Try Image Classification Running In Your Browser, Thanks To WebGPU

When something does zero-shot image classification, that means it’s able to make judgments about the contents of an image without the user needing to train the system beforehand on what to look for. Watch it in action with this online demo, which uses WebGPU to implement CLIP (Contrastive Language–Image Pre-training) running in one’s browser, using the input from an attached camera.

By giving the program some natural language visual concept labels (such as ‘person’ or ‘cat’) that fit a hypothetical template for the image content, the system will output — in real-time — its judgement on the appropriateness of such labels to what the camera sees. Again, all of this runs locally.

It’s maybe a little bit unintuitive, but what’s happening in the demo is that the system is deciding which of the user-provided labels (“a photo of a cat” vs “a photo of a bald man”, for example) is most appropriate to what the camera sees. The more a particular label is judged a good fit for the image, the higher the number beside it.

This kind of process benefits greatly from shoveling the hard parts of the computation onto compatible graphics cards, which is exactly what WebGPU provides by allowing the browser access to a local GPU. WebGPU is relatively recent, but we’ve already seen it used to run LLMs (Large Language Models) directly in the browser.

Wondering what makes GPUs so very useful for AI-type applications? It’s all about their ability to work with enormous amounts of data very quickly.

Finding And Resurrecting Archie: The Internet’s First Search Engine

Back in the innocent days of the late 1980s the Internet as we know it today did not exist yet, but there were still plenty of FTP servers. Since manually keeping track of all of the files on those FTP server would be a royal pain, [Alan Emtage] set to work in 1986 to create an indexing and search service called Archie to streamline this process. As a local tool, it’d regularly fetch the file listing from FTP servers in a list, making this available for easy local search.

After its initial release in 1990, its feature set was expanded to include a World Wide Web crawler by version 3.5 in 1995. Years later, it was assumed that the source for Archie had been lost. That was until the folk over at [The Serial Port] channel managed to track down a still running Archie server in Poland.

The name Archie comes from the word ‘archive’ with the ‘v’ stripped, with no relation to the Archie comics. Even so, this assumption inspired the Gopher search engines Jughead and Veronica. Of these the former is still around, and Veronica’s original database was lost, but a re-implementation of it is still around. Archie itself enjoyed a period of relative commercial success, with [Alan] starting Bunyip Information Systems in 1992 which lasted until 2003. To experience Archie today, [The Serial Port] has the Archie documentation online, along with a live server if you’re feeling like reclaiming the early Internet.

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DIY Eye And Face Tracking For The Valve Index VR Headset

The Valve Index VR headset has been around for a few years now. It doesn’t come with eye or face tracking, but that didn’t stop inspired folks like [Physics-Dude] from adding DIY solutions in elegant and effective ways using a combination of hardware, open software, and 3D printable parts.

The whole assembly integrates tightly, thanks in part to the “frunk” designed into the Index for exactly this kind of thing.

This project leverages the EyeTrackVR project (and optionally, Project Babble for mouth tracking) which both have great applications particularly in social VR spaces.

These are open-source, self-contained and modular solutions intended for a variety of hardware platforms. Of course, every millimeter and gram tends to count when it’s something that gets worn on one’s head, so [Physics-Dude] tailored a solution specifically for the Valve Index. His project makes great use of the platform’s hacker-friendly hardware design.

[Physics-Dude] also makes excellent use of a certain widely-available “gumstick” style USB hub as an important part of his build. Combined with with the front-mounted USB port on the Index, it results in an extremely compact and tightly integrated solution that looks great. While it can be risky to rely on a particular off-the-shelf item in a build, doing so absolutely has its place here.

The documentation is fantastic, including welcome guidance on cable routing and step-by-step instructions. If you’ve been interested in adding eye tracking to a project, be sure to give it a look. Already have eye tracking in a project of your own? Tell us all about it!

Radio Caroline At 60

In the 1960s, if you were a teenager in the United States, a big part of your life was probably music. There was a seemingly endless supply of both radio stations and 45s to keep you entertained. In the UK and other countries, though, the government held a monopoly on broadcasting, and they were not always enthralled with the music kids liked. Where there is demand, there is an opportunity, and several enterprising broadcasters set up radio stations at sea, the so-called pirate radio stations. In 1964, Irish businessman [Ronan O’Rahilly] did just this and founded Radio Caroline. Can you imagine that 60 years later, Radio Caroline is still around?

Not that it has been in operation for 60 years in a row. There were a few years the station’s ship had been impounded by creditors. Then, the ship ran aground on the Goodwin Sands and was damaged. You can see a news short from 1965 in the video below (Radio Caroline shows up at about the 1:50 mark).

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Hackaday Links: May 19, 2024

If there was one question we heard most often this week, it was “Did you see it?” With “it” referring to the stunning display of aurora borealis — and australis, we assume — on and off for several days. The major outburst here in North America was actually late last week, with aurora extending as far south as Puerto Rico on the night of the tenth. We here in North Idaho were well-situated for prime viewing, but alas, light pollution made things a bit tame without a short drive from the city lights. Totally worth it:

Hat tip to Tom Maloney for the pics. That last one is very reminiscent of what we saw back in 1989 with the geomagnetic storm that knocked Québec’s grid offline, except then the colors were shifted much more toward the red end of the spectrum back then.

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Lost Foam Casting In Action

Even though not all of us will do it, many of us are interested in the art of casting metal. It remains a process that’s not out of reach, though, especially for metals such as aluminium whose melting points are reachable with a gas flame. The video below the break takes us through the aluminium casting process by showing us the lost-foam casting of a cylinder head for a BSA Bantam motorcycle.

The foam pattern is CNC milled to shape, and the leftover foam swarf is removed with a hot wire. The pattern is coated with a refractory coating of gypsum slurry, and the whole is set up in a tub packed with sand. We get the impression that the escaping gasses make this a tricky pour without an extra sprue, and indeed, they rate it as not perfect. The cooling fins on the final head are a little ragged, so it won’t be the part that goes on a bike, but we can see with a bit of refining, this process could deliver very good results.

For this pour, they use a gas furnace, but we’ve seen it done with a microwave oven. Usually, you are losing wax, not foam, but the idea is the same.

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[Scott Manley] Explains GPS Jamming

We always think of [Scott Manley] as someone who knows a lot about rockets. So, if you think about it, it isn’t surprising he’s talking about GPS — after all, the system uses satellites. GPS is used in everything these days, and other forms of navigation are starting to fall by the wayside. However, the problem is that the system is vulnerable to jamming and spoofing. This is especially important if you fear GPS allowing missiles or drones to strike precise targets. But there are also plenty of opportunities for malicious acts. For example, drone light shows may be subject to GPS attacks from rival companies, and you can easily imagine worse. [Scott] talks about the issues around GPS spoofing in the video, which you can see below.

Since GPS satellites are distant, blocking the signal is almost too easy, sometimes happening inadvertently. GPS has technology to operate in the face of noise and interference, but there’s no way to prevent it entirely. Spoofing — where you produce false GPS coordinates — is much more difficult.

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