We're firmly in Europe this week on the Hackaday podcast, as Elliot Williams and Jenny List are freshly returned from Berlin and Hackaday Europe. A few days of mingling with the Hackaday community, going through mild panic over badges and SAOs, and enjoying the unique atmosphere of that city. After discussing the weekend's festivities we dive right into the hacks, touching on the coolest of thermal cameras, wildly inefficient but very entertaining wireless power transfer, and a restrospective on the capacitor plague from the early 2000s. Was it industrial espionage gone wrong, or something else? We also take a moment to consider spring PCB cnnectors, as used by both one of the Hackaday Europe SAOs, and a rather neat PCB resistance decade box, before looking at a tryly astounding PCB blinky that sets a new miniaturisation standard. In our quick roundup the standouts are a 1970s British kit synthesiser and an emulated 6502 system written in shell script, and in the can't-miss section we look at a new contender fro the smallest microcontroller, and the posibility that a century of waste coal ash may conceal a fortune in rare earth elements. Follow the links over at Hackaday.

Elliot does the podcast on the road to Supercon Europe, and Al is in the mood for math and nostalgia this week. Listen in and find out what they were reading on Hackaday this week. The guys talked about the ESP-32 non-backdoor and battery fires. Then it was on to the hacks. Self-balancing robots and satellite imaging were the appetizers, but soon they moved on to Kinect cameras in the modern day. Think you can't travel at the speed of light? Turns out that maybe you already are. Did you know there was a chatbot in 1957? Well, sort of. For the can't miss stories: watches monitor your heart and what does the number e really mean? Check out the links on Hackaday if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

This week, Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start off the episode by announcing Arduino co-founder David Cuartielles will be taking the stage as the keynote speaker at Hackaday Europe. In his talk, we'll hear about a vision of the future where consumer electronics can be tossed in the garden and turned into compost instead of sitting in a landfill for the next 1,000 years or so. You'll also hear about a particularly clever manipulation of Apple's AirTag infrastructure, how a classic kid's toy was turned into a unique display with the help of computer vision, and the workarounds required to keep older Global Positioning System (GPS) hardware up and running. They'll also cover DIY toasters, extracting your data from a smart ring before the manufacturer can sell it, a LEGO interferometer, and a new feature added to the Bus Pirate 5's already impressive list of capabilities. Capping off the episode there's a discussion about the surprising (or depending on how you think about it, unsurprising) amount of hardware that was on display at FOSDEM this year, and the history of one of man's most infernal creations, the shopping cart wheel lock. Check out the links over at Hackaday, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

This week, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up in a secret location with snacks to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. First up in the news, and there's a lot of it: we announced the Hackaday Europe 2025 workshops and a few more speakers, though the big keynote announcement is still to come. In case you missed it, KiCad 9 moved up into the pro league, and finally, we're hiring, so come join us in the dungeon. On What's That Sound, Kristina didn't get close at all, but at least had a guess this time. That's okay, though, because nobody got it right! We're still giving a t-shirt away to [AlwaysTheWrongAnswer], though, probably because Elliot has a thing for using random number generators. Then it's on to the hacks and such beginning with a beautiful handheld compass CNC and cyanotype prints made with resin printer's UV light. After that, we take a look at open-source random numbers, a 3D-printed instant camera, and a couple of really cool cyberdecks. Finally, we discuss whether DOOM is doomed as the port of choice in this day and age, and kvetch about keyboards.  

This week Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start things off with updates on the rapidly approaching Hackaday Europe and the saga of everyone's favorite 3D printed boat. From there they'll cover an impressive method of seeing the world via WiFi, Amazon's latest changes to the Kindle ecosystem, and an alternate reality in which USB didn't take over the peripheral world. You'll also hear about a multi-level hack that brings the joys of Linux into the world of Animal Crossing, 3D printed circuit components, and the imminent release of KiCAD 9. Stick around until the end to learn about a unique hardened glass from East Germany and the disappointing reality of modern voice control systems.

It's Valentine's Day today, and what better way to capture your beloved's heart than by settling down together and listening to the Hackaday Podcast! Elliot Williams is joined by Jenny List for this week's roundup of what's cool in the world of hardware. We start by reminding listeners that Hackaday Europe is but a month away, and that a weekend immersed in both hardware hacking and the unique culture offered by the city of Berlin can be yours. The stand-out hack of the week is introduced by Elliot, Henrik Forstén's synthetic aperture radar system mounted on a cheap quadcopter, pushing the limits of construction, design, and computation to create landscape imagery of astounding detail. Most of us will never create our own SAR system, but we can all learn a lot about this field from his work. Meanwhile Jenny brings us Sylvain Munaut's software defined radio made using different projects that are part of Tiny Tapeout ASICs. The SDR isn't the best one ever, but for us it represents a major milestone in which Tiny Tapeout makes the jump from proof of concept to component. We look forward to more of this at more reasonable prices in the future. Beyond that we looked at the porting of Google Find My to the ESP32, how to repair broken zippers, and tuning in to ultrasonic sounds. Have fun listening, and come back next week for episode 309!  

The answer is: Elliot Williams, Al Williams, and a dozen or so great hacks. The question?  What do you get this week on the Hackaday podcast? This week's hacks ran from smart ring hacking, to computerized tattoos. Keyboards, PCBs, and bicycles all make appearances, too. Be sure to try to guess the "What's that sound?" You could score a cool Hackaday Podcast T. For the can't miss this week, Hackaday talks about how to dispose of the body in outer space and when setting your ship's clock involved watching a ball drop.  

It was Dan and Elliot behind the microphones today for a transatlantic look at the week in hacks. There was a bucket of news about AI, kicked off by Deepseek suddenly coming into the zeitgeist and scaring the pants off investors for... reasons? No matter, we're more interested in the tech anyway, such as a deep dive into deep space communications from a backyard antenna farm that's carefully calibrated to give the HOA fits. We got down and dirty with capacitors, twice even, and looked at a clever way to stuff two websites into one QR code. It's all Taylor, all the time on every channel of the FM band, which we don't recommend you do (for multiple reasons) but it's nice to know you can. Plus, great kinetic art project, but that tooling deserves a chef's kiss. Finally, we wrap up with our Can't Miss articles where Jenny roots for the right to repair, and Al gives us the finger(1).  

This week, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos joined forces and Wonder-Twin rings to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. First up in the news: Big boo to Bambu Labs, who have tried to clarify their new authentication scheme and probably only dug themselves in deeper with their customers. On What's That Sound, Kristina didn't get close at all, but at least had a guess this time. Do know what it is? Let us know, and if you're right and your number comes up, you can keep warm in a limited edition Hackaday Podcast t-shirt. Then it's on to the hacks and such beginning with a rather nice reverse-engineering of the Yamaha PRS-E433 keyboard, which led to a slice of Bad Apple playing on the tiny screen. After that, we take a look at an NES musical instrument, how to make wires explode with energy, and a really cool space mouse that uses flexures. Finally, we talk about a piece of forgotten Internet history, and a whole bunch of keyboards. Check out the links over at Hackaday if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

It's podcast time again, and this week Dan sat down with Elliot for a look back at all the cool hacks we've written about. We started off talking about Hackaday Europe, which is coming up in March -- seems unlikely that it's just around the corner, but there it is. There's also good news: the Hack Chat is back, and we started things off with a bang as Eben Upton stopped by to talk all things Pi. Separately, we talked about fault injection attacks, including how to find the hidden cup of  0xC0FFEE in an RP2350. We saw a very cool piece of LED jewelry that does a fluid simulation, a direct conversion radio that's all laid out in front of you, and the scrunchiest mechanical digital clock you'll ever see. We saw blinkenlights for blinkenlights' sake, all the ways to put threads in your prints, and how to ditch to coax and wire up your antennas with Cat 6 cable. Plus, it's an Al Williams twofer in the Can't-Miss Articles, with a look back at life before GPS and how you can tune into digital ham radio, no radio required.

As the holiday party season fades away into memory and we get into the swing of the new year, Elliot Williams is joined on the Hackaday Podcast by Jenny List for a roundup of what's cool in the world of Hackaday. In the news this week, who read the small print and noticed that Benchy has a non-commercial licence? As the takedown notices for Benchy derivatives fly around, we muse about the different interpretations of open source, and remind listeners to pay attention when they choose how to release their work. The week gave us enough hacks to get our teeth into, with Elliot descending into the rabbit hole of switch debouncing, and Jenny waxing lyrical over a crystal oscillator. Adding self-driving capability to a 30-year-old Volvo caught our attention too, as did the intriguing Cheap Yellow Display, an ESP32 module that has (almost) everything. Meanwhile in the quick hacks, a chess engine written for a processor architecture implemented entirely in regular expressions impressed us a lot, as did the feat of sending TOSLINK across London over commercial fibre networks. Enjoy the episode, and see you again next week! And check out the links over at Hackaday.

After a bit too much eggnog, Elliot Williams and Al Williams got together to see what Hackaday had been up to over the holiday. Turns out, quite a bit. There was a lot to cover, but the big surprise was the "What's that Sound" competition. Do you know who had the correct answer from the last show? No one! So they guys did the right thing and drew from all the entrants for a coveted Hackaday Podcast T-shirt. Back to the hacks, you'll hear about USB-C and the EU, what to do when the Kickstarter product you had your heart set on doesn't deliver, and a very strange way to hack some power grids wirelessly. If you are interested in physics cameras, modifying off-the-shelf gear, or a fresh approach to color 3D printing, they'll talk about that, too. Finally,  you can find out what Tom Nardi thought of Hackaday in the year past, and if your next ocean voyage will have to stop for a charge.