Month: May 2019

The Cloak Of Invisibility Against Image Recognition

May 3, 2019 by 15 Comments

Adversarial attacks are not something new to the world of Deep Networks used for image recognition. However, as the research with Deep Learning grows, more flaws are uncovered. The team at the University of KU Leuven in Belgium have demonstrated how, by simple using a colored photo held near the torso of a man can render him invisible to image recognition systems based on convolutional neural networks.

Convolutional Neural Networks or CNNs are a class of Deep learning networks that reduces the number of computations to be performed by creating hierarchical patterns from simpler and smaller networks. They are becoming the norm for image recognition applications and are being used in the field. In this new paper, the addition of color patches is seen to confuse the image detector YoLo(v2) by adding noise that disrupts the calculations of the CNN. The patch is not random and can be identified using the process defined in the publication.

This attack can be implemented by printing the disruptive pattern on a t-shirt making them invisible to surveillance system detection. You can read the paper[PDF] that outlines the generation of the adversarial patch. Image recognition camouflage that works on Google’s Inception has been documented in the past and we hope to see more such hacks in the future. Its a new world out there where you hacking is colorful as ever.

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Get To Know The Physics Behind Soldering And The Packaging Of ICs

May 3, 2019 by 22 Comments

Often it feels as if soldering is deemed to be more of an art form than something that’s underpinned by the cold, hard reality of physics and chemistry. From organic chemistry with rosin, to the material properties of fragile gold bond wires and silicon dies inside IC packages and the effects of thermal stress on the different parts of an IC package, it’s a complicated topic that deserves a lot more attention than it usually gets.

A casual inquiry around one’s friends, acquaintances, colleagues and perfect strangers on the internet usually reveals the same pattern: people have picked up a soldering iron at some point, and either figured out what seemed to work through trial and error, or learned from someone else who has learned what seemed to work through trial and error. Can we say something scientific about soldering?

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Custom Monitor For Pi-Powered Commodore 64

May 3, 2019 by 2 Comments

Classic games never seem to have gone out of style and with the emulation powers of the Raspberry Pi, there seems to be no end of projects folks have been coming up with. [Chris Mills] project is a great looking monitor to get his Commodore 64 fix by combining the retro looks of a home-made 64-style monitor with the Raspberry Pi.

[Chris] is only interested in Commodore 64 emulation, at least with this project, and wanted something that would fit on a desk without taking up too much room. An eight inch LCD security monitor fit the bill perfectly. [Chris] ended up building a wooden enclosure for the monitor to give it that Commodore look. The monitor, power supply and cable connections fit inside along with speakers; each of these having their inputs on the back. A fan vents in the back as well and the Pi sits outside running the Combian 64 emulation software.

[Chris] has put up some galleries of build pics. The logo from the old Commodore logo is a nice touch. Read over the Hackaday site and you could build your own Commodore 64, or use the Commodore 64 itself to house the Raspberry Pi if you wanted.

 

Fortran Goes Interactive

May 3, 2019 by 8 Comments

When you think of Fortran you probably think of punched cards and green bar paper. While it is true that Fortran isn’t the go-to language it used to be — pun unintentional — it still has a vibrant community of people who do serious number crunching. However, many members of that community have been seduced away by interactive tools that are also good at number crunching like MATLAB, Julian, and Python with special libraries. The LFortran project aims to create a Fortran environment with interactivity like Python, but retaining the speed that Fortran is known for.

The resulting tool is impressive. You can use it from Jupyter, can parse code targeting existing Fortran compilers, and supports Linux, Mac, and Windows. There is development to make the code fully interoperable with other languages like C or Python as well as take advantage of GPUs and other specialized hardware. They are also zeroing in on full Fortran 2018 support.

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Innovative Bird Feeder Design Recycles Recycling’s Garbage

May 2, 2019 by 17 Comments

Recycling beverage cartons isn’t 100% efficient. The process yields some unusable garbage as a byproduct. Why? Because containers like juice boxes are mostly paper, but also contain plastic and aluminum. The recycling process recovers the paper fibers for re-use, but what’s left after that is a mixture of plastic rejects and other bits that aren’t good for anything other than an incinerator or a landfill. Until now, anyway!

It turns out it is in fact possible to turn such reject material into a product that can be injection-molded, as shown here with [Stefan Lugtigheid]’s SAM bird feeder design. The feeder is not just made from 100% recycled materials, it’s made from the garbage of the recycling process — material that would otherwise be considered worthless. Even better, the feeder design has only the one piece. The two halves are identical, which reduces part count and simplifies assembly.

[Stefan] makes it clear that the process isn’t without its quirks. Just because it can be injection-molded doesn’t mean it works or acts the same as regular plastic. Nevertheless, the SAM birdfeeder demonstrates that it can definitely be put to practical use. We’ve seen creative reprocessing of PET bottles and sheet stock made from 3D printed trash, but recycling the garbage that comes from recycling drink cartons is some next-level stuff, for sure.

Raspberry Pi Streams Music Using Only The Default Linux Tools

May 2, 2019 by 13 Comments

Getting a  home music streaming system off the ground is typically a straightforward task. Using Apple devices with Airplay makes this task trivial, but if you’re a computing purist like [Connor] who runs a Linux machine and wants to keep it light on extra packages, the task gets complicated quickly. His goal is to bring audio streaming to all Linux platforms without the need to install a lot of extra software. This approach is friendly to light-footprint devices like the Raspberry Pi that he used in his proof of concept.

[Connor] created a set of scripts which allow streaming from any UNIX (or UNIX-like) machines, using only dependencies that a typical OS install would already have. His Raspberry Pi is the base station and streams to his laptop, but he notes that this will work between virtually any UNIX or Linux machine. The only limitation is what FFmpeg can or can’t play.

We definitely can appreciate a principled approach to software and its use, although it does seem that most people don’t have this issue at the forefront of their minds. This results in a lot of software that is bulky, making it difficult to maintain, use, or even know what it does, and also makes it harder for those of us that don’t want to use that type of software to find working solutions to other problems. It’s noble that [Connor] was able to create something without sacrificing any principles.

KiCad Gets Banana For Scale

May 2, 2019 by 38 Comments

Over the years we’ve seen KiCad grow from a niche, somewhat incomplete, but Open Source PCB design suite to a full-featured extravaganza of schematics and board layouts. We’ve plumbed the depths of keys and kais and queues and quays, and KiCad just had its first conference last weekend. While we wait for the rest of the talks to be published, there’s a special treat for KiCad users everywhere. Here’s a banana for scale.

Have you ever worried your PCB was too big? Confused if you’re working in inches or millimeters? Do you just want to know the scale of your PCB? Just add this footprint to your KiCad project, and you’ll have a banana on your board view. This is immediate visual feedback, giving you all the information you need to continue on with your design. There’s a 2D view and a 3D view. It’s something no electrical engineer should be without. All of this can be yours for the low, low, cost of free because KiCad is Open Source.

If you’re wondering what official features are in the works for the EDA suite, the first two talks from the con delve into that. project leader Wayne Stambaugh’s talk covers features new to version 5.1 and plans for 6.0. There was also a developers panel that provides insight on what goes into a large project like this one.