标签：#hardware

I just wrote about the billion-dollar rounds flooding into humanoid robotics. Here is the story from the other end of the scale, and I find it more encouraging. Hugging Face's open-source robot, a 25-centimeter bipedal machine with fifteen actuators and a sensor kit that includes a camera, speaker, LiDAR, NFC, Bluetooth, and WiFi, just passed a million dollars in sales. Fully open hardware, openly documented, quietly making real money. One of these robotics stories is funded like an industrial giant. The other is a small, open, shippable thing that people are actually buying. They are both true, and the small one is the one most builders can learn from. Open hardware turned out to be a business The reflexive assumption about open-source hardware is that you cannot make money on it, because anyone can copy the design. Hugging Face's robot is a live counterexample. The plans are open, the software stack is open through their LeRobot ecosystem, and it crossed a million in sales anyway. That is worth sitting with, because it means openness and revenue are not the opposites people assume. The reason it works is the same reason open-source software companies work. Most buyers do not want to source fifteen actuators, fabricate a chassis, and debug a sensor stack to save money on a robot that already exists and is affordable. They want the finished thing, they want it to work out of the box, and they are happy to pay the people who designed it. Openness is not the giveaway that kills the business. It is the trust and the ecosystem that make the business, because you can see exactly what you are buying, modify it, and build on a platform other people are also building on. Why this is the better story for builders The mega-funded humanoid companies are placing a bet only a handful of players can place: billions of dollars, years of runway, factories. That is a real path, and it is not your path or mine. The Hugging Face robot is the other path, and it is copyable. Small, open

As my 20s are set to come to an end later this year, I’ve officially reached the age where sleeping in the wrong position or stretching just a little too far can cause aches and pains. I’ve always been somewhat skeptical of massage guns, mostly because I’ve tried a few off-brand ones and just assumed […]

Are XREAL's smart glasses the way of the future for home entertainment?

Meta has detailed MTIA 300, its first in-house accelerator optimized for training ranking and recommendation models. By Matt Foster

Google teamed up with the Pokémon Company to introduce a special-edition Fitbit Air that works with the Pokémon Sleep app.

Plaud's new 'agentic' earbuds are priced at $249.

Insert Molding Design: How to Place Metal Inserts Without Disaster — 8 Years of Structure Design Notes Every structure designer has been burned by inserts at some point — a nut seated crooked, an insert causing sink marks or cracks, pull-out force too low, an insert washed away by melt during injection. I've tripped on all of these myself. Insert molding sounds simple: drop a metal part into the mold and inject plastic around it. But metal and plastic have thermal expansion coefficients an order of magnitude apart, and every detail — shrinkage, grip force, locating method — can turn into a disaster. This article walks through the key design principles of insert molding, from insert types and locating structures to wall thickness and defect prevention. All of it is experience paid for with real money on real projects. Three Common Types of Inserts Insert molding falls into three categories by purpose, each with completely different design priorities. 1. Thread Inserts (Nut Inserts) The most common type. Tapping threads directly into plastic fails fast — fine threads under M3 strip after a few cycles — so metal nuts are embedded in the plastic. Copper inserts dominate because copper conducts heat well (fast heat dissipation during molding), has moderate hardness, and gives clean threads after tapping. We made a portable Bluetooth speaker with an ABS housing whose four corner posts needed M2.5 screws. Tapping the plastic posts directly stripped after three cycles. We switched to embedded M2.5×4mm copper nuts and measured over 45N pull-out, still stable after 500 screw cycles. The key: leave at least 1.5mm of plastic wall around the nut's outer diameter, or the area sinks and bubbles after cooling. 2. Locating / Support Inserts These locate, support, or conduct magnetism — locating pins in motor brackets, magnetic cores in sensor housings. The biggest challenge is insert positioning accuracy and post-molding offset. In 2024 we made a smart lock panel embedding a stainle

By using a sustainable testing strategy, you can skip unnecessary tests, ensure failing fast and early, and only run tests affected by code changes. Tracking energy use per test and using static code analysis can help spot inefficiencies and guide optimization efforts. By Ben Linders

The event is expected to be a notable one, as Apple is rumored to unveil its long-awaited foldable iPhone. It'll also be the first Apple event with John Ternus as CEO, who is scheduled to take the reins of the tech giant from Tim Cook on September 1.

Ring says users can still opt for end-to-end encryption.

The glasses, called Legato Frames, integrate the company’s patented hearing-assistance technology into the arms of eyewear frames.

Apple unveils these new processors alongside an updated Mac Mini and Mac Studio.

The base model of the Mac Mini comes with 256GB of storage, 16GB of RAM, and costs $899.

Luffu Link combines all day health sensing, voice logging, location awareness, and the ability to get help from trusted contacts into a single device, all without needing a phone nearby.

Security researchers are warning that thousands of enterprise servers could be exposed to compromise through vulnerabilities in their Baseboard Management Controllers (BMCs) - specialized processors embedded in server motherboards that provide administrators with remote, out-of-band control. By Craig Risi

We all knew it was coming. The expected valuation may surprise, though.

Linkdaze's smart digital calendar stands out for not putting its features behind a paywall, including an AI meal planner tool.

Flock Safety faces a growing public outcry over concerns that its surveillance technology could be misused.

Google’s Pixel 11 Pro XL brings snappier cameras and genuinely useful AI features like Rambler, but its iterative upgrades may not be enough to tempt recent Pixel owners.

Apple has admitted that some roles are being impacted as it shifts its focus away from certain initiatives.