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I'm not saying you should do this, only that it'd be awesome.

[eigma] had a difficult problem. After pulling a TV out of the trash and bringing it home, it turned out it was suffering from a troubling boot loop issue that basically made it useless. As so many of us do, they decided to fix it…which ended up being a far bigger task than initially expected.

The TV in question was a Samsung UN40H5003AF. Powering it up would net a red standby light which would stay on for about eight seconds. Then it would flicker off, come back on, and repeat the cycle. So far, so bad. Investigation began with the usual—checking the power supplies and investigating the basics. No easy wins were found. A debug UART provided precious little information, and schematics proved hard to come by.

Eventually, though, investigation dialed in on a 4 MB SPI flash chip on the board. Dumping the chip revealed the firmware onboard was damaged and corrupt. Upon further tinkering, [eigma] figured that most of the dump looked valid. On a hunch, suspecting that maybe just a single bit was wrong, they came up with a crazy plan: use a script to brute-force flipping every single bit until the firmware’s CRC check came back valid. It took eighteen hours, but the script found a valid solution. Lo and behold, burning the fixed firmware to the TV brought it back to life.

It feels weird for a single bit flip to kill an entire TV, but this kind of failure isn’t unheard of. We’ve seen other dedicated hackers perform similar restorations previously. If you’re out there valiantly rescuing e-waste with these techniques, do tell us your story, won’t you?

It’s been 41 years since Casio debuted the very first G-Shock digital watch, and its latest timepiece is the brand’s most faithful recreation to date. The new G-Shock DW-5000R is visually near-identical to the original DW-5000C launched in 1983 — right down to the length, and dimple positioning on the watch strap.

The rugged appeal of the original DW-5000C carries plenty of nostalgic charm, but it was a novel concept when it first launched. Its creator, Casio engineer Kikuo Ibe, was inspired to make a damage-resistant timepiece after his mechanical watch shattered on the ground when it fell off his wrist. The resulting G-Shock design was intended to have “triple 10” resistance — meaning a battery life of ten years, water resistance of 10...

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Anyone who thinks AI endangers poets should first prove that there exists a poetry journal with more readers than contributors.

What GM takes away, the aftermarket restores.

General Motors’ controversial decision to drop Apple CarPlay and Android Auto from most of its electric vehicles now has a possible workaround. As noticed by InsideEVs, a company called White Automotive and Media Services (WAMS) is advertising a new aftermarket upgrade kit that restores the popular phone-mirroring features back into Chevy and GMC EVs.

On its website, the company promises “fully integrated wired and wireless CarPlay and Android Auto in all the ways you’ve come to expect (and some you haven’t!) without compromising any existing features or functionality.” The upgrade is currently compatible with the Chevy Equinox, Blazer, and Silverado EVs, as well as the GMC Sierra EV. (Sorry...

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