Neural networks have become a hot topic over the last decade, put to work on jobs from recognizing image content to generating text and even playing video games. However, these artificial neural networks are essentially just piles of maths inside a computer, and while they are capable of great things, the technology hasn’t yet shown the capability to produce genuine intelligence.
Cortical Labs, based down in Melbourne, Australia, has a different approach. Rather than rely solely on silicon, their work involves growing real biological neurons on electrode arrays, allowing them to be interfaced with digital systems. Their latest work has shown promise that these real biological neural networks can be made to learn, according to a pre-print paper that is yet to go through peer review. Continue reading “Researchers Build Neural Networks With Actual Neurons”→
The popular word game Wordle is both an addictive brain teaser for some and a perpetual social media annoyance for others. Its runaway success has spawned a host of clones, among them one created for the Nintendo Game Boy with a reduced vocabulary. [Alexander Pruss] took on the challenge of improving it by fitting the entire 12972-strong 5-letter-word vocabulary as well as the 2315-word answer list into a 32K cartridge along with the code. The challenge in compression on a platform of such meager resources is to devise an algorithm which does not require more computing power or memory than the device has at its disposal. His solution is both elegant and easy to understand.
Starting by dividing the words into lists by first letter such that he can ignore the letter, he can reduce each word to 20 bits as four 5-bit letters. The clever part comes when he organises the words alphabetically, meaning that the 20-bit numbers representing each word are in numerical order.
Thus instead of storing the full number he could store the difference between it and its predecessor. With a few extra tweaks he was able to get the full list down to an impressive 20186 bytes, but was still faced with not enough space. Turning to the Wordle code he found that a library function call could be switched to an alternative with a much more efficient footprint, resulting in a new ROM with all words in place and ready to play.
Of course our community have applied their minds to Wordle and we’ve featured more than one hack based upon it. Mostly they have involved automated solving, so this retro gaming version breaks new ground.
Header image: Sammlung der Medien und Wissenschaft, CC BY 4.0.
While gliding might be the most calm and peaceful way of moving through the air, launching a glider is a rather noisy and violent process. Although electric winches do exist, most airfields use big V8-powered machines to get their gliders airborne. [Peter Turczak] noticed that the winch operators at his airfield often had to juggle multiple communication channels while pressing buttons and moving levers, all with the deafening roar of a combustion engine right next to them. To make their life easier, he built a single communication device that combines multiple radio inputs and an analog telephone .
The inside of the cabinet. Note the classic phone ringer
The main user interface is a sturdy headset that dampens engine noise significantly. This headset is connected to a cabinet that contains several modules connecting to different audio sources: an analog telephone line, an aircraft radio receiver, a PMR handheld radio, and even a music source in case the other lines are quiet. The system contains automatic switchover circuits based on a priority system, ensuring that important messages are never missed.
The electronic design is based on classic analog components like NE5532 and TL084 op amps, all mounted on small, custom-made PCBs. Audio transformers are used to avoid ground loops between the various signal sources while relays mute sources that are not prioritized. To ensure seamless compatibility with the telephone network, [Peter] used components from old desk phones, including line transformers, a DTMF keypad and even a mechanical ringer. His blog post is full of details that will be of interest to anyone working with op amps and audio, such as how to stabilize an amplifier that has significant wiring capacitance on its input.
At heart this whole project is “just” an audio mixer, although optimized for a very specific purpose. But designing even a simple mixer is by no means an easy task, as we reported a few years back. If you’re more into winches, you’ll be delighted to find that smaller ones can also be used for sledding and even wakeboarding.
