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Thornhill! made this fantastic 160 phrase AAC device and shared some of the details over on Hackaday.io:

10 x 16 grid of snap-dome buttons covered with a sheet of icons, represent 160 pre-recorded phrases that play when their buttons are pressed. The snap-dome buttons have a nice tactile feel and are covered in a membrane that gives the grid some resistance to spills.

Read more about the project here

If you’re curious about making an AT build, check out one of our guides:

• CircuitPython Powered AT Hand-Raiser
• Building the Assistive Technology Ultimate Remote
• Using the TRRS Trinkey as an Assistive Technology Device

A new Adafruit Playground Note shows how to adapt a Tandy 1000 keyboard for use on modern computers using CircuitPython and an Adafruit QT Py RP2040 microcontroller board.

Check it out here > > >

The Adafruit Feather ecosystem is so rich with hardware diversity, we wanted to share them, one each day. Today is the Adafruit 15×7 CharliePlex LED Matrix Display FeatherWing – Blue!

You wont be able to look away from the mesmerizing patterns created by this Adafruit 15×7 CharliePlex LED Matrix Display FeatherWing.  This 15×7 LED display can be paired with any of our Feather boards for a beautiful, bright grid of 105 charlieplexed LEDs. It even comes with a built-in charlieplex driver that is run over I2C.

We carry these FeatherWings in five vivid colors – this is the Blue matrix.

What is particularly nice about this Wing is the I2C LED driver chip has the ability to PWM each individual LED in a 15×7 grid so you can have beautiful LED lighting effects, without a lot of pin twiddling. Simply tell the chip which LED on the grid you want lit, and what brightness and it’s all taken care of for you. You get 8-bit (256 level) dimming for each individual LED.

The IS31FL3731 is a nice little chip – and it runs happily over 3.3V power. Inside is enough RAM for 8 separate frames of display memory so you can set up multiple frames of an animation and flip them to be displayed with a single command. Since it uses I2C, it takes up only the SDA/SCL pins on your Feather and can share those pins with other I2C devices and sensors.

USE

The Adafruit 15×7 CharliePlex FeatherWing Guide provides details and use examples.

Video:

Moss Agate meaning revolves around growth, emotional healing, and nature's balance. Discover its grounding energy and how it fosters abundance and inner peace.

bitwiz_2152881 shares:

This super-cute mushroom doubles as a fun fidget spinner. Holding the mushroom by the stem and then quickly spinning the cap with the thumb and forefinger of the opposite hand produces a smooth spin that can provide a fun, satisfying sensory experience. Experiment to find the positions and methods that result in the smoothest and longest-lasting spins.

download the files on: https://www.printables.com/model/993556-mushroom-fidget-spinner

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord

Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit

Shop for parts to build your own DIY projects http://adafru.it/3dprinting

3D Printing Projects Playlist:

3D Hangout Show Playlist:

Layer by Layer CAD Tutorials Playlist:

Timelapse Tuesday Playlist:

Connect with Noe and Pedro on Social Media:

Noe’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/ecken

Pedro’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/videopixil

Shared by vidision on Printables:

I printed in PLA+ with 0.20 layers and outer brims. The PLA is really too rigid to fit the original connectors … I’ll try PETG and TPU the next time they are loaded up.

These pieces will have very small tolerances … probably worth printing at slightly above 100% scale … . Compensation and filament choices will makes a difference too.

Download the files and learn more

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

Here’s an interesting bit of follow-up. Last month, when linking to the European Commission’s announcement of “two specification proceedings to assist Apple in complying with its interoperability obligations under the Digital Markets Act”, I wrote a sidenote on the EC’s seemingly willy-nilly use of boldface text:

Honest question: Can someone explain to me the Commission’s use of boldfacing? In the first 265 words of the press release, 66 of them are bold, across 13 different spans. They seemingly use boldfacing the way Trump capitalizes words in his tweets: indiscriminately. I find it highly distracting, like trying to read a ransom letter. It’s not just this press release, they do it all the time.

It turns out, the EU publishes an Interinstitutional Style Guide, and it has an entire entry on emphasis:

Bold type is often used in titles and headings. It can also be used in running text to show changes of subject, to highlight keywords or for emphasis in the same way that some other languages use italics. However, it should be used sparingly.

If the text is already in bold roman, words to be emphasised should be in light roman characters.

Do not overuse typographical variations for emphasis. It can have a detrimental effect on getting the message across quickly and clearly, as shown in the following examples.

Their examples, showing how overuse of boldfacing makes text harder to read, look exactly like the announcement that prompted my sidenote. Whoever writes these announcements from the Commission should read the EU’s own style guide and follow its advice.

See Also: The EU style guide’s entry on italics, which they reserve for purposes other than emphasis.

 ★ 

IanSmithBuilds shares:

A small camping lantern made to hang in your tent. This is made to fit any battery powered tealight candles under 40mm wide. The base has a print in place hook to hang in your tent or to string up a few around your campsite. The hook also folds flat so you can set them on the table.

download the files on: https://www.printables.com/model/993576-tent-light-camping-lantern

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord

Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit

Shop for parts to build your own DIY projects http://adafru.it/3dprinting

3D Printing Projects Playlist:

3D Hangout Show Playlist:

Layer by Layer CAD Tutorials Playlist:

Timelapse Tuesday Playlist:

Connect with Noe and Pedro on Social Media:

Noe’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/ecken

Pedro’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/videopixil

Tim Hardwick, reporting for MacRumors:

The FIDO Alliance is developing new specifications to enable secure transfer of passkeys between different password managers and platforms. Announced on Monday, the initiative is the result of collaboration among members of the FIDO Alliance’s Credential Provider Special Interest Group, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, 1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane, and others.

Passkeys are an industry standard developed by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium, and were integrated into Apple’s ecosystem with iOS 16, iPadOS 16.1, and macOS Ventura. They offer a more secure and convenient alternative to traditional passwords, allowing users to sign in to apps and websites in the same way they unlock their devices: With a fingerprint, a face scan, or a passcode. Passkeys are also resistant to online attacks like phishing, making them more secure than things like SMS one-time codes.

The draft specifications, called Credential Exchange Protocol (CXP) and Credential Exchange Format (CXF), will standardize the secure transfer of credentials across different providers. This addresses a current limitation where passkeys are often tied to specific ecosystems or password managers.

This initiative would address one of David Heinemeier Hansson’s primary complaints about passkeys, in a post I linked to earlier today.

Hardwick mentions un-phishability as an advantage of passkeys, and that’s very true. In fact, I think that was one of the primary selling points Apple emphasized when they introduced passkey support at WWDC two years ago. A scammer who gets a victim on the phone can’t trick them into revealing a passkey like they can with passwords or one-time numeric codes. But that use case is optimized for non-technical users.

A friend texted me with another argument for passkeys: it’s somewhat common for websites to break password autofill. Maybe it’s deliberate, in the name of fighting bots? But whether deliberate or not, with passkeys, they have to work with your browser’s connected password manager. So maybe passkeys are a net win for convenience, even for technically-knowledgeable users who are unlikely to fall for phishing scams.

 ★ 

Shared by pyrefyre on Thingiverse:

Found a nice turntable design I liked and decided to build it from the ground up as practice. Anyone can open up the .scad and make it whatever size they want!

Download the files and learn more

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

Speaking of passwords, Ricky Mondello — who has long been a leading member of Apple’s “Authentication Experience” team — has an interesting blog post describing the algorithm Apple uses when it suggests new strong passwords:

To make these passwords easier to type on suboptimal keyboard layouts like my colleague’s game controller, where the mode switching might be difficult, these new passwords are actually dominated by lowercase characters. And to make it easier to short-term have in your head little chunks of it to bring over to the other device, the passwords are based on syllables. That’s consonant, vowel, consonant patterns. With these considerations put together, in our experience, these passwords are actually a lot easier to type on a foreign, weird keyboard, in the rare instances where that might be needed for some of our users.

And we weren’t going to make any changes to our password format unless we can guarantee that it was as strong or stronger than our old format. So if you want to talk in terms of Shannon entropy once again, these new passwords have 71 bits of entropy, up from the 69 from the previous format. And a little tidbit for folks who are trying to match our math — [note that] we actually have a dictionary of offensive terms on device that we filter these generated passwords against and we’ll skip over passwords that we generate that contain those offensive substrings.

I’ve noticed some of these details, like that the passwords are comprised of little “fake words” and are dominated by lowercase letters, but I hadn’t noticed all of them. It’s a bunch of clever little touches, all in the aim of making strong passwords that are convenient in odd situations (like typing them with a game controller).

 ★ 

David Heinemeier Hansson:

Yes, passwords have problems. If you’re using them without a password manager, you’re likely to reuse them across multiple services, and if you do, all it takes is one service with awful password practices (like storing them in plain text rather than hashing them with something like bcrypt), and a breach will mean hackers might get access to all your other services.

But just because we have a real problem doesn’t mean that all proposed solutions are actually going to be better. And at the moment, I don’t see how passkeys are actually better, and, worse still, can become better. Unless you accept the idea that all your passwords should be tied to one computing ecosystem, and thus make it hard to use alternative computers. [...]

Bottom line, I’m disappointed to report that passkeys don’t appear worth the complexity of implementation (which is substantial!) nor the complexity and gotchas of the user experience. So we’re sticking to passwords and emails. Encouraging opt-in 2FA and password managers, but not requiring them.

Passkeys seemed promising, but not all good intentions result in good solutions.

I don’t have strong feelings about passkeys, but I am vaguely unsettled by them. There’s no way to use passkeys without using a proper password manager, like Apple Passwords with iCloud Keychain, or 1Password. But if you’re using a proper password manager, your passwords should all be unique and random, and you should have convenient access to 2FA codes. So what’s the point of passkeys if they can only be used by people who are already using a good password manager? Perhaps the thinking is that too many users just can’t be budged from the risky habit of using passwords they have memorized, and passkeys are a way to break that habit because they can’t be memorized.

Also, I really dislike the practice of replacing passwords with email “magic links”. Autofilling a password from my keychain happens instantly; getting a magic link from email can take minutes sometimes, and even in the fastest case, it’s nowhere near instantaneous. Replacing something very fast — password autofill — with something slower is just a terrible idea. For people who actually prefer email magic links, it’s fine as an option, but it shouldn’t be the default, and it certainly shouldn’t be the only way to sign into an account.

 ★ 

Samantha Cole, reporting for 404 Media:

In July, before the latest WP Engine blowup, an Automattic employee wrote in Slack that they received a direct message from Mullenweg sending them an identification code for Blind, an anonymous workplace discussion platform, which was required to complete registration on the site. Blind requires employees to use their official workplace emails to sign up, as a way to authenticate that users actually work for the companies they are discussing. Mullenweg said on Slack that emails sent from Blind’s platform to employees’ email addresses were being forwarded to him. If employees wanted to log in or sign up for Blind, they’d need to ask Mullenweg for the two-factor identification code. The implication was that Automattic — and Mullenweg — could see who was trying to sign up for Blind, which is often a place where people anonymously vent or share criticism about their workplace.

“We were unaware that Matt redirected sign-up emails until current Automattic employees contacted our support team,” a spokesperson for Blind told me, adding that they’d “never seen a CEO or executive try to limit their employees from signing up for Blind by redirecting emails.”

That does not seem compatible with a culture of trust within a company. Cole also reports that Mullenweg has made another buyout offer this week, and is threatening employees who leak to the press. This very report from 404 Media, under the headline “Employees Describe an Environment of Paranoia and Fear Inside Automattic Over WordPress Chaos”, is not going to help. The whole situation is just very depressing.

 ★ 

Pixel48 shares:

Quick print to fine-tune tolerances for Print in Place models

download the files on: https://www.printables.com/model/993487-pip-tolerance-test

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord

Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit

Shop for parts to build your own DIY projects http://adafru.it/3dprinting

3D Printing Projects Playlist:

3D Hangout Show Playlist:

Layer by Layer CAD Tutorials Playlist:

Timelapse Tuesday Playlist:

Connect with Noe and Pedro on Social Media:

Noe’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/ecken

Pedro’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/videopixil

It’s JOHN PARK’S WORKSHOP — LIVE! — Coming up at 4pm ET / 1pm PT Today!  LIVE TEXT CHAT IS HERE in the Adafruit Discord chat!

Haunted Air Blaster safety mod

Also:

• • CircuitPython Parsec
  • Learn Guide Recap
  • Gear Report
  • Tool Tips
  • Fresh Discount Code

The live video will be on Youtube LIVE, Twitch, Periscope (Twitter) and Facebook.

Join maker John Park in his workshop each week as he builds, demos, hacks, and mods projects live on air! “John Park’s Workshop — LIVE” is the place to see creative projects come to life, as John uses a wide variety of tools and techniques to make everything from video game controllers to synthesizer to drink robots, using digital fabrication, hand and power tools, microcontrollers, and more. Come on into the chat to participate in the fun! Every Thursday @ 4pm ET/1pm PT!

I spy with my eye a new learn guide! Build this simple IoT project to capture photos remotely and send them to Apple Photos using the Adafruit Memento and itsaSNAP. Set up the Memento, connect to WiFi, integrate with Adafruit IO for image storage, and implement MQTT for remote triggering.

This guide will show you how to:

1. Trigger the Memento camera remotely using an itsaSNAP and Shortcuts.
2. Automatically send captured photos to an Adafruit IO feed.
3. Retrieve the photos from Adafruit IO and store them in the Apple Photos app.

Read more at Memento Photo Capture with itsaSNAP.

Emveor_1584590 shared this project on Printables!

This is a small and portable abacus for your children! Designed for easy printing and a sturdy build, the Posts are printed separatedly and assembled to prevent them from breaking at the layer lines. Print 10 chips for each post and a cap to prevent the chips from falling out while being transported.

BUILD TIPS: Just press the post into the base by the narrow side of the post. You will usuallyt need 10 chips for each post. The tolerances on the post are meant to make it hard to remove, but i would suggest printing a single post first to make sure the fit is just right. Increase Flow by 5% if the posts is too loose, or falls off easily, and decrease flow by 5% if the post doesnt fit in.

Download files: https://www.printables.com/model/989685-mini-abacus

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

TeknikFrik shares:

Holes are 40mm deep, 12 mm diameter.

download the files on: https://www.printables.com/model/990779-sharpie-holder-round-version-19-holes

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord

Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit

Shop for parts to build your own DIY projects http://adafru.it/3dprinting

3D Printing Projects Playlist:

3D Hangout Show Playlist:

Layer by Layer CAD Tutorials Playlist:

Timelapse Tuesday Playlist:

Connect with Noe and Pedro on Social Media:

Noe’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/ecken

Pedro’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/videopixil

Adafruit is proud to once again run our Distributor Spotlight series, highlighting the invaluable role our distributor network plays in bringing our products to a global market. From retail brick-and-mortar stores to customers on every continent, our distributors ensure that Adafruit is able to reach diverse sectors and communities.

Today we are highlighting Evelta — they had this to say about working with Adafruit:

We are thrilled to be part of the Adafruit distributor network. Adafruit’s wide range of innovative products has allowed us to provide high-quality solutions to our Indian customers, helping them thrive in the DIY electronics, maker, and engineering communities. The collaboration with Adafruit has been instrumental in expanding our offerings and meeting the growing demand for electronics in India. We appreciate the partnership and look forward to continued success together.

Check out their shop here.