Samwise Makers' News
Friday, August 28, 2026
RAM And EMMC Prices Are So High, Pine64 Has Stopped Linux Device Production
Pine64 has halted production of its Linux single-board computers, citing unsustainable RAM and eMMC storage prices driven upward by AI industry demand. The company noted that microcontrollers, which integrate memory on-chip, remain viable alternatives unaffected by the price surge. The shutdown affects Pine64’s line of Linux-capable boards that require discrete RAM and eMMC modules. CNX Software originally reported the development. This marks a significant inflection point for the open hardware community, as Pine64 has long been a key supplier of affordable Linux boards for makers, developers, and hobbyists seeking Raspberry Pi alternatives.
Microduck — A Duck-Like Biped Robot Designed for Physical AI Experimentation
Pollen Robotics and Hugging Face have unveiled Microduck, a 25 cm-tall duck-inspired biped robot designed for physical AI experimentation. The robot features 15 degrees of freedom, a Rockchip RK3566 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor running at 1.8 GHz with a 0.8 TOPS neural processing unit, 1 GB RAM, 32 GB eMMC storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, time-of-flight LiDAR, and an articulated grasping beak. A 2600 mAh battery provides approximately one hour of runtime. Software is open-source, written in Rust and hosted on GitHub. Priced at $399 for pre-order, the Microduck ships before Christmas 2026, available in North America and Europe only.
Sources: CNX Software
Panoramic Photography With A Linear Scanner
Maker [Philo] has repurposed an industrial single-line camera — typically used for assembly-line defect detection — as a panoramic photography tool. Mounted on moving platforms including railway carriages and boats, the camera captures individual pixel columns continuously. Custom software stitches these columns into extremely long panoramic images, while accelerometer data compensates for platform vibrations to stabilize the output. The technique exploits the fact that linear scan cameras capture one line at a time with high resolution, producing panoramas of extraordinary width and detail. The project demonstrates creative reuse of industrial machine-vision hardware for artistic and documentary imaging.
Support Bath Enables An Epoxy Benchy
Riley’s Lab has built an embedded 3D printer that deposits materials within a support bath — a shear-thinning mixture of mineral oil, vegetable oil, and fumed silica that holds printed structures in place during fabrication. Using a syringe pump extruder, the system was tested first with cream cheese, then with Sylgard 184 silicone — which failed due to poor layer adhesion — before achieving success with a two-part epoxy resin. The epoxy Benchy print survived an isopropyl alcohol wash and demonstrated good shock resistance. The support bath approach enables complex geometries impossible with conventional FDM layer-by-layer deposition.
Running Multiple Linux Kernels Without Hypervisor
Multikernel Linux has returned as a method for running multiple Linux kernels simultaneously on bare-metal hardware without a hypervisor. Unlike virtual machine hypervisors that add abstraction and translation layers, the host kernel carves up physical hardware resources — CPU cores, memory regions, and devices — and distributes them directly to guest kernels. Benchmarks show guest performance at parity to twice as fast compared to KVM virtual machines, with substantially lower latency. The project website at multikernel.io clarifies that this is a multikernel architecture, not to be confused with microkernel systems. Applications include real-time compute isolation and mixed-workload server scenarios.
The Mactini: A Computer That Does Almost Nothing
Tucker Osman has built a working version of the Mactini, a laptop concept originating from a BBC parody video mocking Apple’s feature-stripping minimalism. The device pairs a 1.69-inch ST7789V2 SPI LCD display with a Waveshare RP2350-based board. Rather than simple screen-copy firmware, Osman implemented DMA for display data transfers, freeing up CPU cycles. The remaining hardware came from e-waste: an iPad speaker and a salvaged audio amplifier board. Video playback uses Motion JPEG decoding. A FreeCAD-designed, 3D-printed enclosure reproduces the Mactini’s tiny laptop form factor. The device has a single button as its only input.
LUNYEE 3020 Nova Review — A Desktop CNC Router With 710W Spindle
CNX Software published a hands-on review in August 2026 of the LUNYEE 3020 Nova, a desktop CNC router equipped with a 710-watt spindle, tested with Universal G-code Sender (UGS) and Easel software. The review compares real-world cutting performance and workflow differences across both CNC control platforms. The LUNYEE 3020 Nova is positioned as a desktop-class machine with a 710-watt spindle as its headline specification. Testing ran identical cutting scenarios under each software environment, offering readers a direct side-by-side comparison of the machine’s capabilities paired with two different control software packages.
Sources: CNX Software
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
IFMAKER M5 5-Axis CNC Machine — $1,072,283 pledged (Kickstarter)
Beni 4K Auto-Tracking Camera Robot — $2,953,091 pledged (Kickstarter)
HeyGears G1 Full-Color 3D+UV Printer — $13,494,579 pledged (Kickstarter)
GitHub Trending
Makers & Hardware
brannondorsey — AX.25 packet radio chat protocol (TypeScript) — 245 stars
cfenollosa — os-tutorial: OS from scratch in C — 7,297 stars
None this week (no other hardware/embedded repos trending)
Upcoming Events
Maker Faire Canada — August 29-30, 2026 (tomorrow!) — Canada
Maker Faire Bay Area — September 25-27, 2026 — Mare Island, CA
Hackaday Supercon — November 6-8, 2026 — Pasadena, CA
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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