The old joke starts with the premise of scientists researching human investigating behavior, whether traits like optimism and pessimism are learned or inherited. The group begins to observe a field of younger students in laboratory settings. In one experiment, scientists place a child with noted signs of melancholy into a lab with a new set of the latest toys. In another lab, a child with outward indications of exuberance gets situated in a lab with only a pile of horse manure and a shovel. The scientists leave for 30 minutes and return to make observations.
In the lab with the new set of toys, researchers witnessed the child sitting alone in a corner with the toys untouched.
A scientist asked the student, "Did you know you are welcome to play with anything here?" The child replied, "What's the use? They will all break within a half hour." The lab with the horse excrement gave the scientists a different observation.
The test subject was having a ball using the shovel to sling the manure in all different directions.
A scientist asked the child, "You seem to enjoy yourself here. Can you tell us why?" The child replied, "With all this poop, there's bound to be a pony around here somewhere." The joke was related to give you a perspective on this month's Circuit Cellar editorial theme of Consumer Electronics with equal parts optimism and pessimism. With so many products and categories, how can journalists cover the subject without leaving something behind? So many important innovations today define new expectations and demand cycles for tomorrow. Besides, if I see one more set of "game-changing" earbuds, the trait of apathy might emerge.
What will be the hottest trend of the year in consumer electronics? Who knows? That could be like going to the beach and trying to collect a single, solitary drop of seawater.
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Esta historia es de la edición January 2025 de Circuit Cellar.
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New TI MCUs Enable Edge AI and Industry-Leading Real-Time Control to Advance Efficiency, Safety, and Sustainability
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Using Amazon Alexa to Control Custom IoT Gadgets
In part two of his article, Brian describes integrating custom IoT gadgets with Amazon Echo using emulation to receive spoken alarms. In part one, he used emulation and Arduino Cloud services as a middleman.
Holiday Hangover Hardware Hacking
Having too much cheer during the holidays? In this month's article, Colin offers a diversion from the jolly season by urging developers to retreat to the basement to brush up on hardware hacking skills. He shows how a low-cost Raspberry Pi Pico and a TP-Link Tapo C200 smart IP camera could become the next automated bird deterrent or a home automation server.
Datasheet: Microamps Per Megahertz Ultra-Low Power MCUs Minimize Current Consumption
How do chip makers differentiate if many ultra-low power MCUs on the market feature the same processor core? The peripherals and different power states offer various ways to manage current consumption down to microamps per megahertz.
Smart Home Lock Down Matter Provides Security Blanket
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Basic Pulse Circuits
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Building a Wi-Fi Router Watchdog
Dev created a watchdog for a Wi-Fi extender using a Raspberry Pi Pico. This monitors Wi-Fi connectivity for his smart home lighting system, which would require a reset twice a year due to rapid power interruptions.
Create Your Own PCBs with a CNC Milling Machine
Using KiCad, CopperCAM, and Candle Software
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Good performance is a requirement for every technology, and system designers rely on operating systems to ensure fast and smooth transitions in critical applications. Fortunately, Pedro writes, the embedded Linux OS offers ways for finding, analyzing and mitigating performance bottlenecks so embedded systems can deliver the speed and efficiency that end users expect.
Renesas New RA8 Entry-Line MCU Groups Brings High Performance of Arm Cortex-M85 Processor to Cost-Sensitive Applications with Market-Leading CoreMark Performance
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