ArduinoMania

Ford and Lincoln owners whose vehicles have hands-free access to Alexa don't have to stick to using standard voice commands if they don't want to. The automaker has rolled out enhanced Car Control capabilities, and with it comes the option to teach Alexa commands that reflect their natural way of speaking. For example, they can program in "Alexa, I'm cold," and then teach the voice assistant to respond by asking what course of action it should take, such as "I can increase the temperature by 5 degrees or turn off the AC. What should I do?"

Another example of a personalized phrase would be: "Alexa, set the AC to full blast." The assistant can then ask the owner what they mean by "full blast." Training Alexa to respond to personalized phrases is made possible by the assistant's teachable AI technology. All vehicles with Alexa Built-in will get access to enhanced Car Control when it becomes available to them.

At the moment, the models with access to the hands-free experience are the 2022 F-150, Bronco, Mustang Mach-E, Edge, the new Expedition, Nautilus and newly launched Navigator. The long-awaited 2022 F-150 Lightning will also come with the capability when it launches. Ford debuted the hands-free Alexa capability for its vehicles last year, marking the beginning of its six-year partnership with Amazon. As part of that partnership, it's giving its customers complimentary access to Alexa for up to three years that begin on the new vehicle's warranty start date.

Ford will demonstrate its enhanced Car Control and Alexa capabilities at the New York International Auto Show from April 15th through the 24th.

Every time one of us flashes an Arduino’s internal memory, a nagging thought in the backs of our minds reminds us that, although everything in life is impermanent, nonvolatile re-writable memory is even more temporary. With a fixed number of writes until any EEPROM module fails, are we wasting writes every time we upload code with a mistake? The short answer is that most of us shouldn’t really be concerned with this unless we do what [AnotherMaker] has done and continually write data until the memory in an Arduino finally fails.

The software for this is fairly simple. He simply writes the first 256 ints with all zeros, reads them to make sure they are all there, and then repeats the process with ones. After iterating this for literally millions of times continuously over the course of about a month he was finally able to get his first read failure. Further writes past this point only accelerated the demise of the memory module. With this method he was able to get nearly three million writes before the device failed, which is far beyond the tens or hundreds of thousands typically estimated for a device of this type.

To prove this wasn’t an outlier, [AnotherMaker] repeated the test, and did a few others while writing to a much smaller amount of memory. With this he was able to push the number of cycles to over five million. Assuming the Arduino Nano clone isn’t using an amazingly high-quality EEPROM we can safely assume that most of us have nothing to worry about and our Arduinos will be functional for decades to come. Unless a bad Windows driver accidentally bricks your device.

Thanks to [morgan] for the tip!

Amazon will reportedly object to a recent union election victory at its warehouse in Staten Island, alleging that organizers pressured workers into voting to organize. The Wall Street Journal reported that the company revealed its intention to appeal JFK8’s election in a legal filing released to the public on Thursday. Roughly 55 percent of workers at the JFK8 warehouse voted to join the Amazon Labor Union, the first victory of its kind for Amazon workers in the US. The company has until April 22nd to gather evidence and formally file its objections to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

In the document, Amazon gave a preview of what objections it plans on raising. The company wrote that it believes that the union threatened employees unless they voted to unionize. Some may think this is a fairly ironic move on Amazon’s part, considering NLRB accused the company of threatening employees unless they did the opposite. Amazon also accused the union of “electioneering” or interfering while employees waited in line to vote. It argued that unusually long waits at polling booths led to insufficient voter turnout. The company also believes organizers loitered by the polling area and intimidated voters, even going as far as to threaten immigrant employees with the loss of their rights if they didn’t vote to unionize.

Eric Milner, an attorney who represents the ALU, believes that Amazon’s objections will be dismissed. "To say that the Amazon Labor Union was threatening employees is really absurd," Milner said to Reuters. "The Amazon Labor Union is Amazon employees."

Meanwhile, a separate labor union attempting to organize an Amazon facility in Alabama filed its own objections on Thursday regarding the pending results of its recent rerun election. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) is accusing Amazon of “countless attempts to intimidate workers” in the Bessemer plant, including firing or suspending workers who supported the union. The results of that election are currently too close to call and will be determined in the coming weeks by an NLRB hearing over several hundred challenged ballots.

“Amazon’s behavior must not go unchallenged, and workers in Bessemer, Alabama must have their rights protected under the law. We urge the NLRB to carefully review our objections and ensure no company, not even with the bottomless pockets of Amazon, is allowed to act above the law,” said RWDSU president Stuart Appelbaum in a statement.

Engadget has reached out to Amazon for comment on both matters, and will update if we hear back. 

Everyone has their own approach to playing Wordle. Some methods are arguably better than others. But what if a computer could help players perfect their gameplay? The New York Times just unveiled WordleBot, an optional feature that breaks down a completed game and reveals what players could have done to play more efficiently. We’ve all had rounds of Wordle where we’ve finally landed the winning word on the fifth try or were stumped completely. For those less than stellar attempts, WordleBot is likely to be a useful post-mortem.

Players also receive a score between 0 to 100 on luck and efficiency. This will likely up the ante amongst families or friend groups who compete to solve each game in the fewest tries possible. WordleBot also reveals how each player's score stacks up against others. Given the annoying Twitter craze of players posting Wordle scores in order to see how they measure up against others (or humblebrag), there’s no doubt a need for this. WordleBot's ratings are also a useful measure of whether a game was particularly hard, run-of-the-mill or unusually easy.

In a Q&A, the NYT gave a simple explanation of how WordleBot works: “Every Wordle game starts with one of 2,309 possible solutions as the hidden word. At each turn, WordleBot chooses the word that will allow it to solve the game in as few steps as possible, assuming any of the remaining solutions are equally likely."

For many players, WordleBot may simply be more information than they need. Especially if Wordle is just meant to be a fun distraction. But hardcore Wordle players or those who feel their gameplay has stagnated are likely to welcome the new feature. WordleBot could also bring back former players who want to know how much of their success was due to good gameplay — or just a lot of luck.

Building a clock from parts is a right of passage for makers, and often represents a sensible introduction into the world of electronics. It’s also hard to beat the warm glow of Nixie tubes in a desktop clock, as [Joshua Coleman] discovered when building a Nixie tube clock for a friend.

The original decision to upcycle the chassis from an unrepairable Heathkit function generator came a little undone after some misaligned cutting, so the front panel ended up being redesigned and 3D printed. This ended up being serendipitous, as the redesigned front panel allowed the Nixie tubes to be inset within the metal chassis. This effect looks great, and it also better protects the tubes from impact damage.

Sourcing clones of the 74141 Nixie driver ICs ended up being easier than anticipated, and the rest of the electronics came together quickly. The decoders are driven by an Arduino, and the IN-4 Nixie tubes are powered by a bespoke 170 volt DC power supply.

Unfortunately four of the tubes were damaged during installation, however replacements were readily available online. The gorgeous IN-4 Nixie tube has a reputation for breaking easily, but is priced accordingly on auction sites and relatively easy to source.

The build video after the break should get any aspiring Nixie clock makers started, but the video description is also full of extra information and links for those needing help getting started.

We’re not short on clock hacks here at Hackaday, so why not check out a couple more? This retro-inspired LED clock looks like its right out of a parallel universe, or maybe this stunning Nixie clock driven by relays will strike your fancy.

Amazon’s Prime Video will stream New York Yankees games for in-market customers during the 2022 Major League Baseball (MLB) season. The first game, scheduled on April 22nd, is between the Yankees and the Cleveland Guardians. The streaming platform will air a total of 21 games in total, with 19 of them scheduled on Friday nights. The games will only be available to Prime members in New York state, Connecticut, north and central New Jersey and northeast Pennsylvania.

Amazon began simulcasting Yankees games on Prime Video shortly after it bought the Yankees Entertainment Sports Network (YES). While this is the third consecutive year Amazon has done this, it’s the first year that this selection of Yankees games will only air on Prime Video. Meaning that fans won’t be able to find the game on a broadcast station, the YES network or any other service.

MLB has gotten pretty cozy with streaming platforms as of late. Peacock will air a total of 18 exclusive Sunday morning baseball games in May, beginning with a matchup between the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox on May 8th. Apple TV+ will also begin streaming live Friday night MLB games this year, beginning with a contest between the New York Mets and the Washington Nationals on April 8th. The game will be exclusive to Apple TV+, but will also be available to non-subscribers for free (they’ll just need to download the Apple TV+ app).

Not everyone is a fan of the new union between streaming platforms and baseball. Baseball fans who have already paid for MLB TV or satellite TV likely won’t be happy about paying for a new streaming service just so they won't miss a game. While games on Apple TV+ will have no geographic restrictions and be free to anyone with internet access, it’s obviously a ploy on Apple’s part to expand its subscriber base. And with games scattered across a number of different services — baseball season this year is likely to get confusing. 

HBO Max is following through on promises to overhaul its underwhelming smart TV apps. Both Variety and The Verge say WarnerMedia is rolling out an updated Apple TV app that tackles some of the most glaring problems that remained. For one, it's finally built on a modern platform that should be more reliable than the relatively ancient HBO Go/Now framework. You'll also see a new home page with a "hero" banner you can scroll, the option to skip credits, more control over My Stuff watchlists and easier sign-ins.

The new version should reach your Apple TV device either this week or the next. You can already find the framework in many of HBO Max's other apps, including for Android, PlayStation, Roku players and TV sets from LG, Samsung and Vizio. Similar revamps are coming for Amazon Fire TV devices and the web.

The flawed Apple TV client was the result of WarnerMedia's desire to hurry the HBO Max launch. Rather than build its smart TV apps from scratch, the media company repurposed its HBO Go and HBO Now apps to cut development time. The company knew it would have to "replatform" the app to modernize it and accommodate both international expansion as well as more content, according to WarnerMedia executive VP Sarah Lyons.

That rushed approach might not have helped HBO Max's initial growth. JustWatch estimated that the service had 7 percent of the world's streaming market share in February versus 17.6 percent for Disney+. While we wouldn't count on a surge in demand linked to the new apps, they might help HBO keep subscribers who would otherwise be frustrated enough to leave.

Myst, the classic puzzle game, is getting a unusual new lease of life. Developer Cyan Inc. has teamed up with Mighty Coconut to create a Myst-themed expansion for the latter's VR game, Walkabout Mini Golf. The DLC will be released this fall and it'll be available on Meta Quest, Steam VR and "and forthcoming VR platforms."

Mighty Coconut says the expansion will be a 36-hole course with 18 easy and 18 hard-mode holes. It claims the DLC will blend realistic physics with "iconic settings, objects, and the spirit of puzzles from the Myst saga." You'll be able to play through the Myst course solo or with up to four other players as you hunt for 18 lost balls, take on a scavenger expedition and try to collect a commemorative putter.

Myst, which was released in 1993, was the best-selling PC game of the 20th century. Players were prompted to explore an island, solve puzzles and put together the pieces of the story. It's one of the most influential games of all time and its impact can still be felt in modern titles like The Outer Wilds. Although a Myst remake came out not too long ago, it's neat to see Mighty Coconut paying tribute to its legacy, albeit in an entirely unexpected fashion.

Twitter might not have an edit button just yet, but it's still delivering at least one useful feature this week. The social network is now rolling out a previously hinted-at "Unmention" feature that lets you remove yourself from a conversation. The experimental offering is limited to the web for now, but you just have to choose "leave this conversation" from a tweet's options to avoid constant notifications for a chat you never wanted to join.

Unmentioning is available for some people today, Twitter says. It's not clear if or when the feature might be widely available, or when it might reach mobile apps. In its current form, the text for the mention remains — it just doesn't send an alert.

The company has tested or deployed numerous features to keep mentions civil, including an anti-harassment Safety Mode that automatically blocks mean-spirited users. This, however, might be one of the most practical. Twitter users often deal with unwanted mentions from friends, spammers and others. This gives you more control over your participation and lets you focus on the chats you care about.

Smart is finally ready to show the production version of its Concept #1 electric SUV, and you'll be glad to hear that the distinctive design largely remains intact. The newly unveiled Smart #1 looks much like the prototype compact SUV inside and out, including the frameless windows and "floating halo" glass roof. You mainly give up usual concept car excesses like the scissor doors and giant 21-inch wheels (you'll have to make do with 19-inchers), and there's a standard three-seat bench in the back instead of two chairs.

More importantly, the performance appears healthy for an EV this size. While the 273 miles of maximum range (according to the WLTP test cycle) isn't exceptional, it comes from a 66kWh battery that charges rather quickly. You can reportedly bring the Smart #1 from a 10 percent charge to 80 percent in under 30 minutes if you use a 150kW DC charger, and even a 22kW AC supply will accomplish the same feat in less than three hours. You could plug in at the end of a long day knowing that you'll have plenty of range in the morning.

The mini-ute should be reasonably quick, too, with the equivalent of 268HP and 253ft/lbs of torque. The 112MPH top speed isn't blistering, but it easily puts the 81MPH of Smart's EQ Forfour to shame.

The in-cabin tech will also seem familiar if you've seen the concept. The finished Smart #1 includes a 12.8-inch infotainment screen, a 9.2-inch digital instrument cluster and a 10-inch heads-up display. You can also expect driver assistants (including for the highway and stop-and-go traffic), over-the-air updates and a "digital key" option to share your EV with friends.

Smart hasn't narrowed down the release window or pricing, but said last fall that it would sell the #1 in China in 2022. It's headed to Europe as well. We wouldn't count on a North American debut when Smart backed out of the region years ago. With that said, this is the closest Smart has come to appealing to the continent's SUV-centric tastes — it's something you could imagine on American roads, however unlikely that may be.