Low Self-Discharge, High-Voltage Supercapacitors Using Porous Carbon

Supercapacitors rely mostly on double-layer capacitance to bridge the divide between chemical batteries and traditional capacitors, but they come with a number of weaknesses. Paramount among these are their relatively low voltage of around 2.7 V before their electrolyte begins to decompose, as well as their relatively high rates of self-discharge. Here a new design using lignin-derived porous carbon electrodes and a fluorinated diluent was demonstrated by [Shichao Zhang] et al., as published in Carbon Research, that seems to address these issues.

Most notable are the relatively high voltage of 4 V, an energy density of 77 Wh/kg and a self-discharge...

ESP-IDF v6.0 framework adds support for ESP32-C5 and ESP32-C61, preview for ESP32-H21 and ESP32-H4

Espressif Systems released the ESP-IDF v6.0 framework a few days ago with stable support for ESP32-C5 and ESP32-C61 SoCs, as well as preview support for ESP32-H21 and ESP32-H4 low-power wireless microcontrollers. The framework also implements a new ESP-IDF Installation Manager (EIM) to make the ESP-IDF installation easier, relies on the low-footprint Picolibc C library, adds security and tooling updates, as well as a few Wi-Fi enhancements, and the ability to update the bootloader over the air. Here are some of the ESP-IDF v6.0 highlights: ESP-IDF Installation Manager – Unified cross-platform tool to simplify the setup process for ESP-IDF and compatible...

FOSDEM 2026 Update

Hey again RSS readers (love y’all). In this update we share what we discussed at FOSDEM (PinePhone 2, community editions, DRAM shortage), what we demoed at our stand at FOSDEM and details on the PineTime Pro. Next month will have the main community update.

Ampisu is a compact pocket-sized USB lab power supply with SCPI and web control (Crowdfunding)

The concept of a USB-C-based power supply is not new, and we have previously seen projects like XIAO Powerbread and Axiometa BrodBoost-C. As USB PD-based power adapters and power banks have become much cheaper, adjustable power supplies like the PocketPD and BenchVolt PD have come out. Both have their own limitation: the PocketPD has only a single output channel, thus hardly a lab power supply, and the BenchVolt PD is not quite compact enough to be considered pocket-friendly. This is where the Ampisu comes in. It’s a compact, pocket-friendly, and isolated three-output lab power supply designed to fit in a pocket and include features of...

CIX ClawCore Armv9.2 CPU family targets OpenClaw deployments

OpenClaw was just introduced a few months ago, but we’ve already seen several low-footprint implementations, and some companies even ship mini PCs preloaded with OpenClaw. But today, I was just informed that CIX had gone further, and introduced the ClawCore Armv9.2 CPU family specifically designed/optimized for OpenClaw. The family will be comprised of three main SKUs: ClawCore-P (勁螯芯  “Powerful Claw”) – High-performance model with 12-core CPU @ 3.2GHz, Immortalis-G720 GPU, 45 TOPS AI compute, and support for up to 64GB LPDDR5 RAM. Aimed at high-parallelism, large-capacity scenarios. Shipping starts now in March 2026. ClawCore-A (智螯芯  “AI/Smart Claw”) – Octa-core CPU...

ESP32-P4 revision 3.0 gains new power rail, requires new PCB design and firmware

Espressif’s ESP32-P4 revision 3.0 and greater converts pin 54 of the chip from NC (not connected) to a power rail (VDD_HP_1), requires a few extra passives, and an updated firmware. Espressif Systems first unveiled the 400 MHz ESP32-P4 dual-core RISC-V SoC in January 2023, and the official ESP32-P4-Function-EV development board was launched in August 2024, with commercial solutions slowly ramping up last year. You’d think the silicon and related hardware would now be frozen, but apparently not. The pin 54 was likely converted from NC (not connected) to VDD_HP_1 to improve the stability of the high-performance digital domain. The old...

M5StampS3 BAT Module Combines ESP32-S3 and Battery Management

M5Stack has added the M5StampS3 BAT, a compact embedded module based on the ESP32-S3 platform with integrated battery power management. The module is intended for IoT and low-power applications requiring wireless connectivity and flexible GPIO access in a small form factor. The module is built around the ESP32-S3-PICO-1-N8R8 system-in-package, featuring a dual-core Xtensa LX7 processor […]

Ohm Lab Neuro N6 – Modular STM32N6 AI Vision devkit supports rolling shutter, global shutter, or thermal camera (Crowdfunding)

Ohm Lab Neuro N6 is a compact, modular, Arduino-compatible Edge AI/AI Vision development board powered by an STMicro STM32N6 Arm Cortex-M55 microcontroller with a 600 GOPS Neural-ART accelerator. The Adafruit Feather-sized board features 64MB PSRAM, 32MB flash, a built-in microphone, a 6-axis IMU and magnetometer, a USB-C port for power and programming, and takes power from USB-C (5V) or a LiPo battery. The bottom side of the board features 40-pin and 30-pin high-density connectors for expansion boards, adding a camera (rolling shutter, global shutter, or thermal), a microSD card slot, Ethernet, WiFi, a TFT display, and more. Neuro N6 specifications:...

Shuttle XB860G2 and XH810 Slim Systems Arrive with Intel Core Ultra 200 CPUs

Shuttle has added two systems to its XPC slim lineup, the XB860G2 and XH810, both based on Intel Core Ultra 200 series processors. The systems are offered as compact barebone platforms for embedded, industrial, and general-purpose computing applications. Both models use the LGA1851 socket and support Intel Core Ultra 200 series processors (Arrow Lake-S) with […]

KiCad 10 release – Dark mode, graphical DRC rule editor, new file importers, and more

KiCad 10 open-source EDA software has just been released with support for dark mode, importers for Allegro, PADS, and gEDA/Lepton PCB, and various changes to the Schematic Editor (e.g., hop-over display) and the PCB Editor, notably adding a graphical DRC rule editor. KiCad 10 was built by hundreds of developers, translators, library contributors, and documentation submitters, who submitted 7,609 unique commits after KiCad 9 was released in February 2025. The new version also gains 952 new symbols, 1216 new footprints, and 386 new 3D models. Some UI and usability improvements include dark mode support (Windows only), customizable toolbars, undo/redo support...