Hackaday Links: May 29, 2022
It seems like the ongoing semiconductor shortage isn’t having any better, and if the recent spate of computer system thefts from semi trucks is any indicator, it is only heading to get worse. Burglars appear to be focusing on the Freightliner Cascadia, most likely the most common significant freight truck on the street in North The usa now, with “smash and grab” thefts concentrating on the CPC4, or Frequent Powertrain Regulate module. These modules are sitting ducks — they’re quick to track down and take away, the chip lack has created legit modules nearly unobtanium from dealers, and they truck won’t operate with out them. Which is driven the black industry price tag for a CPC up to $8,000 or additional, making them a tempting concentrate on. And it is not only particular person vans parked in truck end loads that are staying strike gangs are breaking into trucking enterprise heaps and bricking dozens of vehicles in quick order. So the offer chain dilemma which started out the semiconductor scarcity triggered the module lack, which drives the intruders to steal modules and just take vehicles off the highway, which only worsens the source chain lack that began the full factor. Pleasant favourable responses loop.
Talking of crime, between the gadgets 007 experienced readily available on his Aston-Martin DB5 courtesy of the Q Department boffins, in all probability the the very least-prosecutable one to basically equip your motor vehicle with would be the license plate flipper. But the very least-prosecutable does not necessarily mean authorized, as two people in California uncovered when they ended up nabbed for allegedly obtaining a plate-flipper on their Mercedes. The pair allegedly made use of the flipper, which just turned the plate more than so it could not be found, to enable dodge the notice of protection cameras when committing burglaries from automobiles in parking garages. The plate flipper revealed in the video clip under is really intelligent — it poses as a somewhat stocky-looking license plate frame that certainly hides a compact motor. It appears to be like some thing that is commercially available, while it would be quite quick to 3D print something like that. Nah, forget about we even claimed that.
Are you fatigued of the heartbreak of self-unwrapping burritos? God is familiar with we are, but thankfully we’re residing in the long term, in which edible adhesive tape is a factor. Or quickly will be, if the “Tastee Tape” invented by some engineering students at Johns Hopkins goes any place. The components of the edible tape are staying saved less than tight wraps (lol) because of to a pending patent software, but they will say that the tape is wholly edible and utilizes ingredients and additives popular to the foodstuff field. A informal inspection of the elements checklist on any pre-packaged food items product suggests that this usually means they experienced a massive cabinet to get the job done from, so we’d be curious to see what’s in there. From the image in the post it pretty much looks like nori, but they say that version was dyed for presentation, and the manufacturing recipe yields a crystal clear tape. Which is superior, because that blue things doesn’t appear as well “Tastee.”
And finally, final 7 days we showcased the past unpleasant seconds of a Starship shipping robotic, whose advice system betrayed it by telling it to cross railroad tracks at a most inopportune minute. Being aware of that no one received damage — apart from the faculty college students who didn’t get their pizza, of study course — made it easy to laugh at the snuff movie, specially when the bot’s lithium batteries did the detail that lithium batteries have a tendency to do when smooshed by a practice. But this photo of a seemingly dropped Starship wandering all around in the woods is someway a minimal much less humorous. It was taken in England, wherever the delivery bot was spotted trundling down a path in a character maintain. It turns out that relatively than currently being misplaced, the bot was particularly exactly where it desired to be — the paved trail was in fact the shortest route to its delivery location, so everybody who imagined the bot experienced long gone feral turned out to be completely wrong. Soon after all, not all who wander are misplaced.