A new ID system for Australians. At a speech at the National Press Club today, Government Services Minister Bill Shorten announced the trial of a new way for us to identify ourselves that is more secure than things like our driver's license but will require a phone. Also, have you ever got to the checkout to find that the price is different to what it was on the shelf? Have you ever looked at a

The house here has 6KW of solar power, when the sun is shining and hitting the panels. I like to watch what's being generated so I can use power from the sun if available so some time ago I reverse engineered the Envoy inverter's web display and made some M5 Stack devices that display the info. They have an ESP-32 for Wifi built in. Sometimes the sun also shines on the LCD making it hard to

It's been many years since I've built a quadcopter from parts. What triggered this project was stumbling across the SpeedyBee flight controllers which have a powerful STM32 F405 and bluetooth so they can be configured wirelessly from a smartphone app. The controller has the motor controller (ESC) board mounted under it which makes for a much neater arrangement than the last time I did this which

This year I fulfilled a long term ambition of visiting Uluru in the centre of Australia and I couldn’t help thinking how spots from there might look on a WSPR map. Here's a spoiler (plotted in WSPR Watch):Operating QRP from a motel room is a challenge in several respects. From past experience I knew that receive noise would be high and while it’s possible to hang an antenna up inside the room,

Billboards are said to be one kind of advertising that can't be blocked or skipped. That's all about to change with a revolution in outdoor advertising in Switzerland. Also, the devastating Windows CrowdStrike raised many questions, but it looks like Microsoft is working to make Windows more robust in the face of software bugs that could bring it down. Plus, flying cars were one of the

A recent podcast from Freakonomics titled Why do your Eyeglasses cost $1,000? explains the EssilorLuxottica monopoly we face here in Australia as well as the US.  Their markups are described by one analyst as "obscene". They mention Warby Parker as a possible monopoly breaker but sadly they don't seem to have come to Australia.My prescription is relatively complex with astigmatism and

This week on ABC Radio Nightlife, we talked about Samsung's product updates and how much they look like Apple products, a new way to migrate your photos from Google to Apple's cloud, future cars that won't let you speed, Android's coming desktop mode, some old technology (8 inch floppy disks) that are finally being retired and the US ban on Kaspersky Anti-Virus. Listen here. 

Our home came with a Saxon wood heater but the advertised automatic fan control circuit has never worked and I must get down on the floor to turn the fan on or off manually.The heater works by heating a cement plate at the top of the firebox and a fan runs air over the top of it which warms the room. If the fan isn't on the heat goes up the flu. If the fan is on when the fire isn't going well it

My new eBike came with a charger. Even though it's about 10m away from my ham shack the radiated noise level is impressive. Here's the "transmitter":Here's the inside view:Even with external clip-on ferrites on the mains and output cable there is little difference. How can it be legal to sell noise makers like this? Are all the certifications fake or just incredibly poor standards?As Ralph,

I joined Philip Clark on ABC Radio's Nightlife program to talk about technology news including new legislation to combat faked sender IDs on scam text messages, YouTube live stream hacks to promote crypto scams and a look at the new ARM based Microsoft Surface laptops that are challenging Apple.Audio here.In the story I talked about trying out the new Microsoft Surface laptop powered by ARM. It's

This little post was triggered by reading Owen Duffy's post titled "Arduino thermometer using DS18B20 and OLED display". Even though I'm quite comfortable writing C or C++, I've been enjoying the clean MicroPython environment. These days I've pretty much switched from classic Atmel Arduinos to RP2040 based boards.I implemented this little thermometer in just a few minutes with two easy to find

When I was a teenager and just starting to tinker with electronics I built a regenerative receiver kit from the local Tandy (RadioShack) store. It was a great success and I was able to listen to the big shortwave broadcasters on it.I know that Bill often mentions that regenerative receivers may be haunted on his Soldersmoke blog. The DX Explorer site describes a rather neat regenerative receiver

Some years ago I used to accompany Terry to a field in Sydney where he would fly amazingly fast while using a video headset. He would run through an obstacle course with hoops standing on the oval. I tried a few times but crashed immediately - I could never put myself in the drone and was always thinking of the sound.My current drone is home built and rather bashed about but does the job.One

Tuned to 9585KHz and the BBC's Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast is on. A charming shortwave program with information and messages from family at home. Good signal here in Victoria.I'm using an Airspy HF+ via SDR++ in server mode. Thanks to Stephen, VK2BLQ for the tip.

Talked technology on ABC Nightlife with Dom Knight: AI seems to be taking jobs already, AI being used to protect call centre workers, NotebookLM a great new research tool and Adobe being sued for misleading customers. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/nightlife/peter-marks/104000522

USB-C is a wonderful standard. Apart from the ability to plug it in either way up, it supports Power Delivery and much higher speeds.  I've run in to some mystifying scenarios where a cable would charge but not carry data, would carry data but not charge, and lower than expected data throughput.I'm a registered Apple developer and was keen to try out the macOS 15 Sequoia beta but I'm not an

I've been seeing a lot of misinformation lately and noticing the techniques used. While discussing this with friend Tony, I wondered if ChatGPT could list ten effective ways to do this."Spreading misinformation effectively, while unethical and harmful, often employs psychological and social manipulation. Here are ten techniques commonly used:1. Emotional Appeals: Crafting messages that trigger

It's a pity the Raspberry Pi PICO comes with the horrible micro USB socket. I purchased what, I guess, is a PI Pico clone board with a USB-C socket on it from AliExpress but was disappointed when none of them seemed to appear on the USB bus.On a whim, I plugged one in to my computer with a USB-A to C cable and up it came! My guess is that somehow the USB-C wiring isn't right and a proper USB-C

My thanks to Stephen Rapley, VK2RH, for passing on this review of ham radio software that gave my WSPR Watch app a high rating. It's in the latest June issue of German amateur radio magazine FUNK amateur.Translating the text with Google Translate I get:"Who can hear me? Where can I be heard? Who can I receive? These questions can be answered with the WSPRwatch app. Your own reception reports