What we've been reading in June (2024)

Here are the articles, videos, and tools that we’ve been excited about this June.

What have you been reading? Share in the comments or on the Interrupt Slack.

Articles & Learning

• How to use Matter to Build a Connected Smart Home Device - YouTube
  From our friends at Ovyl, a video tutorial on setting up an example Matter network using a Thread Border Router (with ESP32 + EFR32MG24) and a few nRF52840 dev kits. — Eric

• Why Do Electronic Components Have Such Odd Values? – Digilent Blog
  Explains how various tolerances make resistors have odd values but still provide coverage at cost. — Victor

• TPM GPIO fail: How bad OEM firmware ruins TPM security
  A case where repurposing a pin as a GPIO is used to exploit an Intel TPM. — Eric

• Detecting a PS2 Emulator: When 1*X does not equal X
  A straightforward method for detecting PS2 emulators using an odd floating point error. — Pat

• Inline Assembly Dangers
  “Senior engineer: still searching for the missing newline.” It’s one of the many stories developers can share about tools invoking other tools as part of the their setup. — Heiko

• Exploring TrustZone-M on the nRF9160 - Lena’s Fieldnotes
  Exploring a basic TrustZone-M application on the nRF9160. — Noah

• I really like the RP2040 | Dan Groshev
  Nice brief highlighting some of the unique features of the RP2040. — Eric

• Inside the tiny chip that powers Montreal subway tickets
  Reverse engineering a disposable chip the size of a grain of salt that’s embedded in Montreal’s subway tickets. — Victor

• shraiwi/blog/simd-fast-esp32s3.md
  Vectorized computer vision algos on an ESP32. — François

• GCC’s new fortification level: The gains and costs | Red Hat Developer
  Discover the gains and costs of GCC’s enhanced runtime buffer overflow protection. — François

• How to Get Root Access to Your Sleep Number Bed - Dillan Mills
  Uncovering a “convenient” backdoor that Sleep Number can use to SSH back into the hub—and your internal home network as a result. — François

• ANCS and HID: Controlling Your iPhone From Zephyr - Mohammed Billoo
  Easy tutorial on how to get ANCS and HID set up with an nRF52, Zephyr, and your iPhone. (My pick)

• dojoe/Twonkie: A USB-PD sniffer/injector/sink based on Google’s Twinkie, re-designed to be manufactured by mere mortals.
  Project description says it best: “Twonkie is a USB-PD sniffer/injector/sink based on a Google project called Twinkie, re-engineered to be made in one-off quantities by mere mortals” — Eric

• cnlohr/mini-rv32ima: A tiny C header-only risc-v emulator.
  Really readable and tiny risc-v emulator. (Sorry, no Mac instructions!) — Noah

• UW PLSE | Herbie, the Numerical Compiler
  University of Washington’s Herbie tool can improve your floating point usage both for accuracy and speed. — Eric

• haydenridd/gcc-arm-to-zig: Utilities for porting Cortex-M projects from arm-none-eabi-gcc compiler to Zig.
  Utilities for porting Cortex-M projects from arm-none-eabi-gcc compiler to Zig. — Matheus Catarino França

News & Announcements

• Memfault unveils Product Analytics, a platform to provide insights - IOT Insider
  Recently Memfault unveiled Product Analytics, a new feature set aimed at delivering comprehensive insights into the performance and usage of IoT devices.

• IoT startups to keep an eye on - IOT Insider
  IoT Insider included Memfault in its pick of five startups to keep an eye out for as they blaze their own trail and create impactful technology.

• 5 ways IoT consumer devices are disappointing users | Electronics360
  As IoT consumer devices become omnipresent in everyday life, vendors are having to deal with the increased quality issues of these devices, according to a new survey from Memfault.

Upcoming Events

• Thursday, July 18, 2024 at 6:00 PM | When to Build Security Into Your IoT Device Tickets | Denver, CO
  Join a lineup of IoT experts + cybersecurity leaders for a panel discussion on pressing security changes and challenges across the landscape.

Tyler Hoffman has worked on the embedded software teams at Pebble and Fitbit. He is now a founder at Memfault.