This is pretty big news for the average user in an RV or going camping etc. Obviously, as Starlink does not know where you'll end up using it, they only guarantee the signal quality at your registered service address, 'wherever that may be' (wink wink).

Portability (moving to some other static position) is in active testing, but mobile roaming (moving whilst in use) can work, but the current equipment is not actually designed for this yet.

See https://youtu.be/8PDVURcvWeg

#technology #starlink #mobileroaming #internet #satellite

This is actually a very basic kit, containing just the sensors and mounting parts. It will produce the expected voltages, which you need to interpret, to read rainfall, wind direction, and wind speed. These are also the sensors which are the most specialised, as it is easy to source other sensors for temperature, air pressure, solar radiation, and even air quality (they do have some other sensors too for air pressure etc, but these need to be mounted in enclosures).

The intention is that this would operate with something like an Arduino (or a Raspberry Pi), which would measure the voltages and run the software to display output. On SparkFun's site there is also a tutorial titled 'Arduino Weather Shield Hookup Guide V12' which gives a suggestion around components and software. It's open source, so you can decide to do it any way you want to, and experiment with it.

See https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15901

#technology #PWS #weatherstation #opensource #sparkfun

If you have used the Windows operating system or macOS, you must have encountered Bluestacks or Nox, which allows you to run Android applications on your PC. Unfortunately, they don’t have any releases for Linux platforms – that’s where Anbox comes into play.

Anbox is a free and open-source compatibility layer Linux system emulation tool that allows users to run mobile games and other Android applications on their Linux machine. Different reasons might influence one to run their mobile apps on the PC.

For example, mobile games are getting more sophisticated nowadays, and the small mobile screen doesn’t seem wide enough to give a user the ultimate experience they might need. Additionally, it can get quite tiresome using some applications on the mobile phone compared to the PC, which comes with a wide monitor and an easy-to-access keyboard.

Even though Anbox is not the only Android emulator available for Linux systems (there are others like Shashlik and Genymotion), it comes with pretty unique features, especially performance.

Anbox uses LXC (Linux Containers) to run the Android runtime environment. It recreates the Android directory structure as a mountable loop image and executes applications using the native Linux kernel.

For isolation, it takes advantage of Linux namespaces via LXC. All accesses are routed through the Anbox daemon. That is also a security measure as applications don’t have any direct access to the hardware resources.

To run the Android environment on Linux systems, Shashlik and Genymotion utilize an emulator. That is quite different from what Anbox does. Anbox runs the Android system under the same kernel as the host operating system, whereas the emulator generates a whole emulated system with its own kernel. There is no need for an emulation layer like QEMU. The hardware handles everything. This method also provides a much better interface with the host OS.

See https://bytexd.com/how-to-install-and-run-android-apps-on-ubuntu-using-anbox/

#technology #android #anbox #linux #opensource

For those new to the world of rooting, acquiring root access essentially grants you elevated permissions. With root access, you are able to alter or replace system applications and settings, run specialised apps that require administrator-level permissions or perform other operations that are otherwise inaccessible to a normal Android user. And by proxy, you may also be able to access certain “hidden” device features or use existing features in new ways.

Nowadays, Magisk is the de-facto rooting solution that lets you have root access by leaving the system partition untouched and modifying the boot partition. This is why it’s referred to as a “systemless” root method.

See https://www.xda-developers.com/root/

#technology #android #rooting #magisk #smartphones

Despite great progress over the past century, more than a billion people still don’t have access to clean drinking water today. Much of the water on Earth’s surface is polluted, but it’s not always easy to tell a dirty stream from a clean one. Professional kit for water analysis can be expensive, which is why Kutluhan Aktar decided to design a portable, internet-connected water pollution monitor.

There is no single parameter that determines the quality of a water sample, so the pollution monitor has no less than five different sensors. These can determine the oxidation-reduction potential (a chemical indicator), the pH (acidity), total dissolved solids (mainly salts), turbidity (suspended particles) and temperature. To combine all these numbers into a simple “yes/maybe/no” indicator, Kutluhan trained a neural network with data gathered from a large number of places around his hometown.

See https://hackaday.com/2022/04/02/monitoring-water-quality-using-lots-of-sensors-and-machine-learning/

#technology #environment #water #machinelearning #pollution #opensource

Sulphur is the tenth most abundant element on Earth, and local sources are usually available in any chosen location in the world. There is no nickel, no manganese, no cobalt, and they replace the current collective folds of copper and aluminium with graphene, so they have also no aluminium and no copper in their cells either. The only things they have in their cells are lithium metal foil, sulphur, and carbon. To make this technology work, the sulphur must be melted to form crystals, but this is only 112C (235F).

Ehmes claims Theion’s technology will radically increase both gravimetric and volumetric density, so that its batteries either take up less weight and space for the same capacity, or you can have much more capacity for the same weight. Theion’s Gen 4 battery, due in 2025, will have a slightly lower gravimetric density of 900Wh/kg, but a higher volumetric one of 1,500Wh/liter – so it would take just over a quarter of the space of a Tesla Model 3 Long Range battery. Theion is also promising 2,000 charge-discharge cycles for its Gen 3 and 4 technologies, which is above the 1,000-1,500 cycles of current Lithium-Ion cells.

Unfortunately, Theion isn’t initially going to be delivering its technologies to the EV industry. “We’re currently talking to the space industry,” says Ehmes. “We will hand over the R&D surplus to the air taxi next. Then mobile devices like handhelds, laptops, mobile phones, and wearables.” But EVs are definitely on the roadmap for Theion, and production has been designed to scale up to the quantities required by electric cars.

See https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2022/04/02/sulfur-battery-technology-could-make-electric-cars-go-three-times-further-by-2024/

#technology #environment #batteries #EV

Yes the design aesthetics may not look like Apple (it even has multiple buttons, it's not white, and has grooves) but certainly on the functionality side for a wireless mouse, you have to ask why Apple did something like this (maybe because they could not patent it first?). If Apple's magic mouse could at least plug in somewhere else, you could still use it, potentially while charging. Actually, come to think of it, plugging a device in to charge it, means it is not even truly wireless.

So 10 out of 10 to Logitech as they were clearly ahead of their time with this idea. The Logitech G Powerplay Wireless Charging System is not flawless, but it has an average rating of 4.7 on Amazon, and apparently they still sell well after 5 years on the market. Or you can be like me, and just put up with a good wired gaming mouse ;-)

See https://www.theverge.com/23005435/magic-mouse-apple-logitech-powerplay

#technology #gaming #mouse #logitech #magicmouse

Onyx really seems to have ticked all the boxes with the available technology. Not only is the colour contrast and saturation looking better (it still has some way to go in future) but there seems to be a lot of attention paid to the OneNote app as well as the drawing app. For functionally, too, it does what is needed for PDF annotations using a WACOM stylus. The text for actual reading looks pretty sharp for a colour eInk too as it is 300 DPI in black and white mode. Being Android based, it even has the Kindle app (with ecosystem) available to use. So as far as this size goes, Kindle is really going to have to make some dramatic changes, as it is now eating dust.

But the screen size is not ideal for typical A4 business documents or educational textbooks, so on that front if this was scaled up to a 10" that would be perfect (at a cost of course). Sadly, the 10" size eInk readers are usually quite a bit more expensive. Yes, one could use an Android or Apple tablet, but that comes with extra weight, short battery life, and are not great in the bright sunlight.

Watch the video at https://youtu.be/dB4shircB_s

#technology #ereader #eink #onyx #coloureink

Just watching this makes me relax like I'm there. I love how they start off by mentioning shuddering even in the game, thinking of the cost of fuel, with these big 4x4's about to set off on the dirt trail together.

This is a fun part of SnowRunner that you can do together with friends online. There are quite a few free roam trail maps that have been made by the community for this very purpose. It often takes team work to help by pushing, pulling, or winching your friend's truck. And along the way you get to see some great scenery. If you honk your horn you'll see some birds taking off, and of course the sunsets can be really stunning (you have a camera in-game to take great photos of such sights).

Watch this video at https://youtu.be/OrATx88tuSg

#technology #gaming #snowrunner #offroad #4x4 #trails