Kodak’s quirky Charmera camera is getting a nostalgic refresh with the new Charmera Millennium Edition.

It swaps the original’s retro disposable-camera styling for a collection of shiny Y2K-inspired designs. These designs look like they came straight from the early 2000s.

The update introduces seven new finishes, all inspired by the technology and aesthetics of the millennium era.

At $34.99/£35, the new models retain the same affordable price point. This helped make the original Charmera a hit among collectors and fans of lo-fi photography.

OS PLaTFORMS

There was a time when Microsoft cared about every KB

Microsoft’s latest Windows update might or might not have improved performance for the company’s flagship operating system, but there was a time when its engineers cared about performance. A lot. 

Veteran Microsoft engineer Raymond Chen on Monday hearked back to that time by telling another war story from the glory days of Windows, when a team was working on an x86-32 emulator for an unnamed processor (though it isn’t particularly difficult to identify potential candidates).

The emulator used binary translation – native code was generated for the original x86-32 code. Chen explained, “This offered a significant performance improvement over emulation via interpreter. You can imagine that x86-32 is just a bytecode, and the emulator is a JIT compiler.”

The team came across a function that needed to allocate 64 KB of memory. Simple enough stuff – check that there is enough memory available, subtract 65536 from the stack pointer, and then initialize the memory in a loop.

Use the comments to correct me, but this sounds like loop rolling, where repetitive code gets condensed into a loop.

However, it appeared that a compiler had … optimized … the code “by unrolling the loop into 65,536 individual ‘write byte to memory’ instructions, each 4 bytes long.”

Perhaps a bit quicker, but goodness – quite the memory hog. “All in all,” wrote Chen, “it took this program 256 kilobytes of code to initialize 64 kilobytes of data.”

Almost like a glimpse into a future where operating systems don’t appear to give two hoots about efficient use of storage. What would that look like?

As for the engineers working on the CPU emulator, Chen said, “This offended the team so much that they added special code to the translator to detect this horrible function and replace it with the equivalent tight loop.”

It would be interesting to know what that same team would make of the internals of some Windows binaries today, but it is heartening to know that, at one point, engineers cared about memory efficiency enough to reroll something. Sure, there might, just might, have been a performance hit, but spitting out 256 KB of code just to initialize 64 KB of data?

Naughty. Very naughty. The much younger version of this hack, optimizing the heck out of code to fit within the confines of computers from yesteryear, would have been horrified. ®

The administration sent out a notice to DHS personnel on June 16, Politico said.

Antarctica’s west coast is missing an area of winter sea ice the size of France, sparking concerns for threatened penguins other marine life and global sea levels.

One expert said the loss of ice in the Bellingshausen Sea was “depressing” and the failure of ice to form could have intensified a heatwave over the continent’s peninsular last week that saw daytime temperatures peak at 15.4 degrees Celsius which is more than 20 degrees Celsius above average.

It’s winter in Antarctica, when sea ice expands rapidly around the continent peaking in September.

But satellite observations showed the Bellingshausen Sea—on the west side of the Antarctic peninsular and which by June would usually be covered by ice—was almost completely ice free.

Scientists said the region was missing about 650,000 square kilometers (250,000 square miles) of sea ice, compared with the average between 1991 and 2020. That is an area about the size of France and almost tenfold the size of Tasmania.

“I’m concerned. It’s depressing,” said Dr Will Hobbs, an Antarctic sea ice expert at the University of Tasmania with the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership.

“It is remarkable that we are in June, and there is no sea ice there.”

He said this was the third time in four years that sea ice had been very low in the region. “I don’t think we will see sea ice there any more. It’s done,” he said.

He said the loss of sea ice was likely linked to changes in the ocean and scientists were trying to understand if global heating was a factor.

He said the region was important for krill—a critical part of the food web for species in the region. Krill would usually be hiding from predators under the ice in winter, where they graze on algae.

On June 10 there was about 11.4 m square kilometers of sea ice around the entire continent compared to a long-term average for that date of 12.6 m square km.

Dr. Phil Reid, who monitors Antarctic conditions at Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, said the Bellingshausen Sea had seen “incredible coastal exposure” in winter and summer in recent years.

He said just to the area’s west were the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers—the continent’s major contributors to ice loss and sea level rise.

Floating ice shelves in front of the glaciers could break up faster if protective sea ice is absent for longer periods, he said, and this could then speed up the loss of ice from the glaciers, pushing up global sea levels in the future.

The Bellingshausen Sea’s coastline was the site of tragedy in late 2022 when thousands of emperor penguin chicks died during a “catastrophic breeding failure” in four colonies.

That event contributed to UN advisers pushing the species up two categories to “endangered” on its international threatened species list earlier this year.

Dr. Peter Fretwell, a scientist at the British Antarctic Survey who has been documenting the penguin’s decline, said the current loss of sea ice in the region was “a serious problem for penguins, especially emperors.”

“Sea ice is forming too late and breaking up too early. It leads to reduced breeding success and longer trips to molting grounds.”

Adelie penguin numbers were also falling and crabeater seals were being forced to migrate in summer to find stable ice, he said.

This month the Antarctic peninsular witnessed an extreme temperature spike over several days. Hobbs said while “nobody has done the numbers” it was reasonable to suggest the heat wave was “made worse by the lack of sea ice.”

Sea ice would usually help to cool any warmer airflow entering the region from the north, he said.

Officials at Argentina’s national weather service, Servicio Meteorológico Nacional, said the country’s Esperanza base at the peninsular’s northeastern tip had experienced an “extreme temperature event” that peaked on June 5 and 6.

Maximum temperatures of 15.4 degrees Celsius and 13.4 degrees Celsius, respectively, were recorded at a period when average daily maximums were minus 6.2 degrees Celsius. The previous June temperature record at the base of 13.3 degrees Celsius was set on June 12, 1998.

PERSONAL TECH

Microsoft won the OLE vs OpenDoc wars. Now it’s saying OLE dependencies don’t matter

Microsoft’s June Windows update has upset some third-party applications that use Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) automation to open or control Office apps, leaving users with failed document launches and, in some cases, no error message to explain what went wrong.

According to Microsoft, “reports indicate that this issue may affect applications such as CCH Engagement, Workpaper Manager, dental software (such as Dentrix and Softdent), and Zotero; other similar applications might also be impacted.”

The workaround is to “open the application or document directly instead of launching it from the affected third-party application.”

Microsoft was quick to point out that this wasn’t its problem. The third parties concerned are “independent of Microsoft.”

“We make no warranty, implied or otherwise, about the performance or reliability of these products.”

That would be fair enough were it not for the fact that these third parties are relying on Windows plumbing that has been around since the 1990s, and abruptly breaking or changing something in a Windows release doesn’t give those vendors much time to deal with the problem.

OLE allows one application to control another – for example, firing up a Word document or Excel spreadsheet from an accounting application. When it works properly, users don’t need to switch between applications. The process should be seamless.

If opening the file directly, which somewhat defeats the point of OLE, doesn’t help, ordinary users will have to wait for a fix in “a future Windows update.” There is a mitigation for affected devices within organizations, though obtaining it requires contacting Microsoft support for business customers.

Veteran techies may find this mess ironic, given that in the 1990s Microsoft went all-in on OLE and ultimately saw off the rival OpenDoc tech backed by Apple and IBM.

The issue is the first that Microsoft has acknowledged in the patch, although the company’s forums are full of users complaining about other difficulties, including OneDrive and BitLocker problems. ®

Photo credit: Doroni Aerospace
Doroni Aerospace has spent the better part of a decade moving from early garage experiments to a finished design it believes regular people could operate. The H1-X sits at the center of that effort. It is a two-seat electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft built first for personal use rather than fleet service or air taxi routes.

The H1-X’s tandem wings measure nearly 18 feet across, but its eight ducted fans do the majority of the heavy lifting when it takes off and lands. Once it reaches cruising speed, two additional ducted fans at the back keep it moving forward. The carbon fiber design reduces the empty weight to approximately 1,850 pounds while still allowing it to carry a 500-pound payload. It’s nearly six feet tall, 16 to 18 feet long, depending on who’s measuring, yet small enough to fit in most conventional two-car garages without having to fold up.

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However, having the fans tucked away changes everything. Nothing spinning madly in the open means you’re not taking a low pass over the garden or driveway and colliding with plants, a fence, or people. The ducts guide the thrust downward, which decreases noise. Once up to speed, the wings begin to generate lift on their own, the vertical fans slow down, and the range and battery life improve dramatically because you don’t have to stay in a continual hover state like some other designs.

Short hops in urban and suburban settings are crucial for performance. Its top speed is 120 mph, and cruises at 95 mph. It currently has a range of roughly 60 miles, but the manufacturer believes that after the batteries are sorted out, it will reach 100 miles. Its battery can be charged to 80% capacity in 25 minutes using one of those electric car chargers, giving you approximately 45 minutes of flight time. It won’t be straining up into the stratosphere, but rather 500 to 1,500 feet above land.

You sit side by side with the pilot behind a large clear canopy that allows you to see all around. The interior resembles a modern car rather than a traditional aircraft cockpit, with a single joystick controlling all flight controls, including roll, pitch, and yaw. And then there’s the self-stabilizing software, which helps eliminate all of the minor changes required to keep it stable. Taking off and landing is as simple as tapping one or two buttons.

The real change, however, is in the software, which is powered by what Doroni calls SOUL AI. The central screen displays all of the important information, including navigation, battery, time to destination, altitude, speed, nearest charging sites, and weather, on one screen. There are sensors all around the place that monitor 360 degrees. Radar, LiDAR, and cameras work together to detect obstructions and keep you on track, even if you mistakenly let go of the stick. They want to make the pilot more of a guide, a navigator, rather than a hands-on controller.

Safety is a key consideration throughout the design process, as the ducted fans eliminate one of the classic risks, the propeller. In the event of an emergency, a ballistic parachute provides an alternative means of safely landing. The safety features include redundant motors in a few ducts and continuous sensor monitoring to keep an eye on things at all times. The Doroni team is aiming for certification as a Light Sport Aircraft under the FAA’s new MOSAIC standards, which happen to match the H1-X’s size and characteristics. The company’s previous test vehicles, such as the H1-X, received special airworthiness certificates and successfully completed manned test flights.

Doron Merdinger launched the company in 2016, and they recently unveiled a full-scale model of the H1-X at their annual ‘Soul of the Sky’ event in Florida. People were able to go inside, check out the interface, and even test out a flight simulator. We’ve already received pre-orders for several hundred units, indicating that lots of individuals are eager to become involved. Pricing is projected to be in the $350,000 to $400,000 region, with deliveries set to begin in 2028 once the certification process is completed.

John Boss needed reliable oversight for a workshop packed with projects still under wraps. Standard internet cameras record events after the fact and offer little in the moment. He chose a different route and built Walter, a workshop sentry meets security robot, instead.

Walter hangs hung from the ceiling on a unique motorized mount, which at first view resembles a high-end pan-tilt security camera. The camera module, lights, and sensors sit in the tiny black shell, but a second look changes everything, as the inclusion of a full-fledged Nerf blaster gives the whole thing personality.

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A geared lazy Susan bearing controls the unit’s movement, allowing it to swivel smoothly in a full circle. Stepper motors control the pan and tilt movements through a pulley and gearing arrangement. A slip ring keeps the cables from twisting or becoming tangled as the joint rotates, while limit switches keep everything under control in either direction. Overall, the movement is relatively rapid and precise.

The Raspberry Pi 5 serves as the Walter’s brain, processing all of the video from the USB camera, running computer vision procedures to detect and track movement, managing network connections, and making major decisions. Meanwhile, an Arduino Nano clone serves as the motor control system, accepting direct orders from the Pi to ensure responsiveness while the Pi works on the vision and logic. An Android tablet combined with a gamepad allows you to control from anywhere while also providing a low-latency visual stream.

When Walter is left to its own devices, it operates in Sentry mode. Motion detection comes in and can even give you notifications, after which computer vision takes over and tracks whatever caused the movement. The camera and mount maintain focus on the subject without requiring human intervention at any point. Voice recognition adds an additional layer of control; a microphone listens for orders or a spoken password to activate or disable the system, and a small USB speaker allows Walter to respond, give a challenge, or send you an alert.

The defensive options are a little more intriguing, as you get two high-intensity LED floodlights that can either flood the area or generate some very blinding glare. A pair of lasers provides a couple of brilliant points of light that are useful for aiming and visual emphasis. Then there’s the Nerf blaster, which can shoot darts under human or automatic control, and the noise alone is enough to deter even the most determined unwanted visitor.

Walter is the real deal, as it watches the room like a standard camera, but also moves, speaks, shines a light, and generally participates when necessary. When not in use, the ceiling mount hides it, and the pan-tilt mechanics and software allow it to cover the entire space. For a maker space with work that isn’t quite ready for public viewing, the system provides an excellent blend of surveillance and active deterrence that seems like it’s on your side rather than simply sitting there looking technological.
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