get an image file with XMLHttpRequest and encode with base64

      var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
      var imgurl = "http://lh5.ggpht.com/-ZpKKJYkqobU/ULk2lb2yh5I/AAAAAAAAAAA/z74Pv1Zbfjc/photo.jpg";
      
      xhr.open('GET', imgurl, true);
      xhr.responseType = 'arraybuffer';//watch out this line!
      xhr.onload = function(){
        var blob = new Uint8Array(this.response);
        //encode with base64
        var uri = "data:image/jpeg;base64," + Base64.encode(blob);
        document.getElementById("myImage").src = uri;        
      };
      xhr.send();

following is the very simple Base64 encode algorithm

var Base64 = {
  _keyStr : "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=",

  // public method for encoding
  encode : function (input) {
      var output = "";
      var chr1, chr2, chr3, enc1, enc2, enc3, enc4;
      var i = 0;
      //input = Base64._utf8_encode(input); //comment out to encode binary file(like image)

      while (i < input.length) {

          chr1 = input[i++];
          chr2 = input[i++];
          chr3 = input[i++];

          enc1 = chr1 >> 2;
          enc2 = ((chr1 & 3) << 4) | (chr2 >> 4);
          enc3 = ((chr2 & 15) << 2) | (chr3 >> 6);
          enc4 = chr3 & 63;

          if (isNaN(chr2)) {
              enc3 = enc4 = 64;
          } else if (isNaN(chr3)) {
              enc4 = 64;
          }
          output = output +
                   Base64._keyStr.charAt(enc1) + Base64._keyStr.charAt(enc2) +
                   Base64._keyStr.charAt(enc3) + Base64._keyStr.charAt(enc4);
      }
      return output;
  }
}