Build real-world computer vision applications and develop cool demos using OpenCV for Python About This Book Learn how to apply complex visual effects to images using geometric transformations and image filters Extract features from an image and use them to develop advanced applications Build algorithms to help you understand the image content and perform visual searches Who This Book Is For This book is intended for Python developers who are new to OpenCV and want to develop computer vision applications with OpenCV-Python. This book is also useful for generic software developers who want to deploy computer vision applications on the cloud. It would be helpful to have some familiarity with basic mathematical concepts such as vectors, matrices, and so on. What You Will Learn Apply geometric transformations to images, perform image filtering, and convert an image into a cartoon-like image Detect and track various body parts such as the face, nose, eyes, ears, and mouth Stitch multiple images of a scene together to create a panoramic image Make an object disappear from an image Identify different shapes, segment an image, and track an object in a live video Recognize an object in an image and build a visual search engine Reconstruct a 3D map from images Build an augmented reality application In Detail Computer vision is found everywhere in modern technology. OpenCV for Python enables us to run computer vision algorithms in real time. With the advent of powerful machines, we are getting more processing power to work with. Using this technology, we can seamlessly integrate our computer vision applications into the cloud. Web developers can develop complex applications without having to reinvent the wheel. This book will walk you through all the building blocks needed to build amazing computer vision applications with ease. We start off with applying geometric transformations to images. We then discuss affine and projective transformations and see how we can use them to apply cool geometric effects to photos. We will then cover techniques used for object recognition, 3D reconstruction, stereo imaging, and other computer vision applications. This book will also provide clear examples written in Python to build OpenCV applications. The book starts off with simple beginner’s level tasks such as basic processing and handling images, image mapping, and detecting images. It also covers popular OpenCV libraries with the help of examples. The book is a practical tutorial that covers various examples at different levels, teaching you about the different functions of OpenCV and their actual implementation. Style and approach This is a conversational-style book filled with hands-on examples that are really easy to understand. Each topic is explained very clearly and is followed by a programmatic implementation so that the concept is solidified. Each topic contributes to something bigger in the following chapters, which helps you understand how to piece things together to build something big and complex.

Make life at the office easier for server administrators by helping them build resilient Ubuntu server systems About This Book Tackle the issues you come across in keeping your Ubuntu server up and running Build server machines and troubleshoot cloud computing related issues using Open Stack Discover tips and best practices to be followed for minimum maintenance of Ubuntu Server 3 Who This Book Is For This book is for a vast audience of Linux system administrators who primarily work on Debian-based systems and spend long hours trying fix issues with the enterprise server. Ubuntu is already one of the most popular OSes and this book targets the most common issues that most administrators have to deal with. With the right tools and definite solutions, you will be able to keep your Ubuntu servers in the pink of health. What You Will Learn Deploy packages and their dependencies with repositories Set up your own DNS and network for Ubuntu Server Authenticate and validate users and their access to various systems and services Maintain, monitor, and optimize your server resources and avoid tremendous load Get to know about processes, assigning and changing priorities, and running processes in background Optimize your shell with tools and provide users with an improved shell experience Set up separate environments for various services and run them safely in isolation Understand, build, and deploy OpenStack on your Ubuntu Server In Detail Ubuntu is becoming one of the favorite Linux flavors for many enterprises and is being adopted to a large extent. It supports a wide variety of common network systems and the use of standard Internet services including file serving, e-mail, Web, DNS, and database management. A large scale use and implementation of Ubuntu on servers has given rise to a vast army of Linux administrators who battle it out day in and day out to make sure the systems are in the right frame of operation and pre-empt any untoward incidents that may result in catastrophes for the businesses using it. Despite all these efforts, glitches and bugs occur that affect Ubuntu server's network, memory, application, and hardware and also generate cloud computing related issues using OpenStack. This book will help you end to end. Right from setting up your new Ubuntu Server to learning the best practices to host OpenStack without any hassles. You will be able to control the priority of jobs, restrict or allow access users to certain services, deploy packages, tackle issues related to server effectively, and reduce downtime. Also, you will learn to set up OpenStack, and manage and monitor its services while tuning the machine with best practices. You will also get to know about Virtualization to make services serve users better. Chapter by chapter, you will learn to add new features and functionalities and make your Ubuntu server a full-fledged, production-ready system. Style and approach This book contains topic-by-topic discussion in an easy-to-understand language with loads of examples to help you take care of Ubuntu Server. Plenty of screenshots will guide you through a step-by-step approach.

A complete guide for Python programmers to master scientific computing using Python APIs and tools About This Book The basics of scientific computing to advanced concepts involving parallel and large scale computation are all covered. Most of the Python APIs and tools used in scientific computing are discussed in detail The concepts are discussed with suitable example programs Who This Book Is For If you are a Python programmer and want to get your hands on scientific computing, this book is for you. The book expects you to have had exposure to various concepts of Python programming. What You Will Learn Fundamentals and components of scientific computing Scientific computing data management Performing numerical computing using NumPy and SciPy Concepts and programming for symbolic computing using SymPy Using the plotting library matplotlib for data visualization Data analysis and visualization using Pandas, matplotlib, and IPython Performing parallel and high performance computing Real-life case studies and best practices of scientific computing In Detail In today's world, along with theoretical and experimental work, scientific computing has become an important part of scientific disciplines. Numerical calculations, simulations and computer modeling in this day and age form the vast majority of both experimental and theoretical papers. In the scientific method, replication and reproducibility are two important contributing factors. A complete and concrete scientific result should be reproducible and replicable. Python is suitable for scientific computing. A large community of users, plenty of help and documentation, a large collection of scientific libraries and environments, great performance, and good support makes Python a great choice for scientific computing. At present Python is among the top choices for developing scientific workflow and the book targets existing Python developers to master this domain using Python. The main things to learn in the book are the concept of scientific workflow, managing scientific workflow data and performing computation on this data using Python. The book discusses NumPy, SciPy, SymPy, matplotlib, Pandas and IPython with several example programs. Style and approach This book follows a hands-on approach to explain the complex concepts related to scientific computing. It details various APIs using appropriate examples.

Bestselling authors and world-renowned marketing strategists Al and Laura Ries usher in the new era of public relations. Today's major brands are born with publicity, not advertising. A closer look at the history of the most successful modern brands shows this to be true. In fact, an astonishing number of brands, including Palm, Starbucks, the Body Shop, Wal-Mart, Red Bull and Zara have been built with virtually no advertising. Using in-depth case histories of successful PR campaigns coupled with those of unsuccessful advertising campaigns, The Fall of Advertising provides valuable ideas for marketers -- all the while demonstrating why advertising lacks credibility, the crucial ingredient in brand building, and how only PR can supply that credibility; the big bang approach advocated by advertising people should be abandoned in favor of a slow build-up by PR; advertising should only be used to maintain brands once they have been established through publicity. Bold and accessible, The Fall of Advertising is bound to turn the world of marketing upside down.

In one of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, Edward P. Jones, two-time National Book Award finalist, tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black farmer and former slave who falls under the tutelage of William Robbins, the most powerful man in Manchester County, Virginia. Making certain he never circumvents the law, Townsend runs his affairs with unusual discipline. But when death takes him unexpectedly, his widow, Caldonia, can't uphold the estate's order and chaos ensues. In a daring and ambitious novel, Jones has woven a footnote of history into an epic that takes an unflinching look at slavery in all of its moral complexities. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

In the spirit of Alvin Toffler Future Shock , a social critique of our obsession with choice, and how it contributes to anxiety, dissatisfaction and regret. This paperback includes a new P.S. section with author interviews, insights, features, suggested readings, and more. Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions--both big and small--have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. We assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice , Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice--the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish--becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice--from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs--has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counterintuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on the important ones and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.

Long before there were creative-writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to writeBy reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says Francine Prose. In Reading Like a Writer , Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters. She reads the work of the very best writers—Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Woolf, Chekhov—and discovers why their work has endured. She takes pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is deeply moved by the brilliant characterization in George Eliot's Middlemarch . She looks to John Le Carr for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue, to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail, and to James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield for clever examples of how to employ gesture to create character. She cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which literature is crafted. Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart.

2 March 1810 . . . Today, I fell in love. At the age of ten, Miranda Cheever showed no signs of Great Beauty. And even at ten, Miranda learned to accept the expectations society held for her until the afternoon when Nigel Bevelstoke, the handsome and dashing Viscount Turner, solemnly kissed her hand and promised her that one day she would grow into herself, that one day she would be as beautiful as she already was smart. And even at ten, Miranda knew she would love him forever. But the years that followed were as cruel to Turner as they were kind to Miranda. She is as intriguing as the viscount boldly predicted on that memorable day while he is a lonely, bitter man, crushed by a devastating loss. But Miranda has never forgotten the truth she set down on paper all those years earlier and she will not allow the love that is her destiny to slip lightly through her fingers . . .

New York Times bestseller Lirael is perfect for fans of epic fantasy like Game of Thrones . In this sequel to the critically acclaimed Sabriel, Garth Nix draws readers deeper into the magical landscape of the Old Kingdom. Lirael has never felt like a true daughter of the Clayr. Abandoned by her mother, ignorant of her father identity, Lirael resembles no one else in her large extended family living in the Clayr glacier. She doesn't even have the Sight the ability to see into possible futures that is the very birthright of the Clayr. Nevertheless she must undertake a desperate mission under the growing shadow of an ancient evil one that opposes the Royal Family, blocks the Sight of the Clayr, and threatens to break the very boundary between Life and Death itself. With only her faithful companion, the Disreputable Dog, to help her, Lirael must find the courage to seek her own hidden destiny.

There's trouble at the Castle, and it's all because Merrin Meredith has returned with Darke plans for Septimus. More trouble awaits Septimus and Jenna in the form of Tertius Fume, the ghost of the very first Chief Hermetic Scribe, who is determined to send Septimus on a deadly Queste. But Septimus and Jenna have other plans they are headed for the mysterious House of Foryx, a place where all Time meets and the place where they fervently hope they will be able to find Nicko and Snorri, who were trapped back in time in physik. But how will Septimus escape the QuesteQueste , like all the books in the Septimus Heap series, is filled with nonstop action, humor, and fantastical adventure as Septimus continues his journey of Magykal self-discovery.

Design a complete workflow with Blender to create stunning 3D scenes and films step-by-step! About This Book Give life to a character within a full animated short film by learning the rigging and animation process Make use of the powerful tools available in Blender to produce professional-quality 3D characters and environments Discover advanced techniques by adding fur to a character, creating a grass field, and fine-tuning a shot with post-processing effects to enhance your creations Who This Book Is For This book will give any beginner the necessary skills and knowledge to create own 3D projects with Blender. You don't need to have any previous experience in 3D modeling, but if you do, then this book is a great way get you started with Blender. This book is for anyone who wants to learn Blender by creating concrete projects. What You Will Learn Understand the basics of 3D and how to navigate your way around the Blender interface Create a 3D robot toy model from start to finish using the basic modeling tools of Blender Make a full alien character using the skin mesh modifier and the sculpting tools with an artistic approach Use re-topology techniques to create a clean 3D version of the previously sculpted alien Model a full haunted house and its environment using more advanced modeling tools and techniques such as the Array Modifier, Instance duplication, or Curves Discover the power of the texture paint tool in order to add color to the haunted house Get to know the Cycles render engine by creating different materials for the house and the environment In Detail Blender is a powerful tool, stable, with an integral workflow that will allow you to understand your learning of 3D creation with serenity. Today, it is considered to be one of the most complete 3D packages on the market and it is free and open source! It is very efficient for many types of productions, such as 3D animated or live action films, architecture, research, or even game creation with its integrated game engine and its use of the Python language. Moreover, Blender has an active community that contributes to expanding its functionalities. Today, it is used in many professional products and by many companies. Through this book, you will create many types of concert projects using a step-by-step approach. You will start by getting to know the modeling tools available in Blender as you create a 3D robot toy. Then, you will discover more advanced techniques such as sculpting and re-topology by creating a funny alien character. After that, you will create a full haunted house scene. For the last project, you will create a short film featuring a rat cowboy shooting cheese in a rat trap! This will be a more complex project in which you learn how to rig, animate, compose advanced material, composite, and edit a full sequence. Each project in this book will give you more practice and increase your knowledge of the Blender tools. By the end of this book, you will master a workflow that you will be able to apply to your own creations. Style and approach This is an easy-to-follow book that is based on four concrete projects, with increasing levels of difficulty. Each chapter will teach you how to create these projects step-by-step. New tools and techniques are introduced in a theoretical and practical way, so you can apply them in your own projects later.

The blue jays and cardinals of Stone-Run Forest have turned against each other. According to legend, only Swordbird, son of the Great Spirit, has the power to conquer evil and restore peace to the land. But is he real or just a mythCan Swordbird arrive in time to save the forest . . . or will it be too lateTwelve-year-old author Nancy Yi Fan has woven a captivating tale about the birds of Stone-Run Forest and the heroism, courage, and resourcefulness in their quest for peace.

Fire alone can save our clan... Fireheart's traitorous enemy Tigerclaw has been vanquished and exiled from ThunderClan but Fireheart can't shake the feeling that he's lurking out there in the forest, waiting for the chance to strike. That's not the only problem facing the young ThunderClan deputy in these blazing summer months, as he struggles to handle ominous omens, a disrespectful apprentice with a shocking secret, and a devastated Clan leader who is a shell of her former self. Meanwhile the forest gets hotter and hotter . . . and everyone braces for the coming storm. . . .

The time has come for three kits of ThunderClan Hollypaw, Jaypaw, and Lionpaw to become apprentices. Grandchildren of the great leader Firestar, all three possess unusual power and talent. But dark secrets surround them, and a mysterious prophecy hints at trouble to come. The warrior code is in danger of being washed away by a river of blood, and all the young cats' strength will be needed if the Clans are to survive.

Darkness, air, water, and sky will come together... The wild cats of the forest have lived in peace and harmony for many moons -- but a doom that will change everything is coming. Strange messages from their warrior ancestors speak of terrifying new prophecies, danger, and a mysterious destiny. All the signs point to young warrior Brambleclaw as the cat with the fate of the forest in his paws. But why would the son of wicked cat Tigerstar be chosen to be a heroAnd who are the other cats mentioned in the prophecyAll Brambleclaw knows for sure is that the strength and courage of the greatest warriors will be needed now, as the quest to save the Clans begins. ...and shake the forest to its roots.

Create powerful applications to interact with popular service providers such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, and more by leveraging the OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework About This Book Learn how to use the OAuth 2.0 protocol to interact with the world's most popular service providers, such as Facebook, Google, Instagram, Slack, Box, and more Master the finer details of this complex protocol to maximize the potential of your application while maintaining the utmost of security Step through the construction of a real-world working application that logs you in with your Facebook account to create a compelling infographic about the most important person in the world—you! Who This Book Is Fo If you are an application developer, software architect, security engineer, or even a casual programmer looking to leverage the power of OAuth, Mastering OAuth 2.0 is for you. Covering basic topics such as registering your application and choosing an appropriate workflow, to advanced topics such as security considerations and extensions to the specification, this book has something for everyone. A basic knowledge of programming and OAuth is recommended. What You Will Learn Discover the power and prevalence of OAuth 2.0 and use it to improve your application's capabilities Step through the process of creating a real-world application that interacts with Facebook using OAuth 2.0 Examine the various workflows described by the specification, looking at what they are and when to use them Learn about the many security considerations involved with creating an application that interacts with other service providers Develop your debugging skills with dedicated pages for tooling and troubleshooting Build your own rich, powerful applications by leveraging world-class technologies from companies around the world In Detail OAuth 2.0 is a powerful authentication and authorization framework that has been adopted as a standard in the technical community. Proper use of this protocol will enable your application to interact with the world's most popular service providers, allowing you to leverage their world-class technologies in your own application. Want to log your user in to your application with their Facebook accountWant to display an interactive Google Map in your applicationHow about posting an update to your user's LinkedIn feedThis is all achievable through the power of OAuth. With a focus on practicality and security, this book takes a detailed and hands-on approach to explaining the protocol, highlighting important pieces of information along the way. At the beginning, you will learn what OAuth is, how it works at a high level, and the steps involved in creating an application. After obtaining an overview of OAuth, you will move on to the second part of the book where you will learn the need for and importance of registering your application and types of supported workflows. You will discover more about the access token, how you can use it with your application, and how to refresh it after expiration. By the end of the book, you will know how to make your application architecture robust. You will explore the security considerations and effective methods to debug your applications using appropriate tools. You will also have a look at special considerations to integrate with OAuth service providers via native mobile applications. In addition, you will also come across support resources for OAuth and credentials grant. Style and approach With a focus on practicality and security, Mastering OAuth 2.0 takes a top-down approach at exploring the protocol. Discussed first at a high level, examining the importance and overall structure of the protocol, the book then dives into each subject, adding more depth as we proceed. This all culminates in an example application that will be built, step by step, using the valuable and practical knowledge you have gained.

Unleash the power of Apache Oozie to create and manage your big data and machine learning pipelines in one go About This Book Teaches you everything you need to know to get started with Apache Oozie from scratch and manage your data pipelines effortlessly Learn to write data ingestion workflows with the help of real-life examples from the author’s own personal experience Embed Spark jobs to run your machine learning models on top of Hadoop Who This Book Is For If you are an expert Hadoop user who wants to use Apache Oozie to handle workflows efficiently, this book is for you. This book will be handy to anyone who is familiar with the basics of Hadoop and wants to automate data and machine learning pipelines. What You Will Learn Install and configure Oozie from source code on your Hadoop cluster Dive into the world of Oozie with Java MapReduce jobs Schedule Hive ETL and data ingestion jobs >Import data from a database through Sqoop jobs in HDFS Create and process data pipelines with Pig, hive *s as per business requirements. Run machine learning Spark jobs on Hadoop Create quick Oozie jobs using Hue Make the most of Oozie’s security capabilities by configuring Oozie’s security In Detail As more and more organizations are discovering the use of big data analytics, interest in platforms that provide storage, computation, and analytic capabilities is booming exponentially. This calls for data management. Hadoop caters to this need. Oozie fulfils this necessity for a scheduler for a Hadoop job by acting as a cron to better analyze data. Apache Oozie Essentials starts off with the basics right from installing and configuring Oozie from source code on your Hadoop cluster to managing your complex clusters. You will learn how to create data ingestion and machine learning workflows. This book is sprinkled with the examples and exercises to help you take your big data learning to the next level. You will discover how to write workflows to run your MapReduce, Pig ,Hive, and Sqoop *s and schedule them to run at a specific time or for a specific business requirement using a coordinator. This book has engaging real-life exercises and examples to get you in the thick of things. Lastly, you’ll get a grip of how to embed Spark jobs, which can be used to run your machine learning models on Hadoop. By the end of the book, you will have a good knowledge of Apache Oozie. You will be capable of using Oozie to handle large Hadoop workflows and even improve the availability of your Hadoop environment. Style and approach This book is a hands-on guide that explains Oozie using real-world examples. Each chapter is blended beautifully with fundamental concepts sprinkled in-between case study solution algorithms and topped off with self-learning exercises.

Acquire skills to manage your IT infrastructure effectively with Puppet About This BookBreeze through Puppet 4’s key features and performance improvements to bring real advantage to your IT infrastructureDiscover Puppet best practices to help you avoid common mistakes and pitfallsBlitz through easy-to-follow examples to get to grips with Puppet and succeed with everyday IT automationWho This Book Is ForIf you're an experienced IT professional and a new Puppet user, this book will provide you with all you need to know to go from installation to advanced automation in no time at all. Get a rapid introduction to the essential topics and then tackle Puppet for advanced automation.What You Will LearnWrite and employ individual Puppet manifestsUnderstand how Puppet implements system abstractionDeploy the Puppet master and agentsLeverage and extend Facter to summarize your systems Create modular and reusable Puppet code Extend your code base with publicly available Puppet modules Use the modern features of Puppet 4 Separate logic from data using Hiera In Detail Puppet is a configuration management tool that allows you to automate all your IT configurations, giving you control over what you do to each Puppet Agent in a network, and when and how you do it. In this age of digital delivery and ubiquitous Internet presence, it's becoming increasingly important to implement scalable and portable solutions, not only in terms of software, but also the systems that run it. The free Ruby-based tool Puppet has established itself as the most successful solution to manage any IT infrastructure. Ranging from local development environments through complex data center setups to scalable cloud implementations, Puppet allows you to handle them all with a unified approach. Puppet 4 Essentials, Second Edition gets you started rapidly and intuitively as you’ll put Puppet’s tools to work right away. It will also highlight the changes associated with performance improvements as well as the new language features in Puppet 4. We’ll start with a quick introduction to Puppet to get you managing your IT systems quickly. You will then learn about the Puppet Agent that comes with an all-in-one (AIO) package and can run on multiple systems. Next, we’ll show you the Puppet Server for high-performance communication and passenger packages. As you progress through the book, the innovative structure and approach of Puppet will be explained with powerful use cases. The difficulties that are inherent to a complex and powerful tool will no longer be a problem for you as you discover Puppet's fascinating intricacies. By the end of the book, you will not only know how to use Puppet, but also its companion tools Facter and Hiera, and will be able to leverage the flexibility and expressive power implemented by their tool chain. Style and approach This quick learning guide for Puppet follows a practical approach, starting with some basic commands that you can use from the shell right away. It comprises a series of examples that will get you familiar with the most important aspects of Puppet in a flash.

Utilize the powerful ingredients of Raspberry Pi to bring to life your amazing robots that can act, draw, and have fun with laser tagsAbout This BookLearn to implement a number of features offered by Raspberry Pi to build your own amazing robotsUnderstand how to add vision and voice to your robots.This fast-paced practical guide comprises a number of creative projects to take your Raspberry Pi knowledge to the next level Who This Book Is For This all-encompassing guide was created for anyone who is interested in expanding their knowledge in applying the peripherals of Raspberry Pi. If you have a fancy for building complex-looking robots with simple, inexpensive, and readily available hardware, then this book is ideal for you. Prior understanding of Raspberry Pi with simple mechanical systems is recommended.What You Will LearnAdd sensors to your robot so that it can sense the world around itKnow everything there is to know about accessing motors and servos to provide movement to the robotic platformExplore the feature of adding vision to your robot so it can “see” the world around itRefine your robot with the skill of speech recognition so that it can receive commandsPolish your robot by adding speech output so it can communicate with the world around itMaximize the use of servos in Raspberry Pi to create a drawing robotStrengthen your robot by adding wireless communication skills so you can see what the robot is seeing and control it from a distanceBuild an unbelievable autonomous hexcopter controlled by Raspberry Pi In Detail The Raspberry Pi is a series of credit card-sized single-board computers developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation with the intention of promoting the teaching of basic computer science in schools. The Raspberry Pi is known as a tiny computer built on a single circuit board. It runs a Linux operating system, and has connection ports for various peripherals so that it can be hooked up to sensors, motors, cameras, and more. Raspberry Pi has been hugely popular among hardware hobbyists for various projects, including robotics. This book gives you an insight into implementing several creative projects using the peripherals provided by Raspberry Pi. To start, we’ll walk through the basic robotics concepts that the world of Raspberry Pi offers us, implementing wireless communication to control your robot from a distance. Next, we demonstrate how to build a sensible and a visionary robot, maximizing the use of sensors and step controllers. After that, we focus on building a wheeled robot that can draw and play hockey. To finish with a bang, we’ll build an autonomous hexcopter, that is, a flying robot controlled by Raspberry Pi. By the end of this book, you will be a maestro in applying an array of different technologies to create almost any imaginable robot.Style and approach This book is an easy-to-follow, project-based guide that throws you directly into the action of creating almost any imaginable robot through blueprints. It is full of step by step instructions and screenshots to help you build amazing robots in no time at all.

Over 100 recipes exploring the new and exciting features of Unity 5 to spice up your Unity skillsetAbout This BookBuilt on the solid foundation of the popular Unity 4.x Cookbook, the recipes in this edition have been completely updated for Unity 5Features recipes for both 2D and 3D gamesProvides you with techniques for the new features of Unity 5, including the new UI system, 2D game development, new Standard Shaders, and the new Audio Mixer Who This Book Is For From beginners to advanced users, from artists to coders, this book is for you and everyone in your team! Programmers can explore multimedia features, and multimedia developers can try their hand at *ing. Basic knowledge and understanding of the Unity platform, game design principles, and programming knowledge in C# is essential.What You Will LearnImmerse players with great audio, utilizing Unity 5's audio features including the new Audio Mixer, ambient sound with Reverb Zones, dynamic soundtracks with Snapshots, and balanced audio via DuckingCreate better materials with Unity’s new, physically-based, Standard ShaderMeasure and control time, including pausing the game, displaying clocks and countdown timers, and even implementing “bullet time” effectsImprove ambiance through the use of lights and effects such as reflection and light probesCreate stylish user interfaces with the new UI system, including power-bars, clock displays, and an extensible inventory systemSave and load text and media assets from local or remote sources, publish your game via Unity Cloud, and communicate with websites and their databases to create online scoreboardsDiscover advanced techniques, including the publisher-subscriber and state patterns, performance bottleneck identification, and methods to maximize game performance and frame ratesControl 2D and 3D character movement, and use NavMeshAgents to write NPC and enemy behaviors such as seek, flee, flock, and waypoint path following In Detail Unity 5 is a flexible and intuitive multiplatform game engine that is becoming the industry’s de facto standard. Learn to craft your own 2D and 3D computer games by working through core concepts such as animation, audio, shaders, GUI, lights, cameras, and *ing to create your own games with Unity 5. Completely re-written to cover the new features of Unity 5, this book is a great resource for all Unity game developers, from those who have recently started using Unity right up to Unity professionals. The first half of the book focuses on core concepts of 2D game design while the second half focuses on developing 3D game development skills. In the first half, you will discover the new GUI system, the new Audio Mixer, external files, and animating 2D characters in 2D game development. As you progress further, you will familiarize yourself with the new Standard Shaders, the Mecanim system, Cameras, and the new Lighting features to hone your skills towards building 3D games to perfection. Finally, you will learn non-player character control and explore Unity 5's extra features to enhance your 3D game development skills.Style and approach Each chapter first introduces the topic area and explains how the techniques covered can enhance your games. Every recipe provides step-by-step instructions, followed by an explanation of how it all works, and useful additional refinements or alternative approaches. Every required resource and C# * (fully commented) is available to download, enabling you to follow each recipe yourself.

Learn and explore the fundamentals of data analysis with power of Mathematica About This Book Use the power of Mathematica to analyze data in your applications Discover the capabilities of data classification and pattern recognition offered by Mathematica Use hundreds of algorithms for time series analysis to predict the future Who This Book Is For The book is for those who want to learn to use the power of Mathematica to analyze and process data. Perhaps you are already familiar with data analysis but have never used Mathematica, or you know Mathematica but you are new to data analysis. With the help of this book, you will be able to quickly catch up on the key points for a successful start. What You Will Learn Import data from different sources to Mathematica Link external libraries with programs written in Mathematica Classify data and partition them into clusters Recognize faces, objects, text, and barcodes Use Mathematica functions for time series analysis Use algorithms for statistical data processing Predict the result based on the observations In Detail There are many algorithms for data analysis and it’s not always possible to quickly choose the best one for each case. Implementation of the algorithms takes a lot of time. With the help of Mathematica, you can quickly get a result from the use of a particular method, because this system contains almost all the known algorithms for data analysis. If you are not a programmer but you need to analyze data, this book will show you the capabilities of Mathematica when just few strings of intelligible code help to solve huge tasks from statistical issues to pattern recognition. If you're a programmer, with the help of this book, you will learn how to use the library of algorithms implemented in Mathematica in your programs, as well as how to write algorithm testing procedure. With each chapter, you'll be more immersed in the special world of Mathematica. Along with intuitive queries for data processing, we will highlight the nuances and features of this system, allowing you to build effective analysis systems. With the help of this book, you will learn how to optimize the computations by combining your libraries with the Mathematica kernel. Style and approach This book takes a step-by-step approach, accompanied by examples, so you get a better understanding of the logic of writing algorithms for data analysis in Mathematica. We provide a detailed explanation of all the nuances of the Mathematica language, no matter what your level of experience is.