Racing games have come a long way over the years. From basic 2D sprite-based titles, they’ve evolved to incorporate advanced engines with highly realistic simulated physics that can even be used to help develop real-world automobiles. For [Surrogate.tv], that still wasn’t quite good enough, so they decided to create something more rooted in reality.

Their project resulted in a racing game based on controlling real RC cars over the internet, in live races against other human opponents. Starting with a series of Siku 1:43 scale RC cars, the team had to overcome a series of engineering challenges to make this a reality. For one, the original electronics had to be gutted as the team had issues when running many cars at the same time.

Instead, the cars were fitted with ESP8266s running custom firmware. An overhead GoPro is used with special low-latency streaming software to allow players to guide their car to victory. A computer vision system is used for lap timing, and there’s even automatic charging stations to help keep the cars juiced up for hours of play.

The game is free to play online, with the races currently operating on a regular schedule. We look forward to trying our hand at a race or three, and will be interested to see how the latency holds up from various parts of the world.

We’ve seen other remote RC builds before; usually featuring the power of the Raspberry Pi. We’ve also covered useful techniques for low latency video for real-time applications. Video after the break.

Race RC Cars From Anywhere On Earth
Source: HackADay

This week on CNET’s Love Syncs: Here’s why setting up a call before going on a date might not be the craziest idea. You've got a Tinder date. Is it weird to jump on FaceTime first? – CNET
Source: CNet

Review: Game of Thrones fans can turn to Amazon Prime Video for a bloody steampunk tale of fantasy folk in a harsh world. Carnival Row: Sherlock Holmes meets Tinker Bell in gritty, sexy fantasy – CNET
Source: CNet

Review: Netflix introduces gorgeous puppets bringing to life a thoughtful new vision of Jim Henson’s classic fantasy. Magical Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is Game of Thrones with puppets – CNET
Source: CNet

A recent study by Northwestern University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst found that every major carrier in the United States has artificially slowed down videos from places like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube.

Read more…

Check if Your Mobile Carrier is Throttling Netflix With This App
Source: Life Hacker

In a recent article in Nature, you can find the details of a RISC-V CPU built using carbon nanotubes. Of course, Nature is a pricey proposition, but you can probably find the paper by its DOI number if you bother to look for it. The researchers point out that silicon transistors are rapidly reaching a point of diminishing returns. However, Carbon Nanotube Field Effect Transistors (CNFETs) overcome many of these disadvantages.

The disadvantage is that the fabrication of CNFETs has been somewhat elusive. The tubes tend to clump and yields are low. The paper describes a method that allowed the fabrication of a CPU with over 14,000 transistors. A wafer gets nanotubes grown all over it and then some of them are removed. In addition, some design rules mitigate other problems.

In particular, a small percentage of the CNFETs will become metallic and have little to no bandgap. However, the DREAM design rules can increase the tolerance of the design to metallic CNFETs with no process changes.

Before you get too excited, limitations in channel length and contact size keep the processor running at a blazing 10 kHz. To paraphrase Weird Al, your operating system boots in a day and a half. The density isn’t great either since working around stray and metallic CNFETs means each transistor has multiple nanotubes in use.

On the other hand, it works. New technology doesn’t always match old technology at first, but you have to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run.

We imagine you won’t be able to buy this for $8 any time soon even if you wanted to. At 10 kHz, it probably isn’t going to make much of a desktop PC anyway.

RISC-V Uses Carbon Nanotubes
Source: HackADay

The storm is bearing down on the Bahamas before heading toward the east coast of the US. See Hurricane Dorian closing in with these brave webcams – CNET
Source: CNet

Be kinder to your budget — and to the environment. Trusty reusable coffee cups to keep your coffee hot and wallet full – CNET
Source: CNet

It’s a staple of our community’s work, to make electronic devices do things their manufacturers never intended for them. Analogue synthesisers using CMOS logic chips for example, or microcontrollers that bitbang Ethernet packets without MAC hardware. One of the most fascinating corners of this field comes in the form of software defined radios (SDRs), with few of us not owning an RTL2832-based digital TV receiver repurposed as an SDR receiver.

The RTL SDR is not the only such example though, for there is an entire class of cable modem chipsets that contain the essential SDR building blocks. The Hermes-Lite is an HF amateur radio transceiver project that uses an AD9866 cable modem chip as the signal end for its 12-bit SDR transceiver hardware with an FPGA between it and an Ethernet interface. It covers frequencies from 0 to 38.4 MHz, has 384 kHz of bandwidth, and can muster up 5W of output power.

It’s a project that’s been on our radar for the past few years, though somewhat surprisingly this is the first mention of it here on Hackaday. Creator [Steve Haynal] has reminded us that version 2 is now a mature project on its 9th iteration, and says that over 100 “Hermes-Lite 2.0” units have been assembled to date. If you’d like a Hermes-Lite of your own it’s entirely open-source, and they organise group buys of the required components.

Of course, SDRs made from unexpected components don’t have to be exotic.

A Radio Transceiver From A Cable Modem Chipset
Source: HackADay

Could Joaquin Phoenix win an Academy Award for his role as the Clown Prince of Crime? Joker early reviews: 'Dark, sick, twisted' and an Oscar contender – CNET
Source: CNet

I’m a sucker for those “On This Day” reminders from social media sites. Without fail, I’m delighted when Facebook resurfaces a picture I posted a decade ago of friends, and I like it when Instagram reminds me of a picture I posted a few years prior.

Read more…

Rewatch the Most Popular YouTube Videos From Exactly a Decade Ago Using This Site
Source: Life Hacker

Looking to cut your TV bill all the way down to free? We tested six antennas to find out which one works best. Best TV antennas for cord-cutters, starting at just – CNET
Source: CNet

We clear up some of the confusion around 5G. 5G myths: What's true and what's not about the next-gen network – CNET
Source: CNet

Looking for an AirPods alternative that costs a lot less? Here are some top budget truly wireless models worth considering. Best cheap true wireless earbuds: Top AirPods alternatives for 0 or less – CNET
Source: CNet

Python is a versatile, powerful language but sometimes it’s not the best choice, especially if you’re doing work in embedded systems with limited memory. Sometimes you can get away with MicroPython for these cases, but the best language is likely C or assembly. If you’re really stubborn, like [amirgon], and really want C and Python to play well together, you can make use of his new tool which can bring any C library to MicroPython.

As an example of how this tool is used, a “Pure MicroPython” display driver for ILI9341 on the ESP32, which means that everything was implemented in MicroPython. [amirgon] wanted to see how the Python driver would compare to one that’s already been written in C, and use it to showcase MicroPython binding. This tool also automatically converts structs, unions, enums and arrays to Python objects, and provides a means to work with pointers which is something that Python doesn’t handle in the same way that C requires.

[amirgon] hopes that this tool will encourage the adoption of Micropython by removing the obstacle of missing APIs and libraries in MicroPython. Since most libraries for systems like these are written in C, a way to implement them in Python is certainly powerful. We featured one use case for this a while back, but this is a much more generic fix for this coding obstacle.

Image via [Frank Stajano]

Micropython and C Play Together Better
Source: HackADay

Many of us know that feeling of waking up, headache in tow, struggling to remember what we said and did after that extra drink the night before. And then suddenly, the memories vividly resurface. Alcohol disinhibits us, making us say and do things that we’d otherwise keep under wraps. People will often drink to gain “Dutch courage” in a demanding situation. Many of us can understand the appeal of having a drink before a blind date or a social event – it can help to calm our nerves and cultivate confidence. That’s because alcohol has a depressant effect which makes…

This story continues at The Next Web

You’re still you when you’re drunk, science says
Source: The Next Web

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Many of us know that feeling of waking up, headache in tow, struggling to remember what we said and did after that extra drink the night before. And then suddenly, the memories vividly resurface. Alcohol disinhibits us, making us say and do things that we’d otherwise keep under wraps. People will often drink to gain “Dutch courage” in a demanding situation. Many of us can understand the appeal of having a drink before a blind date or a social event – it can help to calm our nerves and cultivate confidence. That’s because alcohol has a depressant effect which makes…

This story continues at The Next Web

You’re still you when you’re drunk, science says
Source: The Next Web

A surge of severe lung ailments has baffled doctors and public health experts. The Mysterious Vaping Illness That’s ‘Becoming an Epidemic’
Source: NY Times Tech

Late last night news broke that Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey’s Twitter account had been compromised. Friday evening his account tweeted roughly a dozen racist and offensive tweets over a 20-minute span. The reason? Hackers were able to gain access to his account through SIM hacking.

Read more…

How to Tweet Via SMS Rather Than Using Twitter's App
Source: Life Hacker

We compare Apple’s most affordable high-end iPhone with 2017’s iPhone 8 Plus. iPhone XR vs. iPhone 8 Plus: Which iPhone should you buy? – CNET
Source: CNet

For a lot of developers, the last thing they want to do after being at work all day is to write more code. Staring at a screen all day does take a toll on you. Once you’ve had a chance to go for a walk and eat something, you might consider starting a personal project — and it doesn’t have to be anything too complicated. There might be a framework that you want to learn or a library you’ve been interested in. It doesn’t even have to be related to your job. This is your time to learn something that…

This story continues at The Next Web

Personal projects make you a better developer
Source: The Next Web

Labor Day is Monday, September 2nd, in the US. Whether you have the day off or not, we salute our hard-working readers, and we’re here to share the best Labor Day-themed deals from around the internet.

Compared to the holiday season, opportunities to save on tech gadgets during the summer and fall are sparse. But if you’re looking to spend a little cash, these discounts will help you get more for your money. We’ve pulled together deals from brands like Ring, Dyson, Google, and retailers like Best Buy and Amazon below.

If an end date is applicable for any these sales, you’ll find it appended to each discount.

Everything that Satechi makes, including its new dual HDMI USB-C hubs (shown in the image above), is 20 percent off on Amazon for…

Continue reading…

The best Labor Day deals include USB-C hubs, cheap Hulu subscriptions, 4K HDR TVs, and more
Source: New feed

A refurb Ring Video Doorbell 2, discounted Breda watches, and a discounted Dyson V7 Animal lead off Saturday’s best deals from around the web.

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Saturday's Best Deals: Ring Video Doorbell, Breda Watches, Dyson V7 Animal, and More
Source: Life Hacker

Friday afternoon, Jack Dorsey’s 4.2 million Twitter followers got an unpleasant surprise. A group of vandals had gained access to the account, and used that access to blast out a stream of offensive messages and plugs for their group’s discord channel. Within 15 minutes, the account was back under control and the group was banned from Discord, but the incident was a reminder of the serious vulnerabilities in even the highest-profile accounts, and just how insecure phone-based authentication has become.

The hackers got in through Twitter’s text-to-tweet service, operated by the acquired service Cloudhopper. Using Cloudhopper, Twitter users can post tweets by texting messages to a shortcode number, usually 40404. It’s a useful trick for S…

Continue reading…

The frighteningly simple technique that hijacked Jack Dorsey’s Twitter account
Source: New feed

Olive oil at its finest quality is a product that brings alive the Mediterranean cuisine of which it is a staple. Unfortunately for many of us not fortunate enough to possess our own olive grove, commercial olive oils are frequently adulterated, diluted with cheaper oils such as canola. As consumers we have no way of knowing this, other than the taste being a bit less pronounced. Food standards agencies use spectrophotometers to check the purity of oils, and [Daniel James Evans] has created such a device using a Raspberry Pi.

A spectrophotometer shines white light through a sample to be tested, splits the light up into a spectrum with a prism or diffraction grating, and measures the light level at each point in the spectrum to gain a spectral profile of the sample. Different samples can then be compared by overlaying their profiles and looking at any differences. This build shines the light from an LED through a sample of oil, splits the result with a diffraction grating, and captures the spectrum with a Raspberry Pi camera. Commercial instruments are usually calibrated by co-incidentally sampling a pure sample of the same solvent the test subject is dissolved in, in this case the calibration is done against a sample of pure olive oil. The software requires the user to identify the spectrum in the resulting photograph, before generating a curve.

From a basis of having worked with and maintained spectrophotometers in the distant past we would have expected to see an incandescent bulb rather than an LED for a flatter response, but since this is an oil identifier rather than a finely calibrated laboratory instrument this is probably less of an issue.

Over the years we’ve had quite a few spectrophotometer projects here, this Hackaday Prize entry from 2016 is just one of many.

Spot Adulterated Olive Oil With This Spectrophotometer
Source: HackADay