Sometimes you need random numbers — and properly random ones, at that. Hackaday Alum [Sean Boyce] whipped up a rig that serves up just that, tasty random bytes delivered fresh over MQTT. [Sean] tells ...

Hackers love random numbers, or more accurately, the pursuit of them. It turns out that computers are so good at following our exacting instructions that they are largely incapable of doing anything ...

A team of international scientists has developed a laser that can generate 254 trillion random digits per second, more than a hundred times faster than computer-based random number generators (RNG).

Quick! Think of a number between 1 and 10…was it 7? If it was, don't feel too bad, as human brains are notoriously bad at both true randomness and understanding probability. Even if you're too ...

Fast randomness A diagram of the quantum random number generator on the photonic integrated chip. (Courtesy: Bing Bai and Yao Zheng) Smartphones could soon come equipped with a quantum-powered source ...

“This is a marvelous step” toward more efficient random number generation, says Rajarshi Roy, a physicist at the University of Maryland in College Park who was not involved in the work. Random number ...

If your name gets picked for jury duty, it’s because a computer used a random number generator to select it. The same goes for tax audits or when you opt for a quick pick lottery ticket. But how can ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Very little in this life is truly random. A coin flip is influenced ...

Randomness is a slippery concept, defying precise definition. A simple example of a random series is provided by repeatedly tossing a coin. Assigning “1” for heads and “0” for tails, we generate a ...

Lotteries, accidents and rolls of dice — the world around us is full of unpredictable events. Yet generating a truly random series of numbers for encryption has remained a surprisingly difficult task.