Kritik sah

Generally, we do not look at the gentle patter of raindrops on a surface with much concern, but according to a study by [Zhongyuan Ni] et al. in  Nature, we should probably regard these droplets with a little scrutiny for their corrosion potential. What they found is that these drops can gather a significant electric potential as they gently slide down a surface, with over 1 kV measured. By first having droplets charge up on an insulating surface before hitting a target metal surface, they were able to induce significant corrosion. Despite the target metal surface being coated with a protective layer, these charged droplets managed to gradually break down the coating, exposing the bare metal. In this example, a Teflon coating was used, with water droplets containing a small amount of dissolved sodium chloride to simulate natural raindrops. It was postulated that this causes dielectric breakdown of the insulating protective coating, as the charged water drop acts as one electrode a...

Yesterday, Isar Aerospace secured its place in the history books when the upper stage of their Spectrum rocket put a payload of CubeSats into low Earth orbit (LEO). Not only does this make them the first European company to achieve such a feat , but it also marks the first time a booster departing from continental Europe has reached orbit. Not bad for a second attempt. Standing 28 meters (92 feet) tall, the two-stage Spectrum rocket is just shy of half the size of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and designed to put a maximum of 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) into LEO and 700 kg (1,500 lb) into the Sun-synchronous orbits used by Earth observation satellites. That puts its performance considerably ahead of other commercial launchers such as Rocket Lab’s Electron. Although the booster is not reusable, Isar Aerospace has stated they’re targeting a respectable launch cost of €10,000 ($11,700) per kilogram. The German company notes there are several more Spectrum vehicles currently in produc...

Saturn’s north pole captured by Cassini in 2013. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/ Kevin M. Gill ) Although some would argue that the hexagon is the bestagon, astronomers have discovered that Saturn appears to favor the ten-sided decagon on its south pole. This comes as its south pole has recently been confirmed to show a pattern that’s oddly ten-sided, per a recent research article by [Agustín Sánchez-Lavega] et al. in Science Advances. Because Saturn is a gas giant, this naturally isn’t some gigantic planet-sized rock formation, but rather an interesting wave phenomenon in this massive gas bubble. The hexagon shape on its north pole had been known about for a while already, so it is perhaps not too surprising to find something similar on its south pole. These shapes are generally the result of standing waves within a polar vortex , through the interaction of waves in Saturn’s atmosphere. For the north pole hexagon, the formation is driven by an inten...

[Gadget Industry] bills it as “ a PC inside a Mouse “, but that depends on your definition of a “PC”. This is a Personal Computer inside a mouse, yes, but there’s nothing IBM-compatible about the tiny ARM board he squeezes inside what’s normally a peripheral — it actually started life as a smartphone, which only takes this build up a notch compared to starting with a single-board computer like a Pi. Specifically, he starts with a Galaxy S21 5G. Starting with a Samsung means he can leave the stock Android alone and just take advantage of Samsung’s DeX desktop mode, rather than layer a Linux environment on top or replace the operating system entirely with something like Postmarket OS, which are both viable options. With the battery compartment removed, the phone guts fit with shocking ease in the once-wireless mouse. Of course that’s not a great thermal environment, but that’s what the brass is for. It acts as a heat spreader...

With the recent release of its GPT-6 Astra model, OpenAI explicitly pushed the claim that it is capable of designing complete circuit boards in KiCad, starting from a provided schematic and outputting a fully routed PCB that theoretically could be sent off to be manufactured. This of course raises the question whether this is just a nifty party trick that works under strictly controlled conditions like most auto-routing tools, or whether there’s more to it. In a recent [EEBench] blog post, OpenAI’s claims are put to the test. Back in 2024, we looked at how LLMs handle circuit board design, starting with the schematic. The conclusion was that you might as well just do it all by hand. Tracking progress here, [ EEBench ] is an electrical engineering agent benchmark that tests how effective these so-called AI agents are at performing useful hardware engineering work. As their methodology already makes clear, creating a populated and routed PCB from a schematic is just one st...

The computer business in 1984 was a bizarre mix of hobby-level companies, a few small companies that had made it big, and a lot of big companies starting to take notice of personal computers. Plenty of money followed, which led to strange products and even stranger ads. [Such Bad Tech Ads] reveals a very bad ad from that time for a product we have barely heard of: the Spartan . The Spartan’s job was to convert your Commodore 64 so it could run Apple ][ software. The ad campaign had, inexplicably, a mime. We think. Or maybe a clown. Hard to say. On the face of it, the Spartan might not be a bad idea. In 1984, there was plenty of Apple software. Well, relatively, anyway. But a Commodore computer was far cheaper. Other conversion kits like the Intel Inboard/386 managed to find some success in the market later. The problem, outside of strange ads, was one of timing. If the product was available in 1984, it might have worked out better for the Canadian company, Mimic, behind it. Ins...