Camera module, Operating systems, Raspberry Pi Zero, Software

Raspberry Pi Zero used to help a cat get even more attention with facial recognition

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Amsterdam-based software engineer Arkaitz Garro has taken a Raspberry Pi Zero and a camera module and fixed it, using what looks like a Pi Hut Zero View, to a window. The window is located near to his back door. When the camera recognises his cat (and no-one else’s), it sends him a message via Slack to open the door to admit his cat, Bobit, to the house. The Pi uses MotionEyeOS to detect movement and then sends the image to Amazon Web Services’ Rekognition AI software to identify the specific cat. I do wonder how many times a day the cat just sits there, getting recognised and then fails to come in when the door is opened, just to get attention!

Geeky Techiness, Operating systems, Tutorials

Change the speed of the I2C bus on a Raspberry Pi with this config change

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Matt, over at Raspberry Pi Spy, has blogged about a way to improve the performance of the I2C bus on a Raspberry Pi. The bus, which is used for, among other things, sensor readings and outputting to OLED displays defaults to 100Kb/s but can be made to go as fast as 400Kb/s by changing a value in /boot/config.txt. This can improve performance for some applications. For the full details, head over to this page.

Big Birthday Weekend, Events, Raspberry Jams

This Saturday/Sunday – get involved with the Raspberry Pi Community and go to a Raspberry Jam!

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This coming weekend, 3rd-4th March, over 100 community-run Raspberry Jams will take place in 38 countries throughout the world. From Canada to Australia and Sweden to South Africa, it is a truly international celebration of all things Raspberry Pi. To find your nearest local Jam, head over to the special Big Birthday Weekend map.

Myself and fellow CamJam organiser Tim Richardson will be attending three Jams over the weekend. The first is on Saturday morning: Milton Keynes Raspberry Jam at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. The next is our very own Jam: Potton Pi and Pints on Saturday afternoon – we’re on the Bedfordshire/Cambridgeshire border if you’d like to join us! On the Sunday, we’ll be attending the Southend Raspberry Jam taking our set of pi-topCEEDs with us for use at their drop-in workshop sessions.

Magazines, Raspberry Pi Foundation, Retro, Security

New issue of Raspberry Pi magazine The MagPi is a Retro Computing special

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The MagPi issue 67 is out and is a retro computing special covering:

  • Hardware emulation and classic coding
  • The best emulators for Raspberry Pi
  • Using a Retro Computer
  • The best retro computer community builds

There’s also plenty of features on cyber security and the usual mix of projects, news and reviews. Also included is a live-booting DVD of the current version of Raspbian Stretch with Desktop to use on your PC or Mac.

You can download it for free from The MagPi website or purchase from online retailers or see if you can find it in the shops.

Making, Software

Running a laser cutter from a Raspberry Pi

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Alex Eames recently bought a laser cutter to add to his workspace. After playing with the toolchain for a bit, he discovered a piece of software, called K40 Whisperer, which could be installed on Linux and was compatible with his cutter. So, he installed the software and reduced the number of hoops he needed to jump through to get a design from design software to actual cutting. You can read how he did it here.