GoKawiil
Tech News
Oxide Computer announced a $445 million Series D funding round, saying the company recently became profitable enough to pay income tax on its ordinary hardware sales operations. The company says demand for its systems now exceeds supply, creating a large order backlog that requires significant upfront cash for components and manufacturing before products reach customers.
Most household surge protectors rely on metal-oxide varistors (MOVs) to absorb excess voltage, but these components degrade with each surge and even with normal use over time. A worn-out surge protector often looks and functions identically to a new one, continuing to power devices even after its protective capability has failed. Some models are designed to cut power to outlets once the MOV protection is no longer functioning, but many are not.
In a blog post tied to Oxide's OxCon meetup and a nostalgic Sun-themed t-shirt, Oxide CTO Bryan Cantrill argued Sun Microsystems ultimately lost interest in the basic mechanics of running a business. He recounts a 2005 episode where a fast-growing startup running OpenSolaris tried to buy Sun hardware but couldn't get Sun's sales team to respond properly, unlike its smooth experience buying from Dell.
An amateur vacuum tube maker built a second diode tube specifically to document the process for a Make: Magazine article after his original tube, made hastily before Hackaday Superconference 2022, lacked good process photos. The piece, published in Make: Volume 86, details the tricky pinch-seal technique using Tungsten wire welded to Nickel pins and coated with oxide to bond glass and metal in a vacuum-tight seal.