Samwise Makers' News
Thursday, July 2, 2026
Sony to End Physical PlayStation Disc Manufacturing by 2028
Sony has confirmed it will cease all physical disc manufacturing for PlayStation consoles by 2028, ending the optical media era in gaming. The move follows years of declining physical media sales as digital distribution has come to dominate consumer game purchases. For hardware enthusiasts, repairers, and archivists this matters directly: PlayStation optical drives are already becoming scarce, and disc manufacturing’s end will accelerate console obsolescence over time. Physical game preservation becomes increasingly urgent as manufacturers exit the format. The closure mirrors broader consumer electronics trends, raising the familiar maker concern: when companies abandon physical media, long-term hardware repairability and software preservation both suffer.
Denmark Sets a Sensible Standard for Hobby Drone Regulation
Denmark has introduced drone regulations that Hackaday flags as a rare example of common-sense policy-making: the new framework explicitly distinguishes hobbyist flyers from commercial operators, reduces registration requirements for sub-250g recreational craft, and creates clear carve-outs for educational and maker use cases. This stands in contrast to the European Union’s blanket drone rules, which have frustrated makers and hobbyists across the continent with disproportionate compliance burdens. Denmark’s tiered approach demonstrates that regulators can protect airspace safety while remaining genuinely friendly to innovation. Other EU member states and regulators worldwide might look to Denmark’s framework as a workable model.
OrthoRoute Brings GPU Acceleration to PCB Autorouting
OrthoRoute is a new open-source PCB autorouter that offloads the computationally intensive routing problem to the GPU, enabling it to handle densely packed boards that would stall conventional CPU-based tools. The project was demonstrated on complex designs with thousands of nets, completing in time frames no traditional router can match through GPU parallelism alone. For electronics designers dealing with high-density layouts — particularly mixed-signal, RF-heavy, or multi-layer boards — this represents a meaningful workflow shift. OrthoRoute is currently in active development and openly available, making it an early but immediately promising addition to the open-source EDA toolchain.
Researchers Engineer Fish-Inspired Micro-Submarines for Environmental Monitoring
Researchers have developed miniaturized autonomous submarines designed to replace fish as environmental monitoring platforms in aquatic ecosystems. These micro-submarines carry sensor arrays measuring water quality, temperature gradients, and biological activity while navigating via fish-inspired undulating propulsion. The engineering challenge spans multiple disciplines: the craft must be small enough to move invisibly through sensitive ecosystems, mechanically durable for extended deployments, and intelligent enough to navigate unpredictable currents without operator intervention. For makers interested in underwater robotics this research highlights a meaningful frontier — waterproof electronics enclosures, low-power acoustic sensing, and buoyancy control are all areas where community innovation can accelerate real scientific progress.
Terra System Navigates Without GPS Using Existing FM Radio Infrastructure
Terra is a positioning system that uses FM radio broadcast signals — already deployed across most inhabited areas — as a navigation reference, achieving meter-level accuracy without GPS satellites, dedicated base stations, or any specialized infrastructure. The system works by passively analyzing timing and signal characteristics from existing FM broadcast towers, requiring only a standard receiver on the device being located. For makers, this opens practical possibilities: positioning in GPS-denied environments such as tunnels, dense urban canyons, and GPS-jammed zones becomes achievable with commodity hardware. The approach also enables very low-power location systems, since passive FM reception is dramatically less power-hungry than active GPS acquisition.
Terminus: An ESP8266-Powered Text-Only Cellular Phone Built by a Maker
[Bolan Xu]’s TERMINUS project reduces the smartphone to its most essential function: a QWERTY keyboard, a small OLED display, and an ESP8266 microcontroller connected to a cellular modem for SMS. The device deliberately excludes voice calls, a camera, a web browser, and spyware in favor of simple private text communication. Built inside a skeletal 3D-printed frame, it bridges WiFi-based SMS over IP with traditional cellular messaging. The project exemplifies the maker spirit of stripping commercial hardware down to its core value and rebuilding it lean. An ESP8266 and a cellular modem, both common in maker parts bins, are genuinely sufficient for a working personal communicator.
Tanmatsu One Year On: The Open-Source ESP32-P4 Palmtop Has Matured
Hackaday’s Jenny List delivers a one-year review of the Tanmatsu, the open-source ESP32-P4 palmtop computer that grew from Dutch conference badge culture. Twelve months after launch, the device now features a stable OS, a growing app repository, MicroPython support, LoRa radio (868 or 915 MHz), WiFi via the onboard ESP32-C6, and a well-developed expansion ecosystem with Qwiic, PMOD/SAO, CSI camera, and large GPIO headers. At EUR 99, it occupies a practical niche: more capable than bare development boards, more affordable than Linux handhelds, and fully open-source from schematics to firmware. Real-world use for Meshcore mesh messaging and camera add-ons confirms it as a mature, genuinely hackable palmtop.
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
1. Lumos Ultra (WeCrEat) — ~$4.6M — Kickstarter
2. Revopoint POP 4 — ~$2.1M — Kickstarter
3. CardputerZero (M5Stack) — ~$1.4M — Kickstarter
GitHub Trending
Makers & Hardware
1. DavidClawson/OpenScope-2C53T — 309★
2. alvinreal/awesome-opensource-ai — trending
3. Nicolai-Electronics/tanmatsu-launcher — active
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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