PDF), an annual assessment by

Do you need a blockchain? | TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/19/do-you-need-a-blockchain/ Blockchain technology is set to have a profound impact on a wide variety of industries. Blockchain technology is still surrounded by its fair share of hype and uncertainty. It seems that the term blockchain has become a bit diluted as the hype has continued to bloom. There is an inherent risk that managers eager

Linux is under your hood | ZDNet

https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-is-under-your-hood/ Way back in 2004, Jonathan Schwartz, then Sun’s chief operating officer, suggested that cars could become software platformsthe same way feature phones were. He was right. But, it’s Linux, not Java. There are other contenders for car operating systems, such as Blackberry’s QNX and Microsoft IoT Connected Vehicles, but both have lost ground to

Something has gone terribly wrong with Finland – it has become an emblem of mobi | Pocket Gamer.biz | PGbiz

http://www.pocketgamer.biz/comment-and-opinion/67926/something-has-gone-terribly-wrong-with-finland-it-has-become-an-emblem-of-mobile-game-industry-stagnation/ There is no country as tightly bound to the mobile games industry as Finland, where the success of local champions has become a totemic part of national identity. Nokia’s Snake mobile phone game had been an astonishing success in 1997. Rovio’s Angry Birds took flight in early 2010. In the summer of 2012, Supercell

Microsoft built its own custom Linux kernel for its new IoT service | TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/16/microsoft-built-its-own-custom-linux-kernel-for-its-new-iot-service/ Microsoft announced the launch of a secure end-to-end IoT product that focuses on microcontroller-based devices. At the core of Azure Sphere is a new class of certified MCUs. MediaTek is producing the first set of these new MCUs (single-core ARM-A7 systems that run at 500MHz). Interesring twist is that for the first time ever,