Robot Can Read Braille Much Faster Than Humans With New Sensor

February 1, 2024 by 25 Comments

Braille is a method of physical writing used to allow humans to read by touch — most commonly used as a substitute for printed text by those who may be visually impaired. Both displaying Braille and reading it is difficult to do with machines, but there has been a development in the latter area. A research team has trained a robot to read Braille at a speed far exceeding humans.

The robot was developed by a team at the University of Cambridge. Rather than trying to read Braille by touch, it instead uses a camera and an image recognition algorithm to do the job. Their solution is a bit ironic in a way, given the purpose Braille was created for. The robot can quickly sweep across a Braille display, working at a rate of up to 315 words per minute at 87% accuracy. That’s roughly twice as fast as a human reading Braille, with a similar level of accuracy. Some nifty de-blurring algorithms were needed to achieve this speed from the camera’s video feed.

We’ve also seen some impressive development on the other side of all those little bumps, with two Braille devices taking home awards during the final Hackaday Prize in 2023.
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Polynesian Wayfinding Traditions Let Humans Roam The Pacific Ocean

February 1, 2024 by 24 Comments

Polynesian cultures have a remarkable navigational tradition. It stands as a testament to human ingenuity and an intimate understanding of nature. Where Western cultures developed maps and tools to plot courses around the world, the Polynesian tradition is more about using human senses and pattern-finding skills to figure out where one is, and where one might be going.

Today, we’ll delve into the unique techniques of Polynesian navigation, exploring how keen observation of the natural world enabled pioneers to roam far and wide across the breadth of the Pacific.

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Flat-Pack Multi-Tool Has Many Dimensions

February 1, 2024 by 4 Comments

Sometimes, you just have to see whether something can be done. Such is the case with [ToolTechGeek]’s flat-pack metal multi-tool build. Can an entire multi-tool be made with only flat pieces of laser-cut metal and fasteners? It would seem so, yes. And quite nicely, too, as you’ll see in the video after the break.

[ToolTechGeek] started by designing all the parts in Inkscape, and then made a few 3D printed versions to check fitment before committing to laser-cut metal. Once they had the pieces cut, everything came together nicely except for a few tabs that connect some of the parts together. These just had to be filed down a bit.

So now, [ToolTechGeek] has a handy set of pliers, flat- and Phillips-head screwdrivers, a knife, and a bottle opener all in one place. Although the pliers don’t have teeth, they still do a fine job of removing nuts and the like. Be sure to check out the final product and see it get put to the test.

No use for such a thing? Maybe you’d prefer an NFC multi-tool.

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How Much Longer Will Cars Have Cigarette Lighter Ports?

February 1, 2024 by 104 Comments

Depending on the age of your car, it might contain a round 12 V power outlet in the dash, or possibly in the elbow compartment. And depending on your own age, you might know that as the cigarette lighter port. Whereas this thing used to have a single purpose — lighting cigars and cigarettes via hot coil — there are myriad uses today, from charging a phone to powering a dash camera to running one of those tire-inflating machines in a roadside emergency.

But how did it come to be a power source inside the vehicle? And how long will it stick around? With smoking on the decline for several decades, fewer and fewer people have the need for a cigarette lighter than do, say, a way to charge their phone. How long will the power source survive in this configuration?

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This Time It’s Toyota: Takata Airbag Recalls Continue

February 1, 2024 by 22 Comments

The automotive industry is subject to frequent product recalls, as manufacturers correct defects in their vehicles that reveal themselves only after some use. While such events may be embarrassing for a marque, it’s not necessarily a bad thing — after all, we would rather put our trust in a carmaker prepared to own up and fix things rather than sweep their woes under the carpet.

There’s one recall that’s been going on for years which isn’t the vehicle manufacturer’s fault though, and now it seems Toyota are the latest to be hit, with some vehicles as old as two decades being part of it. Long time Hackaday readers will probably recognize where this is going as we’ve covered it before; at its centre are faulty airbag charges from Takata, and the result has been one of the largest safety related recalls in automotive history.

An automotive airbag is a fabric structure inflated at high speed by a small explosive charge when triggered by the sharp deceleration of an incident. It is intended to cushion any impact the occupant might make upon the car’s interior. The problem with the faulty Takata units is that moisture ingress could alter the properties of the charge, and this along with corrosion could increase its power and produce a hail of metal fragments on detonation.

Our colleague [Lewin Day] has penned a series of informative and insightful investigations of the technology behind the Takata scandal, going back quite a few years. With such relatively ancient vehicles now being recalled we can’t help wondering whether it would be easier for Toyota to run a buyback scheme and take the cars off the road rather than fix them in this case, but we’re curious as non automotive safety engineers why the automotive airbag has evolved in this manner. Why is one of very few consumer explosive devices not better regulated, why is it sold with an unlimited lifetime, and why are they not standardized for routine replacement on a regular schedule just like any other vehicle consumable?

2003-2004 Toyota Corolla: IFCAR, Public domain.

Cheap Hack Gets PCI-X Card Working In PCI Slot

February 1, 2024 by 10 Comments

PCI and PCI-X are not directly compatible, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that means you’re out of luck if you need to use a PCI-X card in a machine that only has basic PCI slots. And yet, that needn’t be the case. As [Peter] shows us, you can work around this with a cheap hacky hack. Our favorite kind!

[Peter] had a PCI-X RAID card that he wanted to use on his Socket 7-based computer. The 3ware 9550SX PCI-X card is 3.3 V only, and doesn’t fit in a typical PCI slot. It’s not compatible mechanically or electrically. Enter a PCI-X riser, which gets around the missing notch that would normally not let the card sit in the slot. Other than that, it just took masking off some pins to avoid damage from the 5 V rail. Throughput is good, too, reportedly sitting at roughly 60-70 MB/s.

The hard part is probably finding a PCI-X riser; PCI-Express stuff is far more common. Few of us need to deal with PCI-X anymore, but if you’re working on some ancient industrial hardware or something, this hack might just save your beans from the roast pot one day.

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The Gyro Monorail: How To Make Trains Better With A Gyroscope

January 31, 2024 by 11 Comments
The gyroscopic system for gyro monorail trains that Brennan developed. (Credit: Primal Space)

Everyone who has ever handled a spinning gyroscope found themselves likely mesmerized by the way it absolutely maintains its orientation even when disturbed. Much of modern technology would be impossible without them, whether space telescopes or avionics. Yet during the early 20th century a much more radical idea was proposed for gyroscopes, one that would essentially have turned entire trains into gyroscopes. This was the concept of the Gyro Monorail, with Louis Brennan being among those who built a full-sized, working prototype in 1910, with its history and fate covered in detail by [Primal Space], along with an accompanying video.

At first glance it may seem rather daft to have an entire train balancing on a single rail track, using nothing but gyroscopic forces to keep the entire contraption level and balanced even when you feel the thing should just tip over. Yet the gyroscopic system that Brennan created and patented in 1903 turned out to function really well, and reliably kept the train on its single track. Key to this was the use of two gyroscopic wheels, each spinning in an opposite direction, with a pneumatic system linked to a gear system between the two wheels that used the gyroscope’s precession in corners to quickly establish a new balance.

Despite this success, investors were unconvinced, and regular trains were already firmly established, and the system would also require that each car had its own gyro system. Even so, the idea of the gyro monorail never truly died, as evidenced by the recently created German MonoCab-OWL project. This targets converting single-rail sections into dual-rail, bi-directional service with no infrastructure investment required.

Thanks to [Stephen Walters] for the tip.

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