Month: November 2021

Sonos app leaks unannounced miniature subwoofer

Reference to “a smaller, cylindrical subwoofer” spotted by Reddit user.

Sonos Sub (Gen 3) on wood floor in living room

Enlarge / A tinier, rounder version of this? (credit: Sonos)

Small spaces often mean small sound. If you're like me and live in a cramped apartment, there's just not a lot of room for bulky speakers and surround sound systems. A potentially upcoming offering from Sonos could be the ticket for providing powerful audio through a small device.

The product in question is the Sonos Sub Mini. Sonos hasn't announced it, and it's not on the audio company's website. However, as reported by Android Police yesterday, someone on the Sonos subreddit reportedly spotted the name while using the Sonos app.

"As I was adding my second sub to my system, I noticed the 'more information' button, clicked it, and was taken to this page within the app," the Reddit user, u/S114HED, posted Saturday, along with this screenshot:

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Raspberry Pi brings an HP 95LX palmtop PC back to life

Before smartphones and tablets, and even before Palm Pilot, the Palm Pilot and Apple Newton, HP was experimenting with a different kind of pocket-sized computer: the palmtop PC. In 1991, the company released the HP 95LX, a machine that looked like a tiny laptop computer that shipped with MS-DOS software. With a 5.37 MHz NEC […]

The post Raspberry Pi brings an HP 95LX palmtop PC back to life appeared first on Liliputing.

Before smartphones and tablets, and even before Palm Pilot, the Palm Pilot and Apple Newton, HP was experimenting with a different kind of pocket-sized computer: the palmtop PC. In 1991, the company released the HP 95LX, a machine that looked like a tiny laptop computer that shipped with MS-DOS software.

With a 5.37 MHz NEC V20 processor and just 512KB of RAM, it’s a pretty underpowered computer by modern standards. But hardware hacker Rune Kyndal scooped out the guts and replaced them with a Raspberry Pi Zero W and other modern components to bring the HP 95LX into the modern era… or at least its shell.

The result is a computer that looks like HP’s classic palmtop on the outside, but which has a 4.3 inch, 800 x 480 pixel backlit color display, stereo speakers, 10/100 Ethernet, HDMI. USB 2.0 ports, a microSD card reader, and a LiPo battery and micro USB port for charging.

Of course MS-DOS has limited use in 2021, so this HP 95LX runs Linux… but since the keyboard has an unusual layout, many of the buttons had to be remapped in software. More challenging is getting the keyboard to work with the Raspberry Pi at all, which was accomplished with an Arduino MEGA microcontroller board which could serve as an interface between the keyboard and the single-board computer.

The project, which was written up by HackADay this week, is actually over a year old at this point, so it’s unclear if Rune Kyndal has made any progress on a few stated goals including hooking up the display’s touchscreen to the Raspberry Pi Zero W or adding a webcam.

Of course, folks who want a handheld Linux mini-laptop that doesn’t involve gutting a 30-year-old PC, have a few other options these days. You could pick up a PinePhone for $150 to $200 and next month you should be able to pick up the optional keyboard accessory for $50.

Alternately, you could check out the Fx(Tec) Pro1-X smartphone with a slide-out keyboard and support for Ubuntu Touch or the Linux-compatible Gemini PDA or Cosmo Communicator from Planet Computers.

The post Raspberry Pi brings an HP 95LX palmtop PC back to life appeared first on Liliputing.

Russia threatens criminal charges against a NASA astronaut

Russia continues to deflect from embarassing situation that occurred three years ago.

Image of the hole in Soyuz MS-09 vehicle docked to the International Space Station in 2018.

Enlarge / Image of the hole in Soyuz MS-09 vehicle docked to the International Space Station in 2018. (credit: NASA TV)

The Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, said it has completed an investigation into a "hole" found in a Soyuz spacecraft when the vehicle was docked to the International Space Station in 2018.

Moreover, Roscosmos told the Russian publication RIA Novosti that it has sent the results of the investigation to law enforcement officials. "All results of the investigation regarding the hole in the habitation module of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft were transmitted to Law Enforcement officials," Roscosmos said. No further details were provided.

In Russia, the results of such an investigation are sent to law enforcement to allow officials to decide whether or not to initiate a criminal case, which would be akin to issuing an indictment. Russia does not have a grand jury system like in the United States, where investigators hand over their evidence to prosecutors, who decide whether to press charges.

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Nach Gerichtsurteil: Unionspolitiker für neue "Bundesnotbremse"

Bundesverfassungsgericht weist Klagen gegen Ausgangs- und Kontaktbeschränkungen zwecks Pandemie-Bekämpfung zurück. Geklagt hatten Mitglieder aller Ampel-Parteien, vor allem der FDP

Bundesverfassungsgericht weist Klagen gegen Ausgangs- und Kontaktbeschränkungen zwecks Pandemie-Bekämpfung zurück. Geklagt hatten Mitglieder aller Ampel-Parteien, vor allem der FDP