Following faces with OpenCV and Arduino

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD4uFD7j0AU&w=470]

[Marco] has had some fun with OpenCV in the area of face tracking. Using an older laser project, he has cobbled together a system that will track a face and put a laser on it. While he is just using this as a proof of concept, it goes without saying that you probably shouldn’t mount a laser on a face tracker. However, stuffing this into a myKeepon wouldn’t be a horrible thing.

[Marco] shares the process of getting the OpenCV bit working in this writeup, you’ll have to refer back to his laser gun project for the physical build.

 

[via Adafruit]

 

Web game bot coded with Python

We find the programming challenge of game-playing bots to be fascinating. Take a look at this Python bot which plays Burrito Bison all the way through (video after the break). This is a totally pedantic exercise which has no purpose, other than to hone your mastery of a certain programming problem. And to that we say Bravo!

We looked in on a similar project which used some C# code to dominate the game Bejeweled Blitz. We’re not fantastic at C# and that code was never made public. But [Audionatics] has released this code through Github, and it’s written in Python which is a language in which we’re well versed.

The script monitors pixel locations to use as an input, which [Audionautics] admits is very error-prone. But if everything is setup just right it works like a charm. He’s also using the PyWin package which we believe is what lets the script move the cursor and register button clicks. We think this is really fun, but it make us wonder about the black-hat possibilities. What are the chances this could be turned into a gambling bot? Scary thought, huh?

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Circuit Playground – An electronics reference app from Adafruit

It’s not everyday that we review software around here, but the folks at Adafruit recently put together an iOS app that I figured might be of interest. Their iPad/iPhone compatible application is called “Circuit Playground”, and it includes all sorts of handy electronics reference tools. For the context of this review, it should be noted that I paid for the application myself, and that I have had no communication with the Adafruit team regarding my assessment of the app.

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