Computers & Mobile

The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for digital gadgetry, open code, smart hacks, and more. Processing power to the people!

Elecrow CrowPi L: Chromebook Killer for Creatives?

Elecrow CrowPi L: Chromebook Killer for Creatives?

By David Groom

David Groom

David bought his first Arduino in 2007 as part of a Roomba hacking project. Since then, he has been obsessed with writing code that you can touch. David fell in love with the original Pebble smartwatch, and even more so with its successor, which allowed him to combine the beloved wearable with his passion for hardware hacking via its smartstrap functionality. Unable to part with his smartwatch sweetheart, David wrote a love letter to the Pebble community, which blossomed into Rebble, the service that keeps Pebbles ticking today, despite the company's demise in 2016. When he's not hacking on wearables, David can probably be found building a companion bot, experimenting with machine learning, growing his ever-increasing collection of dev boards, or hacking on DOS-based palmtops from the 90s.

Find David on Twitter at @IShJR.

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When the Raspberry Pi first launched, it promised a $35 computer for the masses. But what does “computer” really mean? After HDMI cables, SD cards, power supplies, keyboards, mice, monitors – even if you already have some of that stuff – you’re probably looking at a several hundred dollar outlay, minimum. And in the early […]

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DFRobot Launches LattePanda 3 Delta Pocket-Sized Hackable Computer

DFRobot Launches LattePanda 3 Delta Pocket-Sized Hackable Computer

By David Groom

David Groom

David bought his first Arduino in 2007 as part of a Roomba hacking project. Since then, he has been obsessed with writing code that you can touch. David fell in love with the original Pebble smartwatch, and even more so with its successor, which allowed him to combine the beloved wearable with his passion for hardware hacking via its smartstrap functionality. Unable to part with his smartwatch sweetheart, David wrote a love letter to the Pebble community, which blossomed into Rebble, the service that keeps Pebbles ticking today, despite the company's demise in 2016. When he's not hacking on wearables, David can probably be found building a companion bot, experimenting with machine learning, growing his ever-increasing collection of dev boards, or hacking on DOS-based palmtops from the 90s.

Find David on Twitter at @IShJR.

View more articles by David Groom

When the first maker-focused single-board computers (SBCs) from BeagleBoard and Raspberry Pi started appearing, it felt like a tiny revolution. While makers had been hacking on microcontrollers for decades, the prospect of a Linux-capable device with ample GPIO and connectivity brought new possibilities, applications, and accessibility. And while current-generation boards are often based around powerful […]

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cyber security

Cyber Security Prep: Harden Your Digital Domain Against Disasters and Bad Actors

By David Groom

David Groom

David bought his first Arduino in 2007 as part of a Roomba hacking project. Since then, he has been obsessed with writing code that you can touch. David fell in love with the original Pebble smartwatch, and even more so with its successor, which allowed him to combine the beloved wearable with his passion for hardware hacking via its smartstrap functionality. Unable to part with his smartwatch sweetheart, David wrote a love letter to the Pebble community, which blossomed into Rebble, the service that keeps Pebbles ticking today, despite the company's demise in 2016. When he's not hacking on wearables, David can probably be found building a companion bot, experimenting with machine learning, growing his ever-increasing collection of dev boards, or hacking on DOS-based palmtops from the 90s.

Find David on Twitter at @IShJR.

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Protect your online self with these basic cyber security tips.

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Mighty Modules: Pluggable Boards To Get Your Project Built

Mighty Modules: Pluggable Boards To Get Your Project Built

Tim Deagan

By Tim Deagan

Tim Deagan

Tim Deagan (@TimDeagan) likes to make things. He casts, prints, screens, welds, brazes, bends, screws, glues, nails, and dreams in his Austin, Texas, shop. He's spent decades gathering tools based on the idea that one day he will come up with a project that has a special use for each and every one of them.

Tim likes to learn and try new things. A career troubleshooter, he designs, writes, and debugs code to pay the bills. He has worked as a stagehand, meat cutter, speechwriter, programmer, sales associate at Radio Shack, VJ, sandwich maker, computer tech support specialist, car washer, desk clerk, DBA, virtual CIO, and technical writer. He's run archeology field labs, darkrooms, produce teams, video stores, ice cream shops, consulting teams, developers, and QA teams. He's written for Make: magazine, Nuts & Volts, Lotus Notes Advisor and Databased Advisor.

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If you’re taking your microcontroller or SBC project to market, these pluggable boards might be what you need.

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Lights… Camera… Make! Tips for Getting Started on YouTube

Lights… Camera… Make! Tips for Getting Started on YouTube

By Mike Senese

Mike Senese

Mike Senese is the Executive Editor of Make: magazine. He is also a TV host, starring in various engineering and science shows for Discovery Channel, including Punkin Chunkin, How Stuff Works, and Catch It Keep It.

An avid maker, Mike spends his spare time tinkering with electronics, doing amateur woodworking, and attempting to cook the perfect pizza.

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These standout creators offer advice for putting your projects on YouTube.

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Core Memory: Why We Used 60-Year-Old Tech in an Arduino Shield

Core Memory: Why We Used 60-Year-Old Tech in an Arduino Shield

Ben North

By Ben North

Ben North

Ben has a background in maths and engineering, with a doctorate in computer vision. He worked for many years in finance. He is now working on Pytch (pytch.org), a system to help young students move from programming in Scratch to programming in Python. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.

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Oliver Nash

By Oliver Nash

Oliver Nash

Oliver is a mathematician by training, with a doctorate in geometry. He spent ten years working in finance, and a few years at a tech startup. These days he’s involved in formalising mathematics with the Mathlib project. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.

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About ten years ago, we designed and made an Arduino shield implementing “core memory,” a technology that was sixty years old even then. Our shield stored 32 individual 1s or 0s using magnetic fields going either clockwise or anticlockwise around 32 tiny doughnuts of magnetisable ‘ferrite’ material. This kind of memory, invented in the 1950s, […]

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