On that last topic first, I was approached by the FOSSi Foundation to act as editor for a whitepaper document offering an overview of the state of the open-source electronic design automation (EDA) sector in Europe and a roadmap for how investment could help deliver improved resiliency and technological sovereignty in the region. A collaborative document pulling in contributions from industry, academia, and the community, my first editing pass was completed in September; a second pass is scheduled for October ahead of the document’s presentation to the European Commission via the GoIT project.
The biggest news story, meanwhile, came at the end of the month: the release of the Raspberry Pi AI Camera Module, a MIPI Camera Serial Interface (CSI) accessory for the Raspberry Pi family of single-board computers which uses Sony’s IMX500 “Intelligent Image Sensor” to deliver on-sensor computer vision acceleration. My review was published day-and-date on Hackster.io, just squeaking under the wire for inclusion in the September round-up – and, as usual, includes a wealth of in-house photography.
Other big stories include a project to distribute Commodore VIC-20 software via YouTube video streams, several Espressif ESP32-based development board launches, a virtual joystick library for LVGL, the formal unveiling of the MNT Reform Next open-hardware laptop, a lower-cost MiSTer-compatible FPGA emulation board, the discovery that Play-Doh can be used to deliver ultra-low-cost sensors for human-machine interface systems, and my most popular story of the month: an open-source kit to build a plasma-ring-generating desk toy, inspired by tokamak nuclear reactor technology.
- RISC-V Joint Venture Quintauris Grows to Six, as STMicroelectronics Joins the Party
- A Chip Off the Old Rug: Ken Shirriff Finds a Pentium Processor Hiding in a Navajo Weaving
- Manawyrm Digs Deep Into Raspberry Pi Power Optimization to Slash the Boot Time to Just 3.5 Seconds
- CiferTech’s nRFBOX Promises an All-in-One Handheld for Bluetooth, BLE, and Wi-Fi Experimentation
- Robert Harts’ Clever Kit Brings the Joy of Cosmic Ray Detection to All
- Jelly Load Lets Your Commodore VIC-20 Download Games — via YouTube Video
- Banana Pi Targets Compact, Energy-Efficient Edge AI with the RISC-V-Powered BPI-K230D Zero
- Clay McPherson “Rebrains” a 1990s Nomadic N150 Robot with an Espressif ESP32, Teensy Pairing
- Buy It Fix It Warns of a Privacy Problem Plaguing a Popular “Smart” Baby Monitor System
- Safecast and SaveDnipro Celebrate 25 Radiation Sensors Deployed in Ukraine — with More to Follow
- Jay Doscher’s SDR SOLO Kit Is a 3D-Printable Four-Radio SDR Rig for the Ham on the Move
- Orange Pi Embraces RISC-V with the Raspberry Pi-Like Orange Pi RV Single-Board Computer
- Braille-tip Turns a Pen Into a Tactile Reading Machine, Designed to Help Teach Braille
- Bluetooth SIG Launches Bluetooth 6.0 with “True Distance Awareness” via BLE Channel Sounding
- Timonsku’s 3D-Printed Two-Filter Design Is a Smaller, Cheaper Take on a Corsi-Rosenthal Box
- Spec5’s Nomad LoRa Handheld Packs a Raspberry Pi 5 for Meshtastic-Compatible Computing and Comms
- Microsoft Expands Its Copilot+ Windows AI Platform to the Latest AMD, Intel Chips
- Eternal Research’s Demon Box Turns Anything Electronic Into an Instrument — By Sampling EMF
- NVIDIA Teams Up with Dartmouth for a Free Generative AI Teaching Kit
- Ping Hobbyelektronik’s Epi C3 Is a Fingertip Development Board Built Around the Espressif ESP32-C3
- This Raspberry Pi-Powered Portable Provides Connectivity Almost Anywhere, Thanks to a Cellular Modem
- Problems with the Raspberry Pi Pico 2, Raspberry Pi RP2350 Deepen as Projects Hit By Erratum E9
- Raspberry Pi Doubles the RP2350 Security Bug Bounty Prize to $20,000, Extends the Deadline
- Eric Nam’s Open Source Library Brings Game-Style Virtual Joysticks to LVGL
- Copper Robotics Targets Raspberry Pi-Powered Rust-Language Balance Bots with the BalanceHAT
- Wearable Devices Unveils the Mudra Link, a “Neural Interface” Gesture Wristband
- MNT Research Unveils the Slimmer, More Powerful, But Just as Open MNT Reform Next Laptop
- “Taki Udon” Unveils a Custom MiSTer-Compatible FPGA Emulation Board Priced at Just $99
- Brett Walach’s Compact SAO Brings a Playable Vectrex Homage to Any Compatible Badge
- James Caska’s EDGEY Blends the Virtual and the Real, Connecting Virtual Breadboard with Real Sensors
- Banana Pi, ArmSoM Unveil the Artificial Intelligence Accelerating RK3576 CM5 Compute Module
- Michael Mayer Is Back with Another 3D-Printable Laptop, This Time Powered by a Raspberry Pi Zero
- LILYGO Launches the Sub-$25 T3 S3 LR1121 ESP32-S3 LoRa Development Board
- Researchers Use an EUV Flashlight and Free-Air Diffusion, Plus a Clever Algorithm, to Inspect Chips
- Nordic Semi Launches the nRF9151, “The Smallest and Lowest Power” System-in-Package for Cellular IoT
- NXP’s Trimension SR250 Offers UWB Radar and Secure Ranging with On-Chip Processing
- Stefano Marinelli Offers a Guide to Building Your Own NetBSD-Powered Read-Only Gadgets
- The Tiny Bit Machine Is a Self-Contained, Solar-Powered Eight-Bit Microcomputer — in a Tic Tac Box
- Joel Lewis’ MicroPong Is the Atari Classic You Know and Love — But the Size of a Penny
- Sub-Surface Simon Is a Single-Chip Game — in the Most Literal Sense Possible
- Flipper Zero Reaches a Major Milestone with Firmware 1.0 — and Gains JavaScript Powers, Too
- A 3D-Printed Framework and Some Copper Wire Turns Your Smartwatch Into a Field-Expedient Ammeter
- Chris Combs’ Feathery “Gateway” Blinks Out the Arecibo Message — and Is Ready for Public Viewing
- Ian Lesnet Works Around the RP2350’s Erratum E9 to “Fix the Six” — with Two Resistor Packs
- Sonocotta’s Espressif ESP32-Powered Esparagus Audio Streamers Can Now Listen, Too, with the Echoes
- Un Kyu Lee Revisits an Older Micro Journal Design with the Raspberry Pi-Powered Rev.2.ReVamp
- This Lithium-Sulfur Battery Keeps on Ticking, Even When Folded — or Sliced in Half
- Kevin Santo Cappuccio’s Simple Add-On Gives Your Badge a Classic Nixie Tube Display
- Peter “Bobricius” Misenko’s TrackSenger and Robust MechSenger Are Dedicated Meshtastic Comms Gadgets
- SparkFun Launches a Dual-Sensor Qwiic Air Quality Board, Powered by Sensirion’s SCD41 and SEN55
- Olimex’s One-Euro RVPC Single-Board Computer Goes Up for Sale Next Week
- Adafruit Prepares to Launch the Feather RP2350 with HSTX Port
- FreeCAD 1.0 Release Candidate Is Here — Over 20 Years After the Project’s First Release
- Tzu Huan Tai’s WebRTC Camera Stack Turns a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W Into a Low-Latency Streamer
- Milk-V Wants to Power Your Next Project with the RISC-V and Arm Duo Module 01 and Evaluation Board
- Seon Rozenblum’s OMGS3 Is His Smallest Espressif ESP32-S3 Development Board Yet
- This Browser-Based Tool Turns Your Doodles Into Ready-to-Run SSD1306 OLED Display Code
- David Lovett’s Usagi Electric Vacuum Tube Computer Gets a Custom-Milled Paper Tape Reader
- A Raspberry Pi Pico-Powered Nerve Stimulation Device Shows Promise for Taming Tourette’s Tics
- Jay Doscher’s NVMe Quick Kit Is a Rugged, Raspberry Pi 5-Powered Solid-State Backup Gadget
- CircuitDigest Opens Crowdfunding for the Low-Cost Espressif ESP32-Powered LiteWing Drone
- This PS One Sleeper Build Packs a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 for Emulation and More
- Paul McGinley’s PiFi Delivers a Quick-Start OpenWRT Routing Platform for Raspberry Pi 4 and 5
- Projection Mapping Turns Folded Paper Into an Ever-Shifting Art Installation
- Axon-Like Wires, Inspired By the Human Nervous System, Amplify Rather Than Degrade Signals
- Ildar Rakhmatulin Launches a New, 16-Channel PiEEG for the Most Advanced Brain-Machine Interfaces
- Xinao “dekuNukem” Wang Unveils the Bigger, Better, But Still-Open duckyPad Pro Macropad
- STMicro Boosts the STM32C0 Range with the New STM32C071, Adding USB and More Memory
- Turing Pi 2.5 “Isn’t Just Another Iteration” of the Popular Cluster Compute Carrier, Company Says
- Richard Fabo’s Sad-tf Wants to Make Your Arduino Debugging Happier
- This Thermoelectric Generator Harvests Energy at Room Temperature — No “Cold Side” Required
- Kids’ Play Putty Forms “Squishy Circuits” Usable as Ultra-Cheap, Self-Healing Bio-Sensor Electrodes
- Joe Scotto’s Scotto69 “Nice Edition” Keyboard Ditches the Hand-Wiring for an STM32-Powered PCB
- Researchers Turn Silk Proteins and Graphene Into Flexible Transistors
- Researchers Deliver Rapid Wastewater Disease Detection — with Origami-Folded Wax Paper
- ASUS Unveils the Tinker Board 3 — But Not the Original Tinker Board 3, a New Tinker Board 3
- Jordi Gauchía’s IceNav Turns an Espressif ESP32 Into a Graphical, Offline, OpenStreetMap GPS
- Fraktal’s Open Source Laser Fault Injection Rig Has a Surprise Second Use: As a Laser Decapper
- Makerdiary Puts NXP’s i.MX RT1011 Crossover Microcontroller on a Sub-$15 Gumstick-Style Dev Board
- iFixit’s Kyle Wiens Is Electrocuting the Apple iPhone 16 — to Test Its Clever New Battery Adhesive
- Linux Can Now Power Real-Time Operating Systems, as the PREEMPT_RT Patch Set Is Merged Into Mainline
- M5Stack Upgrades the AtomS3 with New AtomS3R, AtomS3R Camera Models
- Misty De Meo Walks Through Making the Best Possible Archive Copies of Your Precious CD-ROMs
- ElektroThing’s RetroThing Is an Espressif ESP32-Powered Smart Clock with Vintage Aesthetics
- Will Kalman’s LogiClock Is a Retro Timepiece Three Decades in the Making
- NXP Unveils the i.MX RT700 Microcontroller, Promises Near-Two Hundred Times the Edge AI Performance
- Berto Aussems’ microDAW Packs an Entire Digital Audio Workstation Into a Wooden Cigar Box
- Phil Nelson’s Silius is a Compact Portable PC Built From an Orange Pi Zero 2W
- Amini, Aiming to Deliver Life-Changing Data in Africa, Launches Amini Lite
- Simon Liu Wants to Put a “Tokamak” on Every Desk, with This Open Source Plasma Toroid Generator
- Waveshare’s ESP32-C6-LCD-1.47 Is a Development Board for the World’s Tiniest Smartphone
- Ayush Pande Provides Guidance on Turning a Raspberry Pi 5 Into a Proxmox Virtual Environment Host
- Radxa, Working with Siengine Technology and Arm China, Prepares the Edge AI SiRider S1 SBC
- Great Scott Gadgets’ Cynthion Is a Flexible FPGA-Powered Tool for USB Analysis and Experimentation
- Intel Unveils Its Cheapest RealSense D4-Powered Depth Camera Yet: The RealSense D421
- Oliver Fabel Brings MicroPython to the Popular Flipper Zero Multitool
- Llama Group Releases the Winamp Source Code — But Beware Its Restrictive License
- Gabriel Cséfalvay Gets an STM32 Microcontroller Delivering Full HD 1080p Video — After a Fashion
- Meta Announces Cheaper VR Headset, New AI Features, and “The Most Advanced Pair of AR Glasses” Ever
- Kevin Santo Cappuccio Takes the Jumperless Breadboard to the Next Level, Launches the Jumperless V5
- Trevor Beaton Shows Off the Flexibility of Adafruit’s itsaSNAP with a Phone-Driven Weather Display
- Ken Shirriff Puts an Unusual 1990s Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) Chip Under the Microscope
- The Allen Institute for AI Releases Molmo, an Open Family of High-Performance Multimodal AI Models
- Tor Project, Tails Join Forces to Boost Privacy, Fight Censorship Online
- Julien Alexandre’s Homebrew Belt Grinder Is Under Arduino Opta Control
- Phyx’s LANA TNY Is a RISC-V, Fine-Pitched Twist on the Adafruit QT Py and Seeed XIAO Range
- Pwned by Your Printer: Simone Margaritelli Warns of a Serious Security Vulnerability in CUPS
- Raspberry Pi’s AI Eye: Hands-On with the Raspberry Pi AI Camera Module
- Pragmatic, Harvard, and Qamcom Build the World’s First Silicon-Free Flexible RISC-V Microcontroller
- HiFiBerry Brings Eight-Channel Audio to the Raspberry Pi 5, and 60W of Amp Power to All Models
- Derek Robson’s Alius 6502 Is a Do-It-Yourself MOS Technology 6502 Trainer for Education and More
- Ken Shirriff, Eric Schlaepfer, and Marc Verdiell Get an F-4’s Three-Axis Artificial Horizon Humming
- Andreas Spiess’ LoRa Mailbox Notifier Uses a Smart Bidirectional ARQ System for Reliability
- Wenting Zhang’s Sitina 1 Is a Fully Open Source FPGA-Powered Full-Frame Mirrorless Digital Camera
- FOSSi Foundation El Correo Libre Newsletter, Issue 78
- MyriadRF Over-The-Air Newsletter: Modern “Magic Eye” Tuning Tubes, Multi-Radio SDR On-The-Move, Faster SatDump, and More
- An Open Source EDA Roadmap for Europe