Making Art With Maxwell’s Equations

July 17, 2024 by Zoe Skyforest 5 Comments

When you think of art, you might think of portraiture, landscapes, or other kinds of paintings. But mathematics can feel artistic at times, too. We’ve all seen gorgeous Mandelbrot fractals, and less gorgeous Julia fractals, but that’s not all that’s out there. As [Prof. Halim Boutayeb] demonstrates, Maxwell’s equations can show us some real beauty, too.

The work involves running simulations of multiple electromagnetic sources moving, bouncing around, interacting, and so on. The art comes in the plotting of the fields, in warm colors or just outright rainbows. The professor does a great job of pairing some of these videos with pumping electronic music, which only adds to the fun.

Of course, the colors are pretty, but there’s a lot of valuable physics going on behind all this. Thankfully, there are all kinds of additional resources linked for those eager to learn about the Finite Difference Time Domain method and how it can be used for valid simulation tasks.

Throw this kind of stuff on a projector at your next rave and you will not be disappointed. Video after the break.

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Hacking An IP Camera To Run Your Own Software

July 17, 2024 by Zoe Skyforest 18 Comments

Ah, generic unbranded IP cameras. Safe, secure? Probably not. [Alex] has been hacking around with one of his very own, and he’s recently busted the thing wide open.

Determining that the camera had a software update function built in, [Alex] saw an opening for hijinks. The first issue was that the camera only accepts encrypted update packages, which complicates things somewhat. However, through some smart reverse engineering, the format of the updates and their encryption method became obvious to [Alex]. Oh, and partly because there was a GitHub repository online featuring the source code used by the manufacturer to encrypt their updates. That definitely helped. It also led [Alex] to suspect the manufacturer may not have properly respected the open source license of some of the routines involved.

In the demo of the exploit, [Alex] has the camera reach out to www.pudim.com.br instead of the servers of the original manufacturer. That’s a pretty clear way to show that the camera has been owned.

We first featured [Alex]’s work in this space all the way back in 2019. It’s come a long way since then!

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Seiko Had A Smartwatch In 1984

July 16, 2024 by Zoe Skyforest 32 Comments

You might think of the smartwatch era as beginning with Apple, relatively recently. Or, you might think back to those fancy Timex models with the datalink thing going on in the 1990s. Seiko can beat them all, though, with its UC-2000 smartwatch that debuted all the way back in 1984.

*The UC2200 was the bigger docking station of the two.*

The UC-2000 very much looks cutting edge for its era, and absolutely ancient today. It featured a 4-bit CPU, 2 kilobytes of RAM, and 6 kilobytes of ROM. Display was via a simple 10×4 character LCD in a rectangular form factor, with four buttons along the bottom. Branded as a “personal information processor,” it was intended for use with the UC-2100 dock. This added a full physical QWERTY keyboard that interacted with the UC-2000 when the two were combined together. Alternatively, you could go for the UC-2200, which not only had a keyboard but also a thermal printer to boot. Oh, and ROM packs for Microsoft Basic, games, or an English-to-Japanese translator.

What could you do on this thing? Well, it had basic watch functions, so it told the time, acted as a stop watch, and an alarm, of course. But you could also use it to store two memos of up to 1000 characters each, schedule appointments, and do basic calculations.

The one thing this smartwatch was missing? Connectivity. It couldn’t get on the Internet, nor could it snatch data from the ether via radio or any other method. By today’s measures, it wouldn’t qualify as much of a smartwatch at all. Moreso a personal organizer that fit on the wrist. Still, for its day, this thing really was a whole computer that fit on your wrist.

Would you believe we’ve seen the UC-2000 before? In fact, we’ve even seen it hacked to play Tetris! Video of that wonderful feat after the break.
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Playing Rock, Paper Scissors With A Time Of Flight Sensor

July 16, 2024 by Zoe Skyforest 3 Comments

You can do all kinds of wonderful things with cameras and image recognition. However, sometimes spatial data is useful, too. As [madmcu] demonstrates, you can use depth data from a time-of-flight sensor for gesture recognition, as seen in this rock-paper-scissors demo.

If you’re unfamiliar with time-of-flight sensors, they’re easy enough to understand. They measure distance by determining the time it takes photons to travel from one place to another. For example, by shooting out light from the sensor and measuring how long it takes to bounce back, the sensor can determine how far away an object is. Take an array of time-of-flight measurements, and you can get simple spatial data for further analysis.

The build uses an Arduino Uno R4 Minima, paired with a demo board for the VL53L5CX time-of-flight sensor. The software is developed using NanoEdge AI Studio. In a basic sense, the system uses a machine learning model to classify data captured by the time-of-flight sensor into gestures matching rock, paper, or scissors—or nothing, if no hand is present. If you don’t find [madmcu]’s tutorial enough, you can take a look at the original version from STMicroelectronics, too.

It takes some training, and it only works in the right lighting conditions, but this is a functional system that can determine real hand sign and play the game. We’ve seen similar techniques help more advanced robots cheat at this game before, too! What a time to be alive.

CUDA, But Make It AMD

July 16, 2024 by Zoe Skyforest 40 Comments

Compute Unified Device Architecture, or CUDA, is a software platform for doing big parallel calculation tasks on NVIDIA GPUs. It’s been a big part of the push to use GPUs for general purpose computing, and in some ways, competitor AMD has thusly been left out in the cold. However, with more demand for GPU computation than ever, there’s been a breakthrough. SCALE from [Spectral Compute] will let you compile CUDA applications for AMD GPUs.

SCALE allows CUDA programs to run as-is on AMD GPUs, without modification. The SCALE compiler is also intended as a drop-in swap for nvcc, right down to the command line options. For maximum ease of use, it acts like you’ve installed the NVIDIA Cuda Toolkit, so you can build with cmake just like you would for a normal NVIDIA setup. Currently, Navi 21 and Navi 31 (RDNA 2.0 and RDNA 3.0) targets are supported, while a number of other GPUs are undergoing testing and development.

The basic aim is to allow developers to use AMD hardware without having to maintain an entirely separate codebase. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s a promising tool that could help break NVIDIA’s stranglehold on parts of the GPGPU market.

Smart Ball Technology Has Reached Football, But The Euros Show Us It’s Not Necessarily For The Better

July 16, 2024 by Zoe Skyforest 56 Comments

*Adidas brought smart balls to Euro 2024, for better or worse. Credit: Adidas*

The good old fashioned game of football used to be a simple affair. Two teams of eleven, plus a few subs, who were all wrangled by a referee and a couple of helpful linesmen. Long ago, these disparate groups lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when VAR attacked.

Suddenly, technology was being used to adjudicate all kinds of decisions, and fans were cheering or in uproar depending on how the hammer fell. That’s only become more prevalent in recent times, with smart balls the latest controversial addition to the world game. With their starring role in the Euro 2024 championship more than evident, let’s take a look at what’s going on with this new generation of intelligent footballs.

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Nitric Acid Is The Hot New Way To Pick Locks

July 15, 2024 by Zoe Skyforest 60 Comments

Lockpicking is a grand skill to have, and one that’s often presumed to be one of the dark arts of the burglar. However, a new technique has come to the fore in some European contexts. It appears nitric acid is being used to damage locks to allow criminals to gain entry into residential premises.

Germany’s Bild has covered this matter, as has Feuerwehr Magazine. The technique has apparently come to prominence in the last couple of years. Attackers pour the corrosive liquid into the keyway of a typical door lock. This damages the cylinder, and perhaps the pins inside as well. Once the metal has been eaten away and the structure of the lock is sufficiently degraded, it can presumably be forced open quite easily with hand tools. The technique is apparently especially effective in Germany, where locks are typically installed with the pins facing down. This makes it easy for any liquid trickled into the lock to eat away at the pins in the bottom.

German authorities advised people to be on the look out for discoloration around door locks. If seen, it’s important to avoid contact with any corrosive liquid that may have been used on the lock.

It’s a nasty technique that doesn’t just damage locks, but doors as well! Meanwhile, if you’re learning the art of lockpicking, just remember not to practice on any important locks you might actually need. More pictures after the break.

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