thebaldgeek

Single board computers are not just about running Windows or Linux.
Some of them are built to do specific jobs…. Like computer graphics.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/04/new_hobbyist_board_focuses_on_graphics/

Imagination Technologies, the MIPS chipper firm behind PowerVR, has a new hobbyist board. For fifty quid you can do some techie tinkering.

The idea is to build a community similar to that surrounding Arduino, Beagle or Raspberry Pi, which will create applications and devices which then use MIPS processors.

The Ci20 has an emphasis on video. There is a four-pipe PowerVR SGX540 graphics offering full support for OpenGL 2.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 and dedicated video hardware for low power 1080p decoding at 30 fps and resolutions up to 2K.

Behind this there is a 1.2 GHz dual-core, MIPS32-based Ingenic JZ4780 SoC, 32kB L1 I- and D-cache, 512kB L2 cache processor and fast Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. It’s packed with 1GB DDR3 memory, 4GB flash and an SD card expansion slot, and, as you might expect, loads of ports: 2 x UART, 25 x GPIO, 2 x SPI, I2C, ADC, expansion headers and a 14-pin ETAG connector, so you could interface it to a Raspberry Pi.

Just a heads up. Nothing more.
Its a small computer. It’s been built for graphics.
If you have a graphics problem, this is the solution.

This one is in the sure-why-not catagory……

Remember the tool that the space station needed, so NASA designed it on the ground and emailed the file to them, they used their 3D printer to make it in space? (I blogged about it a while back, but can’t link to unpublished blogs).

This one is much the same.
Guy has large 3D printer in garage, makes lots of things, thinks to himself, ‘Wonder if I can print a lawn mower?’

http://3dprint.com/34873/3d-printed-lawn-mower/

Visit the link to see a photo of it…. Not bad, not bad at all.
It cost him about 13 bucks to print the whole thing…..

3D printing is not going to go away.
More stuff is going to pop up, yes, a lot of it will be prototype stuff, but in time, homes will have them and we will be able to print off day to day use stuff, like plates, knives and forks for example.

People are working on printing electronic parts, so once that happens… next time you lose the remote control, don’t bother looking in the Coco Pops box, just print another one.

Want to get up to speed on AI?
Want to disappear down a pretty deep rabbit hole for a few hours and blow your mind with the current state of AI?

Super, follow this link;

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/533686/2014-in-computing-breakthroughs-in-artificial-intelligence/

The holy grail of artificial intelligence—creating software that comes close to mimicking human intelligence—remains far off. But 2014 saw major strides in machine learning software that can gain abilities from experience. Companies in sectors from biotech to computing turned to these new techniques to solve tough problems or develop new products.

Its a great read just on it’s own, its short, but just riddled with links to back up the ‘report’.

I got a lot out of it, and highly recommend you take at least a quick look.
AI really is here, I’m hoping like crazy to dip a toe into the water sometime this year.

This one is for my mate Matt (BA).

http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/07/trackingpoint-takes-dead-aim-at-the-future-of-firearms-targeting

It’s not so much the gun, but the gun sight.

The technology works like this: A shooter designates a target using a small button on the rifle’s trigger guide. This target can be moving up to 30 mph. Once the target is mapped, a Linux-based system housed in the optics casing calculates all the variables needed to hit that mark. When the shooter is ready to fire, they pull the trigger all the way back, yet the gun fires only when they line the crosshairs up with designated mark one more time. The system assesses the effects of gravity and Coriolis force. When the bullet leaves the barrel it always hits its mark. The shooter cannot miss.

So why am I blogging about a gun here?

Because its all possible due to a SBC. Yup. The gun sight is based around a single board computer….. Which one we don’t know, and frankly, don’t need to know…. Just that it’s a small computer running Linux.

They are popping up all over the place, giving things intelligence that in the past was, well, frankly, up to people to spend years developing the skills and experience to operate expertly.
Now, taking a 1 mile sniper shot is like playing a video game. Paint the target, pull the trigger, paint the target again and boom. Dead.
From a mile away.