As technologies change and adapt, we’re often left with seemingly useless junk that has nowhere to go. Certainly anyone still sitting on a pile of floppy disks feels this way sometimes, but odds are anyone who owns a mining ASIC or an NFT can attest to that as well. The trillions of dollars flowing into GPU-based data centers will likely become the next victim of this trend, so if you want to capitalize on the losses of some venture capitalist you’ll want to figure out a way to get GPUs meant for a server into your desktop doing useful work.

Of course, calling these devices GPUs is a bit of a stretch compared to the Radeon and GeForce cards many of us are used to using for gaming. These don’t even have a PCIe slot or video output, after all. But, as [Oscar] notes, the VRAM and GPU cores are very real and can still do useful work. An adapter board is able to mate a Tesla V100 SXM2 16 GB GPU to a standard PCIe slot, which solves the first problem, but the major downside from there is that the cooling fan for this unit was literally deafeningly loud. At 82 dB it was about as loud as a lawnmower, which is fine in a server rack but not great in a bedroom. [Oscar] found a way to tamp down the fan speed, making it usable in a home.

Without video output, the utility of these cards mainly comes from adding VRAM and compute for tasks that benefit from parallel computing. Using tensor splitting, [Oscar] is running a local LLM with this card alongside his RTX 4080, providing 32 GB of VRAM on his NixOS system. With his benchmarking tests, the LLM sports impressive stats for a self-hosted model, ranking somewhere around Claude Sonnet 4.6. What’s even more impressive is that this is all done for around £200, and with the rate the various LLM companies are ratcheting up pricing could pay itself back very quickly. If trading off performance for cost is acceptable, though, it’s possible to run local models on much less powerful hardware as well.

At least in theory, video games are more resistant to becoming lost media thanks to their digital nature — they’re easy to copy and emulators have saved many titles that are otherwise locked in corporate vaults. But emulators give us something beyond simple preservation: they can also be used to enhance games well beyond the capabilities of the original systems while still preserving the souls of the games, as this NES emulator manages to do.

The emulator is called Anemoia-ESP32, and as its name suggests is a re-write of the Anemoia emulator specifically built for the ESP32. By modern standards these little chips don’t pack much of a punch, but compared to original NES hardware they’re more than up to the task of gaming. This project aims to recreate the Nintendo Entertainment System experience as faithfully as possible, hitting 60 FPS in most instances, as well as maintaining full audio emulation. Running on an ESP32 enables some truly small handheld options that would be difficult to achieve with more traditional platforms for emulation. There are some PCBs available here as well, but aren’t required to explore this project with.

As far as extra features compared to original NES hardware, the emulator does support save states and has a number of other settings improvements. Installation is as easy as flashing any other firmware image onto an ESP32, which these days can even be done from the browser. No word on whether or not it will eventually support emulating dual Picture Processing Units, but we can hope.

Following the reports last week using the Windows Global Device ID (GDID) in tracking a malware operators behavior, here is a comprehensive write-up about what goes into the GDID and how it is used. It’s worth noting that the GDID itself was not used to catch the malware operator, however once a suspect was identified, the GDID was used to correlate behavior across various Microsoft products on the Internet.

The GDID is generated and assigned during a Windows install, but a re-install of Windows will generate a new GDID. Developer [SmtimesIWndr] tracks the generation and tracking of the GDID through the various Windows libraries and services, identifying where it appears to be created and how it is passed to other services like Azure.

Worth noting is your GDID is a unique, personally identifiable piece of information; if you go exploring and extract it from your Windows install, be sure to keep it private!

LAME mp3 updates

Those of us who were around for the dawn of MP3 files may remember the LAME encoder and library. After almost 10 years, there is a new LAME release.

Notably, this includes two security fixes, one for a stack buffer overflow based on malicious input to the Blade encoder, and an integer underflow in the AIFF header parser. Both of the fixed bugs feel very old-school, which seems appropriate given the age of the library and most of the related code.

Buffer overflows impacting the stack are some of the simplest and most direct forms of vulnerabilities, where it is possible to write past the end of a buffer and control how the function returns and instead execute arbitrary code. Integer under-flows, similarly, impact memory management; usually caused by allowing a variable that stores the size of a buffer to go negative. Since sizes are typically unsigned positive numbers, a negative is interpreted as an enormous positive number, writing past the proper buffer length.

Despite the new findings, the LAME codebase has been extremely resilient over the years, and considering the number of programs that likely still use LAME under the covers to process audio, seeing the project wake up with security fixes is great news.

Recovering Passwords from BIOS

Researchers have found a vulnerability in Dell BIOS code that allows extraction of the administrator password from the BIOS flash chips, either with physical access via a flash programmer, or via administrator or root level access to the operating system and reading the contents of the flash chip.

Dell used a 20 byte key to encrypt a 32 byte password field: for any admin password of 12 characters or fewer, the password is stored in completely plaintext. For longer passwords, characters beyond the first 12 are encrypted – but the random bytes are computed from the first character of the password mixed with fixed device data, yielding only 256 possible encryption seeds for the remaining bytes.

Using the BIOS admin password for evil requires local access, so the attack surface is small, however as the researchers note it controls the boot order and may allow an attacker with physical access to then boot an unsigned OS or bypass full-disk encryption, so it’s serious.

Patch Tuesday Crushes Records

Last month, Microsoft broke records for the number of security fixes in the June monthly Patch Tuesday roundup. This month, Microsoft broke records for the number of security fixes in the July monthly Patch Tuesday roundup.

This month includes a record 60 plus patches for critical vulnerabilities in Windows, as well as fixes for previous Bitlocker bypasses, and an AI prompt injection which could allow web sites to trigger Copilot in Microsoft Edge on Android and execute arbitrary prompts. Another bug patched this month allowed privilege escalation and code execution over DHCP, potentially impacting all Windows installs on the same physical network or public hotspot.

Microsoft credits AI assisted tooling with the record-breaking number of bugs discovered, and indicates it’s unlikely to slow down next month.

LegacyHive Windows Vulnerability

It’s a week with a Patch Tuesday, which now seems to mean it’s a week with a new exploit from NightmadeEclipse, the researcher who previously made news for being quite upset with the responses from the Microsoft security group. After then creating a public outcry by threatening prosecution, Microsoft recently has seemed simply to be fixing bugs disclosed by NightmareEclipse in the next series of security updates.

This month, we have LegacyHive, an exploit which allows loading the “hive”, or collection of registry settings and configuration files, of another user. The Windows registry is typically used to store preferences, settings, auto-launched applications, and other important settings, so being able to access other users registry groups seems significant.

Fairlife Dairy Suspends Production

Fairlife Dairy, owned by Coca-Cola, has suspended US operations due to a ransomware attack. Filings with the SEC simply say that production facilities are impacted and will be temporarily suspended, with no estimate as to when they will be restored.

Typically when a food-processing facility goes offline, the delays for restoring service can be significant due to the sanitization requirements.

CPAN and Perl April Task Force

The April Task Force has been announced (yes, in July) with a focus on enhancing the security posture of Perl and the CPAN library.

Given the absolute havoc wreaked on the NPM and PyPi repositories in 2026, proactive measures to protect other repositories seem prudent. Funded by the Perl and Raku Foundation and the Linux Foundation, the April Task Force will be focused on supply chain security, vulnerability patching, and processing reported vulnerabilities and CVEs.

Perl may not be the juggernaut language it once was, but it’s still used widely, so any preventative measures are good news.

Secure Boot vulnerable

Researchers from ESET enumerated 11 boot loaders signed by Microsoft that can be used to bypass secure boot protections and execute arbitrary code.

Secure Boot was designed to only boot code signed by trusted organizations (in this case, Microsoft). Those of us running Linux typically know it as “the option in the BIOS to turn off to get a kernel to run properly”, but for corporate fleets, Secure Boot protections help protect disk encryption and prevent malware installs.

During boot, a Secure Boot protected system validates the code it is about to launch to ensure it is signed by a trusted organization, establishing a chain of trust where each component then validates the next before launching. Often, to enable other tools or Linux distributions to boot, a “shim” boot loader is created and signed by an organization trusted by the UEFI install, which then loads and validates the actual boot loader or kernel.

Over the years, many such shims have been signed, but updates have lagged and security vulnerabilities have been found. Even unused old boot loader code remains signed and viable, allowing attackers to replace a modern version with a vulnerable, still valid, old version.

Microsoft has removed several of the vulnerable boot loaders via recent Windows patches, however systems that are not updated and systems that do not run Windows will still likely be vulnerable.

Of all innovations adopted by the maker community within the past couple of decades, one stands among the rest on top for anything regarding manufacturing. It goes without saying here at Hackaday how many projects have been reliant on using the technology to turn their ideas into reality. 3D printing has been a maker community invention and, in return, has expanded this hacky community into something that anyone with an imagination can get into. It also goes without saying that the layer-based tech imposes limits on what we can actually create: think overhangs and layer adhesion. However, there’s a possibility that a recent offshoot of this scrappy community has the power to eliminate some of these faults.

Volumetric additive manufacturing (VAM) is a young technology that has a similar start to many new tech toys, including the original SLA of the first 3D printers. That is expensive and completely stuck in the laboratory… Fortunately, that’s not where 3D printing as a whole stayed, as the RepRap project managed to bring the obscure technology to the hobbyists’ main stage. An entire group of people formed and spent countless hours until the useless pieces of poorly extruded plastic could form parts impossible to make with anything else. A cool quirk of history is that it likes to repeat: examples spur recreation, and this appears to be happening with the technology found within VAM printing.

History

Hold up for a second. While we have covered VAM here before at Hackaday, it’s not exactly the most well-known tech or the easiest to understand. So what is it? Starting from the beginning and simplest forms, VAM is similar to the more  common SLA printing. Using a light source and light sensitive resin, both of these methods can create entire physical objects by solidifying or curing specific areas of a vat or vial of resin. SLA will often use something like a laser and layer by layer “draw” the model until the entire geometry is finished. A quirk of most of many photosensitive resins is that they need to overcome a threshold before they can start curing. This allows VAM to do something a bit different. The earliest methods of VAM used intercepting lasers which allowed selective curing only where these beams were intercepted. One singular spot at a time would be able to overcome the threshold required for printing, allowing you to build up most geometries.

This works, but for more complicated models there’s more effective methods. One type has been covered here before called Xolography, still using intercepting beams, however with differing wavelengths which allows for more finite control. This is effective, but the resin is complex, requiring two-wavelength-photon-sensitive photoinitiators. Introduce the current standard in VAM printing, computed axial lithography (CAL). This method finds itself using existing methods found in traditional tomography, such as CT scanners. CAL methods are basically reverse tomography, where a model is used to create projections to be projected in printing. These projections allow dose control in each “voxel” of resin from changing the projection as the volume of resin is rotated. When ideal, this means that the entire model is printed at once. No layers needed for printing, and printing in minutes rather than hours.

Open-Sourced

Cool, but why should you care about this tech? Because you could start using it now! Just like the RepRap project before it, VAM has OpenCAL. OpenCAL was started by the same lab that originally created the axial version of the technology. UC Berkeley released the first OpenCAL around 2019 which was… well a start.

Functionally practical for only big budget research, it was far too expensive and complicated for any hobbyist with a 9-5 to realistically touch. Last year saw a new model presented at Open Sauce which used a consumer projector and common hobbyist electronics. While this was an improvement, there are three barriers to VAM printing; the hardware, software, and chemical resins make it a challenge for any individual alone. A newer version of the hardware was quickly put together for this summer. This helps with the hardware element, but there’s two new aspects being released alongside OpenCAL V2 for other unsolved problems.

Software: Tomo

For a little while now there have been various software packages available for allowing easier use of whatever VAM printer you might have, however these had various problems. From being undocumented to being complicated for anyone without comfort in command line , something different would be needed. A standalone application would certainly work, and low and behold that’s exactly what’s being tried here, called Tomo. Tomo allows you to use an OpenCAL printer with little thought or expertise, or ideally any other type of VAM printer.

Chemistry: Formlabs Resin

Material science is always a particular challenge for the open source community. Unlike software, you can’t distribute unlimited copies of your perfect mix of photosensitive resin without special chemical clearances and certainly not for free. Some of the first 3D printers from RepRap would use a nylon weed wacker line in place of the standard PLA of today. Unfortunately there’s less flexibility in the fine tuned resin found in VAM. This resin has to have a nonlinear photo-reaction for selective curing, be fairly transparent to the reactive wavelength, and be very viscous to prevent resin movement during printing. Formlabs, which makes resin printers and resins, has gotten into the act. Through talks between the OpenCAL team and Formlabs, an agreement for production of this special resin is being worked out, allowing for far cheaper material.

Hardware: OpenCAL

Of course this leaves the printer itself. OpenCAL is designed for a variety of different sized printing volumes, projectors, or anything else you might have in mind. Expect printing anything from this printer to finish in the span of minutes. While it can do the same small prints found in the older model of OpenCAL, experiments involving larger form factors have been attempted. But if you want more details make sure to check out the documentation here or join their Discord channel!

Future of VAM Printing

So how far can this technology really go? Could it pass traditional methods of 3D printing? Well, it’s certainly faster than traditional printing, however, there’s still plenty of trouble when trying it out. How do you remove partially cured resin off your print? How do you actually tell when the print is done? These are problems that are being fixed right now by the community, and maybe you can be the one to fix something holding it back. It’s fair to say that the community that has propped this technology up to where it currently stands is who is going to decide where it goes.

Unlike almost every other kind of microscope, atomic-force microscopes (AFMs) don’t use any kind of optical beam to image their subjects. Instead, they physically detect the subject’s surface with a tiny probe, repeating this thousands of times to build up a height map of the subject, sometimes with a resolution below a single nanometer. [Ben Krasnow] got to use an AFM in an investigation of one of his projects, and shared some unusual uses of it in his latest video.

For his first demonstration, [Ben] took a video of the probe head in action. Since the probe oscillates at nine kilohertz, this was less straightforward than it sounds, but a stroboscopic welding camera filming near that frequency could visualize its motion. The next project was to image some biological samples, particularly bacteria. First, [Ben] let the bacteria from nattō (fermented soybeans) multiply in a sterile growth medium, then centrifuged and washed them.

He spin-coated a thin layer of gelatine onto part of a silicon wafer, which provided a very flat substrate. The gelatine is electrostatically attracted to the bacteria, adhering them to the slide and letting [Ben] wash away other contaminants. This let the AFM image the bacteria clearly, even revealing how a spin-coating step had oriented them all in the same direction.

[Ben] also imaged a few other samples, including silver nanoprisms and track-etched membranes. Track-etched membranes use high-energy radiation and an etchant to cut very consistent, fine holes into a plastic filtration membrane. Finally, [Ben] used it to image his laser-etched diffraction gratings; to find out how the laser had created these diffraction patterns, he tried to selectively etch away the laser-exposed metal, using the AFM to verify that this metal had been stripped away. Neither an acidic nor a basic etch worked, but electrochemical etching seemed promising.

If after seeing this you want your own atomic force microscope, we’ve seen a few DIY AFMs, including one which can resolve individual atoms.

Thanks to [H Hack] for the tip!

Like so many large and popular open source projects these days, the Godot game engine struggles with an influx of pull requests. The situation has become increasingly dire due to the advent of AI-generated code. More specifically, the issue involves the inverse relationship between PR code quality and the number of PRs, which wastes a lot of time on the side of a limited number of (volunteer) reviewers. This has now forced the project to update its contribution policy.

An interesting point raised in the announcement article is that of the demoralizing effect of AI-generated PRs on reviewers. Often the human behind such a PR isn’t interested in being educated, or may even be an automated agent which isn’t capable of productive discussion on pros and cons of certain coding approaches — never mind in becoming a more permanent maintainer for the project.

This problem has led to new rules being instated, which include a ban on autonomous AI agents and vibe coding, a ban on substantial AI generating of code, and a ban on AI-generated text in human-to-human communication. It also codifies the requirement that all PRs are to be reviewed and approved by a human being before merging.

In many ways this new policy is similar to that of the Mesa project, which demands code comprehension on the side of the submitter, although it doesn’t go as far as NetBSD, which just outright treats LLM-generated code as ‘tainted’ due to potential licensing and other concerns. Other projects like the Linux kernel opt to make the human submitter responsible for any AI tool usage by forcing them to declare it.

Meanwhile there are also indications that such ‘AI tool’ usage is reducing useful interactions with open source projects. What the future will bring here remains to be seen, but at least as far as open source projects go these tools are clearly increasingly being banished.

Doing something once is fun, but if you get interesting feedback from viewers on how to make things even more fun, you can only follow all of these instructions and put more random objects on top of an induction cooker, as [Brainiac75] fortunately did.

Much like in the first video, the goal here is to use the Lorentz force that is induced in the object for levitation, ideally without having said object depart for orbit, melt into a puddle of molten metal or be a general hazard to anyone standing in the same room.

Some of the suggestions were rather benign, such as improving the aluminium foil ring by adding four times more layers to create more mass. Unfortunately adding more layers here had the device refuse to turn on due to the absence of a suitable ferromagnetic target. The difference between the working versions with one to three layers was here also not really noticeable. Various aluminium and copper tape configurations were then attempted, but without much success.

Of note is that while levitating, the metal gets pretty hot. At one point a CD even gets melted to aluminium foil. Even the use of water-filled aluminium cans will only give you so much time, and ramping down the power level on the induction cooker only revealed that this particular model operates only at either at full blast or off. Correspondingly a new induction cooker with claimed constant output was obtained for the next experiments at lower levels.

Interestingly, it was this new induction cooker set to a more reasonable output level that showed the first reasonably static levitation results without immediate conflagration or molten metal splatter risk. Whether this is the kind of levitation display that you want to set up in your living room in lieu of a boring magnetic one is still a good question, but at least this demonstration got downgraded to something potentially safe enough to play around with in a physics class.