The O'Reilly Solid Podcast

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: Powering connected devices with low-power networks. In this episode of the O’Reilly Hardware Podcast, Brian Jepson and I speak with Mike Vladimer, co-founder of the Orange IoT Studio at Orange Silicon Valley. Vladimer discusses how Internet of Things devices could benefit from connectivity options other than those provided by well-known technologies (including cellular, WiFi, and Bluetooth), and explains the LoRa wireless protocol, which supports long-range...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: An all-in-one workshop factory. In this episode of the O’Reilly Hardware Podcast, Jeff Bleiel and I speak with Joel Johnson, co-founder and CEO of BoXZY, a startup that makes an all-in-one desktop CNC mill, 3D printer, and laser engraver. We discuss the BoXZY device’s software and hardware, including its CAD/CAM software (Autodesk’s Fusion 360) and controller board (Arduino Mega), as well as its shield, steppers, and firmware. We cover how universities are...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: Designing and manufacturing a screenless tech device. In this episode of the O’Reilly Hardware Podcast, Jeff Bleiel and I speak with Niko Triulzi, co-founder and CTO of AE Dreams, the makers of the children’s product Turtle Mail, a wooden mailbox with a WiFi-connected thermal printer inside. Triulzi explains the hardware and software workings of the device, which enables parents, relatives, and friends to send a message from a computer or mobile device. The...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: Making hardware programmable. With interest growing in field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)—witness Amazon’s recent addition of AWS EC2 instances that include dedicated FPGAs—this episode of the O’Reilly Hardware Podcast looks at what FPGAs are and how their capabilities are different from microcontroller boards (such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi). Jeff Bleiel and I speak with Ryan Cousins, co-founder and CEO of KRTKL (pronounced “critical”), the makers of...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: Safeguarding against new privacy risks. In this episode of the O’Reilly Hardware Podcast, Jeff Bleiel and I speak with Gilad Rosner, a privacy and information policy researcher, and the founder of the Internet of Things Privacy Forum. Rosner is also the author of the recently-published free O’Reilly ebook, “Privacy and the Internet of Things.” Discussion points: Links Online Trust AllianceKaren Levy

The O'Reilly Hardware Podcast: Qubits and the future of computing. In this episode of the O’Reilly Hardware Podcast, Jeff Bleiel and I speak with Chris Lirakis, senior manager, engineering of novel computing architectures at IBM. Earlier this year, the company’s quantum computing platform in the cloud, the “IBM Quantum Experience,” was opened up to researchers, scientists, and the public. Lirakis discusses potential applications of quantum computing, including solving simultaneous...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: How connected devices are leading to energy and cost savings. In this episode of the Hardware Podcast, I speak with Mark Wright, director of product management at Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center, and Darren Beck, author of the newly-published O'Reilly ebook "Smart Business: Gaining an Edge Through IoT-Powered Sustainability." Beck describes how the IoT can help small businesses save energy and money by highlighting hidden inefficiencies, and Wright...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: Field Programmable Gate Arrays are getting easier In this episode of the Hardware podcast, O’Reilly editor Brian Jepson and I talk about what FPGAs can do, how they’re getting more approachable for beginners, and the parallels between FPGAs and microcontroller boards such as the Arduino. Products discussed include: Learning FPGAsEmbedded Micro iCEstickProject IceStormLabVIEW Red PitayaRhode Island Mini Maker Faire This week’s click spirals: Brian Jepson:...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: AR beyond games and entertainment. In this episode of the Hardware podcast, I talk with Steve Ghee, senior vice president for R&D in the office of the CTO at PTC. The conversation took place during the LiveWorx 2016 conference, where augmented reality was a major focus—especially for the role that it can play in the Internet of Things and in the enterprise. Discussion points: Vuforia Studio This podcast episode is a collaboration between O’Reilly and...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: Creating an accessible tool for professionals and makers. Two years ago, the Othermill desktop CNC mill made machining radically more accessible. Priced at $2,200, it found its way beyond general small-scale milling and into electronics prototyping; it can mill copper away from an FR-1 PCB blank to make a circuit board. Other Machine’s latest work is the Othermill Pro, whose spindle speed and rapid movement are 60% and 70% faster than the original’s,...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: A walk-through of the O’Reilly IoT Learning Lab. In this episode of the Hardware podcast, we talk with Chris Meringolo, an engineer at ThingWorx, and Brian Jepson, an editor at O’Reilly Media. This conversation took place during the LiveWorx 2016 conference, where the three of us presented a hands-on connected-device tutorial that we’re calling the O’Reilly IoT Learning Lab. The Learning Lab tutorial walks through a basic IoT illustration that starts with...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: The tools of the “new industrial revolution.” In this episode of the Hardware Podcast, we talk with Jonathan Bachrach, a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) Department at UC Berkeley, and co-founder of Otherlab, a research-driven lab and incubator that sits at the intersection between software and machines. Discussion points: RISC-VChiselEmacs This week’s click spirals: SAM Simulator1960 U-2 spy plane incidentan interview...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: Finding humor in the mythology. Coco Krumme is a data scientist who’s worked at the intersection of applied math and agriculture, and her recent “Silicon Valley Magnets” project gently satirizes Silicon Valley’s “techno-utopian mythology.” In this episode of the Hardware podcast, we talk about how connected sensors, AI, and data science are changing agriculture, and reflect on the different ways that Silicon Valley and farmers are inclined to solve...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: Autodesk’s CEO talks about the future of design.In this episode of the Hardware podcast, we talk with Carl Bass, president and CEO of Autodesk. He’s an articulate thinker on algorithmic design, collaborative tools, and the nature of craft, and we talked for nearly two hours when we visited him to record this episode.Discussion points: Bass tells us how Autodesk’s Fusion 360 used GitHub as a model for file management and online collaboration. Fusion 360 lives...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: Building tools for a curiosity-driven community.Manu Prakash, a bioengineering professor at Stanford University, talks about radically inexpensive microscopes and the democratization of discovery in this episode of the Hardware Podcast. Prakash’s Foldscope is a “completely functional, foldable, origami microscope.” He says that “every kid in the world should carry a microscope in their pocket,” and so far, more than 50,000 Foldscopes (the parts of which cost...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: Digital rights management goes deeper into the Web.In this episode of the Hardware podcast, we talk with writer and digital rights activist Cory Doctorow. He’s recently rejoined the Electronic Frontier Foundation to fight a World Wide Web Consortium proposal that would add DRM to the core specification for HTML. When we recorded this episode with Cory, the W3C had just overruled the EFF’s objection. The result, he says, is that “we are locking innovation out...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: Building wireless links for the IoT.In this episode of the Hardware Podcast, we talk with Rob Chandhok, president of Helium, a startup with a platform for connecting sensors and control elements over the Internet. We talk about the process of taking a prototype to production, and the blend of hardware and software that allows smart edge devices to last an eternity on a single battery.Links: Lua, the programming language used by Helium. “The greatest thing...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: Tearing down everyday electronics and discovering unexpected sophistication.In this episode of the Hardware Podcast, we talk with Ken Shirriff, a software engineer at Google and writer of a fascinating series of electronics teardowns. His posts on power supplies, like Apple’s MacBook and iPad chargers, offer detailed looks at how the real things differ from counterfeits. And his writeup of Apple’s remarkably complex Magsafe connector is illuminating.Links:...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: How computer keys got where they are.In this episode of the Hardware Podcast, we talk with Marcin Wichary, design lead and typographer at Medium. Wichary is an authority on the history of keyboards, and he’s traced their development from an early period of enormous variation (when each manufacturer arranged arrow keys in a different order) through today’s relative stability.Links: Wichary’s favorite typeface is the Toronto subway typeface. Tools: Wichary uses...

The O’Reilly Hardware Podcast: The art of designing and manufacturing every aspect of hardware.In this episode of the Hardware Podcast, David Cranor and I talk with Star Simpson, a designer, engineer, and manufacturer who works on every aspect of hardware. She’s a great example of a full-stack hardware creator, capable of moving between electrical engineering, software engineering, and design.Simpson is working on a new series of intricately designed circuit boards based on original...