Elecrow, the company behind the CrowPi educational laptop powered by a Raspberry Pi, have launched a new crowdfunding campaign for a more ambitious STEM education product called Crowbits.
They’re sets of electronic modules including controllers, power supplies, input and output devices, and sensors. These blocks can be snapped together magnetically to create various projects including game controllers or handheld game consoles, remote control cars, or cars that use sensors to avoid obstacles or respond to gestures.
Overall there are 80 different modules available as part of five different kits, and kids (or adults) can learn to program their hardware using Scratch, Python, or Java.
Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web.
- Crowbits – Electronic Blocks for STEM Education at Any Level [Elecrow/Kickstarter]
The kits are compatible with Arduino, ESP32, Raspberry Pi and Micro:bit platforms. And perhaps the coolest thing is that you can build projects using Lego blocks and/or cardboard. The campaign has already exceeded its crowdfunding goal, and Elecrow expects to begin shipping kits to backers in June. - Windows Terminal Preview 1.7 Release [Microsoft]
Windows Terminal Preview 1.7 lets you launch a new terminal window in an existing terminal instance, use JSON fragment extensions, have read-only panes, automatically change focus to a pane when the mouse hovers over it, and a new Settings UI. - Google Chrome may soon default to desktop mode on large Android tablets [xda-developers]
Google Chrome for Android may soon open web pages in desktop mode by default when you’re using a tablet with a large display. It’s unclear when this change will roll out, but there are signs in the Chromium source code suggesting Google’s working on it. - China hoards used chipmaking machines to resist US pressure [Nikkei]
Chinese chip makers are apparently buying used older machines for semiconductor manufacturing as a hedge against US trade restrictions. Japanese used equipment sellers say most of their inventory is going to China and prices are up amidst the pandemic. - Oppo Find X3 Pro, Neo & Lite leaked ahead of launch [WinFuture]
The Oppo X3 Pro will officially launch in China on March 11, but leaks point to a phone with a 6.7 inch, 3216 x 1440 pixel 120 Hz AMOLED display, Snapdragon 888 processor, 12GB of RAM, and quad cameras. - Made it to a byte – announcing the release of Mageia 8 [Mageia Blog]
Mageia 8 Linux distribution released with better support for computers with ARM-based processors, support for newer filesystems, and many updated packages.
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You mean Windows Terminal can make my laptop (with no serial rs-232 port) act like a dumb terminal from the 80’s? I don’t see any mention of SSL support, like PuTTy, for connecting to remote systems that do not permit Telnet connections. How the heck am I gonna connect to a Cisco switch console using this?
I’ve been really impressed with Windows Terminal. I use it in WSL for most of my daily work, and it does everything I could ask for.
It’s fast and configurable, has no emulation bugs that I can find, has good mouse support, and an active community. I can’t think of anything that it’s lacking, but they keep finding new features. I’ve never been a focus-follows-mouse guy but I’m sure some people will be happy to have that.