Last teaser of the year: sneak peek view of the companion app for the Ark I. Next year's going to be a busy one for Dark Bio! Until then, happy holidays everyone. ❄️

By popular demand, USB-C Ark I.

Doing a final end of the year push, starting to take steps towards having a globally recognised / authoritative identity for the Ark I.

We haven't got any certification work done yet, but one step is figuring out what and where needs to be highlighted on the Ark. First prototype etching done.

Our story began exactly one year ago, with a wild idea to do something nobody tried: self-sovereign genomics. A year later, that idea became a reality. Whilst there is infinite work ahead, this one year mark is a moment for us to celebrate our progress. Behold, the Ark I.

Best in class, never compromise...

Happy to announce that we've been granted a USB product ID under the Raspberry Foundation vendor umbrella! Thank you @raspberrypi.com!

Our founder, @karalabe.bsky.social, will be attending @devcon.org in Buenos Aires in 2 weeks and will have a few "business cards" to give out. Now, we're not saying that these are functional... but we're also not saying that these are non-functional ;) Come (or rather go and) say hi!

New Ark I prototype just arrived, capable of storing not only the human genome (~3B basepairs, 1.6GB compressed), but the entire 30x sequencing data that's generated via an Illumina sequencer (~100B basepairs, 60.5GB compressed).

Your genome is the essence of what makes you, you. Nobody can be trusted to safe-guard that. No laboratory, no company, no government... not us. It's your responsibility to keep your genome private; and our mission, to help you do so!

Thrilled to announce, that Dark Bio AG is officially incorporated in Zug, Switzerland! 🇨🇭 Infinite work to be done, but it's a huge step towards private, sovereign and personal genomics. 🧬 Thank you everyone involved in this milestone! 🤍

First develop device to be shared with someone 🥹 Yes, it is 3D printed to allow roughing it and taking it apart if need be. Still looks gorgeous... 🤩

The Ark companion app just got a facelift :) It's not yet coded up so the small details are not final, but definitely shaping up to look amazing 😊

Do I know anyone in my follower list who can do a small text animation for a mobile app startup screen? It's for my @dark.bio project, looking to start with the logo, then have the DNA strand animated to unwind into a D and then have "ark Bio" appear afterwards.

New root of trust for my @dark.bio genomic Arks. 🥳 Because I don't want to trust myself to not mess up handling the root keys. Also because I can generate an audit log of signatures to prove nothing malicious was ever signed. #yubihsm #darkbio

Trying to convince a friend to help me with my @dark.bio genomic project; his first question: "How can I debug the device"? Me: Ugh, you need a dev board and a custom prototype assembly. Him: ... Me: Oh FFS, I'll make you a shell access to the thing. A month later: It vörks 😊

Who's interested in becoming an alpha tester? ;) (aiming around August)

Slow at first, then all at once 🥹

Thinking of doing a security contest for the Dark Bio devices (far in the future): - Auction away a small number of devices (10-25). - Give people 2-3 months to hack / jailbreak them. - Anyone succeeding walks away with the pot. No jailbreak => pot used to bootstrap the launch.

“Details matter, it’s worth waiting to get it right.”

Well, making a packaging inlay (i.e. the thing in the box that separates your stuff) out of moulded pulp costs $2000+ setup fee 😅... Fine for prod, but I'm not there yet. So, I've decided to design my own inlay 😋 Still work in progress (e.g. junk color), but it vörks 🥳

Oh, lookie, just got a Verified badge from GitHub 😋

Proof of concept (physical) packaging made by yours truly 😇 Not final yet, but you see who I aimed at 🙈. Currently getting some sample prints done on diff materials to see which feels better. Then will spend a bit on time tweaking the top and lighting LEDs. @dark.bio

Saturday morning tweaks: fancy boot progress! 🥹

While waiting for my 2nd CNC prototype - having already finished the 3rd design I didn't even order yet - here's me playing with the 1st prototype :) @dark.bio PCB courtesy of @pcbwayofficial.bsky.social , CNC courtesy of JLCCNC, certain internals courtesy @prusa3d.com (and me).

Progress at 2PM vs. 6PM, today 🤩

Story time 😊 There is a protocol called SPI: serial peripheral interface. It's a 4-wire comms proto where devices agree on a clock rate at which to transmit data; and they have an input + an output line to shoot the data on. SPI also supports many devices, but let's skip.

You guys have no idea of the combo pain of being a perfectionist and hating JavaScript at the same time :P On an unrelated note, this took me one day from scratch (no starting design, just blank canvas brainstorming). @dark.bio

My absolutely most expensive experiment to date (way more that I dare admit): aluminium anodisation samples with an entire color palette range (courtesy of @pcbwayofficial.bsky.social). 🥰 @dark.bio

You'd think a device having access to *time* is just is 🤔 Well, take away it's real-time-clock, it's network access and place it into a hostile environment; and see what happens 😅 Always fun to design adversarial protocols, but especially seeing them in operation 😊 #darkbio

How it started vs. how it's going 🥳😍 Never 3D printed in my life before. Never CNCd in my life before. Never designed a circuit board in my life before. Also didn't dare yet power it on... 😅 3 months of my life 😋

Hello, world! 🧬