I stood in stunned silence at the smoke billowing up from the hardware on the workbench. Just moments before, it had been operating as expected, before self-destructing with a sound that can only be compared with a gunshot. The failure of the hardware under test had an unexpected consequence: the computer that had been using a USB-to-UART converter to communicate with the hardware experienced a USB fault th ...

Have you ever wondered what's inside your Macbook's charger? There's a lot more circuitry crammed into the compact power adapter than you'd expect, including a microprocessor. This charger teardown looks at the numerous components in the charger and explains how they work together to power your laptop. Most consumer electronics, from your cell phone to your television, use a switching power supply to conver ...