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

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

Articles & Learning

• Explore the Stratosphere with a DIY Pico Balloon | IEEE Spectrum
  High-altitude balloon with a Raspberry Pi Pico. － Noah

• The Hidden Costs of Using Zephyr (and How to Mitigate Them) | Shawn Hymel
  A look at the less obvious costs of adopting Zephyr, and strategies to mitigate them. Discussed on the Zephyr podcast as well! － Noah

• Building Secure OTA Updates for ESP32 Over BLE with Rust
  Walkthrough of building secure OTA updates for ESP32 over BLE using Rust. － Noah

• MicroPython Now Requires AI Disclosure on Every Pull Request | Adafruit Blog
  MicroPython now requires contributors to disclose AI usage on every pull request. － Noah

• Unlocking 15% More Performance: A Case Study in LLVM Optimization for RISC-V | Igalia
  LLVM work on RISC-V continues with lots of improvements over the last few months; here is a 15% performance improvement case study. － Noah

• How to Learn Embedded Rust for Beginners | ImplRust
  A beginner’s guide to getting started with embedded Rust. － Noah

• OTA Update Engines Compared | Rugix Blog
  Comparison of OTA update engines by Maxi, a Interrupt contributor and community member.

• Serial EERAM | Microchip
  Interesting chip, from a project shared on Hacker News: EERAM, EEPROM-backed SRAM, which automatically saves/restores on power loss. － Noah

Projects & Tools

• zclaw — Personal AI Assistant on ESP32 | GitHub
  Personal AI assistant running in under 888 KB on ESP32. － Noah

• planckforth | GitHub
  Bootstrapping a Forth interpreter with a 1 kB hand-written binary. － Noah

News & Announcements

• Texas Instruments to Acquire Silicon Labs | TI Newsroom
  TI is acquiring Silicon Labs.

• BayLibre Partners with Arm to Bring Zephyr OS Support to Armv9 Cortex-A Processors | Zephyr Project
  BayLibre partnered with Arm to bring Zephyr OS support to Armv9 Cortex-A processors. － Noah

• Golioth is now a part of Canonical
  Golioth joins Canonical.

• TLS Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) — RFC 9849 | RFC Editor
  The TLS Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) RFC is now published. － Noah

Upcoming Events

• March 10-12, 2026 | Embedded World 2026
  The Embedded World Conference Program is live! Heading to Embedded World next week? With Memfault being part of Nordic Semiconductor this year, we will be at the Nordic Semiconductor booth. Come by and say hello! We will be at Hall 4A, Booth 310.