Monthly Archives: May 2025

Source: adafruit industries blog

Learn Guide: USB Keyset

This is a take on a custom input device inspired by the original keyset from the 1960’s that never quiet caught on. This 5-finger keyset lets you type without moving your hand, entering full words and phrases by pressing multiple keys simultaneously as a chord.

Content Summary:
– The guide provides instructions on building a custom USB HID device that functions as a chording keyset, allowing users to type words and phrases by pressing multiple keys simultaneously.
– It includes a step-by-step process for assembling the 3D printed chording keyset, wiring the components, and programming the Adafruit QT Py RP2040 with CircuitPython to create the USB keyset.

Adafruit Products Summary:
– The project is powered by the **Adafruit QT Py RP2040**, a small and powerful board based on the RP2040 chip: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4900
– A **USB-C Cable** is used to connect the USB keyset to a computer or USB hub: https://www.adafruit.com/product/6278

Read more at USB Keyset

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Feather or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

Source: The Register

Commercial customers, STEM students all feeling the pain after mega outage of engineering data-analysis tool

Software biz MathWorks is cleaning up a ransomware attack more than a week after it took down MATLAB, its flagship product used by more than five million people worldwide.…

Source: Hacker News

Source: Ars Technica

Don't worry about the "mission-driven not-for-profit" College Board—it's drowning in cash. The US group, which administers the SAT and AP tests to college-bound students, paid its CEO $2.38 million in total compensation in 2023 (the most recent year data is available). The senior VP in charge of AP programs made $694,662 in total compensation, while the senior VP for Technology Strategy made $765,267 in total compensation.

Given such eye-popping numbers, one would have expected the College Board's transition to digital exams to go smoothly, but it continues to have issues.

Just last week, the group's AP Psychology exam was disrupted nationally when the required "Bluebook" testing app couldn't be accessed by many students. Because the College Board shifted to digital-only exams for 28 of its 36 AP courses beginning this year, no paper-based backup options were available. The only "solution" was to wait quietly in a freezing gymnasium, surrounded by a hundred other stressed-out students, to see if College Board could get its digital act together.

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Source: NYT > U.S.

In a 4-to-4 decision, the court upheld a ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court that blocked the school.

Source: The Verge - All Posts

Nvidia has gone too far.

This week, the company reportedly attempted to delay, derail, and manipulate reviews of its $299 GeForce RTX 5060 graphics card, which would normally be its bestselling GPU of the generation. Nvidia has repeatedly and publicly said the budget 60-series cards are its most popular, and this year it reportedly tried to ensure it by withholding access and pressuring reviewers to paint them in the best light possible.

Nvidia might have wanted to prevent a repeat of 2022, when it launched this card's predecessor. Those reviews were harsh. The 4060 was called a "slap in the face to gamers" and a "wet fart of a GPU." I had guessed the 5060 was headed for the same fate after seeing how reviewers handled the 5080, which similarly showcased how little Nvidia's hardware has improved year over year and relies on software to make up the gaps.

But Nvidia had other plans.

Here are the tactics that Nvidia reportedly just used to throw us off the 5060's true scent, as individually described by GamersNexus, VideoCardz, Hardware Unboxed, GameStar.de, Digital Foundry, and more:

• Nvidia decided to launch its RTX 5060 on May 19th, when most reviewers would be at Computex i …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Source: Hacker News

Source: Hacker News

Source: Ars Technica

Under the control of anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Food and Drug Administration is unilaterally terminating universal access to seasonal COVID-19 vaccines; instead, only people who are age 65 years and older and people with underlying conditions that put them at risk of severe COVID-19 will have access to seasonal boosters moving forward.

The move was laid out in a commentary article published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, written by Trump administration FDA Commissioner Martin Makary and the agency's new top vaccine regulator, Vinay Prasad.

The article lays out a new framework for approving seasonal COVID-19 vaccines, as well as a rationale for the change—which was made without input from independent advisory committees for the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Source: Hacker News