SpaceX sent Starship to orbit — the next launch will try to bring it backSpaceX’s massive Starship rocket could take to the skies for the fourth time on June 5, with the primary objective of evaluating the second stage’s reusable heat shield as the vehicle tries to safely reenter the atmosphere for the first time. CEO Elon Musk“ said on his social media platform X that “There are many […]
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Guitar Center to Celebrate 50 Years of Taylor GuitarsGuitar Center to host event celebrating 50 Years of Taylor Guitars at La Mesa, CA store on Saturday, June 1

“An Afternoon with Andy Powers” will include discussion, demos, and Q&A highlighting classics and recent product launches with Andy Powers, Taylor CEO, President, and Chief Guitar Designer, as well as a short acoustic set by singer-songwriter and musician Hailey Knox

WHO: Guitar Center is teaming with Taylor Guitars for an exclusive event at the La Mesa, CA Guitar Center location. The event will feature discussion with Andy Powers, Taylor CEO, President, and Chief Guitar Designer, and a performance by singer-songwriter and musician Hailey Knox.

WHAT: Taylor and Guitar Center are partnering for an exclusive event at the La Mesa Guitar Center location on Saturday, June 1, 2024, to celebrate 50 Years of Taylor Guitars, telling the story of this legendary guitar manufacturer via its new 50th Anniversary Collection. The event will include discussion, demos, and Q&A highlighting classics and recent product launches with Andy Powers, as well as a short acoustic set by Hailey Knox. Since joining Taylor in 2011, Andy Powers has been responsible for many of the company's designs, including its V-Class bracing architecture, the American Dream acoustic line, and body styles including the Grand Pacific, Grand Theater and more.

Space is limited; RSVP here.

WHEN: Saturday, June 1, 2024, 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. PDT

WHERE: Guitar Center La Mesa8825 Murray DriveLa Mesa, CA 91942-3327The post Guitar Center to Celebrate 50 Years of Taylor Guitars first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Fixing A Camera’s WiFi Connectivity With GhidraIf your old camera’s WiFi picture upload feature breaks, what do you do? Begrudgingly get a new one? Well, if you’re like [Ge0rg], you break out Ghidra and find the culprit. He’s been hacking on Samsung’s connected cameras for a fair bit now, and we’ve covered his adventures hacking on Samsung’s Linux-powered camera series throughout the last decade, from getting root on them for fun, to deep dives into the series. Now, it was time to try and fix a problem with one particular camera, Samsung WB850F, which had its picture upload feature break at some point.
[Ge0rg] grabbed a firmware update .zip, and got greeted by a bunch of compile-time debug data as a bonus, making the reverse-engineering journey all that more tempting. After figuring out the update file partition mapping, loading the code into Ghidra, and feeding the debug data into it to get functions to properly parse, he got to the offending segment, and eventually figured out the bug. Turned out, a particularly blunt line of code checking the HTTP server response was confused by s in https, and a simple spoof server running on a device of your choice with a replacement hosts file is enough to have the feature work again, well, paired with a service that spoofs the long-shutdown Samsung’s picture upload server.
Turned out, a bunch more cameras from Samsung had the same check misfire for them, which made this reverse-engineering journey all that more fruitful. Once again, Ghidra skills save the day.

How to make an album cover for your music
We draw on in-depth advice from expert artists to explore how to make an album cover for your music, regardless of your skills or budget.

Reservoir reports double-digit revenue jump in latest fiscal year, to $144.9mThe company is forecasting continued growth, though at a somewhat slower pace, in the coming year
Source

Sony Music Group boss Rob Stringer talks acquisitions, artificial intelligence and how music streaming services should start charging free usersSony Music wants to see an end to free music subscriptions, and 5 other things we learned from its latest investor presentation
Source

Old Spotify Car Thing Hacks Gain New AttentionIf you haven’t heard by now, Spotify is shutting down support for their “Car Thing” on December 9th of this year. Once that happens the automotive media player will officially be useless, with users being advised to literally throw them in the trash come December 10th. Call it an early Christmas present from your friends at the multi-billion dollar streaming company.
Surely the hardware hacking community can do a bit better than that. As it turns out, there’s actually been a fair amount of hacking and research done on the Car Thing, it’s just that most of it happened a couple years back when the device first hit the market. Things stagnated a bit in the intervening years, but now that the clock is ticking, there’s far more interest in cracking open the gadget and seeing what else we can do with it.
[lmore377]’s Car Thing macropad hack from 2022.The car-thing-reverse-engineering repository on GitHub has a wealth of hardware and software information, and has been something of a rallying point for others who have been poking around inside the device. Unsurprisingly, the Car Thing runs Linux and with relatively minor work you can gain U-Boot and UART access. With just 512 MB of RAM and a Amlogic S905D2 chip that’s similar to what powers the Radxa Zero, it’s not exactly a powerhouse. Then again, we’ve seen plenty of awesome projects done with less.
If you’re more into the step-by-step approach, security researcher [Nolen Johnson] did a write-up about getting access to the Car Thing’s internal Linux system back in 2022 that’s certainly worth a look. As you’d imagine, there’s also a few YouTube videos out there that walk the viewer through gaining access to the hardware. This one from [Dinosaur Talks Tech] not only provides a good overview of how to get into the system, but covers flashing modified versions of the stock firmware to unlock various features and tweaking the internal Linux OS.
Interestingly enough, while we’ve seen plenty of homebrew hardware players for Spotify over the years, this is the first time the Car Thing has ever crossed our path. Something tells us though that this isn’t the last time we’ll hear about this forlorn Linux gadget.

Song Athletics announce Bones Bones from Song Athletics packs in 5.73GB of loops and samples than cover everything from acoustic drums to synth sounds, and just about everything in between. 

ROSTR launches Stack: free curated advice from Music Industry PROsROSTR, an online directory for music industry contacts, data, and jobs, has launched Stack, a free expert-curated collection of tools, resources, and recommendations for artists and music professionals. Stack launched. Continue reading
The post ROSTR launches Stack: free curated advice from Music Industry PROs appeared first on Hypebot.

In generative AI and music, will nice guys finish last? [MIDiA’s Tatiana Cirisano]Discover how generative AI is transforming the music industry while raising ethical questions about music licensing and copyright. As startups push boundaries, the stakes are higher than ever, challenging the. Continue reading
The post In generative AI and music, will nice guys finish last? [MIDiA’s Tatiana Cirisano] appeared first on Hypebot.

So You Have a Sonic Strategy – Now What?You’ve crafted the perfect sonic identity. Now, learn how to integrate it seamlessly across all aspects of your brand. Here are some key strategies for managing, scaling, and maximizing your. Continue reading
The post So You Have a Sonic Strategy – Now What? appeared first on Hypebot.

John Summit says Avicii comparisons are “extremely disrespectful”: “If there’s any way to honour his legacy, it’s by not making those same mistakes”John Summit has asked fans to not compare him or his music career to EDM superstar Avicii, who sadly died by suicide back in 2018.
Summit is currently hugely busy with multiple live dates ahead of him. He also announced this week that he will be releasing his debut album, Comfort In Chaos, on 12 July, per Billboard.

READ MORE: “It was like a beam came out of heaven and dropped this beautiful song”: Vocalist Dan Tyminski reflects on Avicii’s Hey Brother as it hits 1 billion streams

The project follows on from a series of huge sets from Summit, including performing twice on both weekends of Coachella. He also has a headlining show booked at Madison Square Garden on 29 June, plus 26 other club and festival dates ahead this summer and autumn.
Due to his busy career, a comment on Summit’s TikTok saw a user suggesting he will “crash out like Avicii”. Summit called this out as “disrespectful”, responding: “Please stop making this comparison, it’s really extremely disrespectful. Avicii was an incredible artist and incredibly inspiring to me, and if there’s any way to honour his legacy, it’s by not making those same mistakes.”
He concludes, “It’s just really really getting on my nerves. It’s not the easiest life I live, but I really fucking love it. And I really love entertaining people, and making music is my life.”

@johnsummit
Replying to @I don’t snort percs
♬ original sound – john summit

Avicii’s outstanding music career saw him achieve huge streaming numbers with hits such as Hey Brother, Levels and Wake me Up reaching numbers over one billion. After his death, his family set up The Tim Bergling Foundation, which operates under Avicii’s real name and “advocates for the recognition of suicide as a global health crisis and actively works to remove the stigma attached to suicide and mental health issues”.
In June last year, Avicii’s Wake Me Up became the highest-certified dance/electronic song in RIAA history. The 2013 track earned RIAA Diamond Certification, a milestone marking 10 million certified units sold.
The post John Summit says Avicii comparisons are “extremely disrespectful”: “If there’s any way to honour his legacy, it’s by not making those same mistakes” appeared first on MusicTech.

Data of 560 million Ticketmaster customers reportedly obtained in large-scale hackLast week, the US Department of Justice announced it would be suing Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which may potentially lead to the breakup of Ticketmaster and Live Nation. The court case comes in a bid to stop the companies monopolising the live music industry – and a recent security breach is proving one other downside of the two companies controlling the live music market.
With a centralised market, most gig goers are forced to purchase their tickets through Ticketmaster or Live Nation, meaning that the sites process millions of users’ data each day. Unfortunately, this had lead to the ShinyHunters hacker group being particularly eager to attack Ticketmaster’s servers.

READ MORE: Opinion: AI won’t replace music producers anytime soon — but many need to adapt

Allegedly, the group have illegally obtained 1.3 TB of customer data. Hackread reports that the security breach has compromised the personal data of 560 million users. The data breach includes “full names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, ticket sales and event details, order information, and partial payment card data.”
According to Hackread, the customer data is currently up for sale on the dark web for $500,000.
This isn’t the first time the notorious ShinyHunters have enacted a cyber attack on a huge company; the hackers have also previously compromised both AT&T Wireless and Microsoft servers. The FBI have previously attempted to stop the hackers by seizing and shutting down their forum, but ShinyHunters quickly reclaimed their domain.
Speaking to Hackread, ShinyHunters revealed that they have attempted to contact Ticketmaster regarding the breach. As of right now, the hackers are yet to receive a response.
However, Christopher Budd, a threat researcher at cybersecurity firm Sophos, believes that we shouldn’t immediately believe everything ShinyHunters are claiming.
“Right now, since we only have the attackers’ words to go on,” he tells Cyber Daily, “it’s too early to make any firm statements about whether there was a breach and what, if any, data was stolen. While there allegedly are new data in the dump, there is also older info, meaning it could be a series of concatenated data.”
“Regardless of whether the breach is legitimate, the attackers have been successful in drawing attention to a criminal forum that was recently taken down,” he continues. “As with many take downs like this, we often see the sites rebooted, so organisations should never let their guard down.”
The post Data of 560 million Ticketmaster customers reportedly obtained in large-scale hack appeared first on MusicTech.

Gothic Storm Trailer Scoring Competition Gothic Storm are running a competition that challenges composers to score a trailer exclusively with a free sound pack download. 

Organic Instruments releases Ukulele, a FREE instrument for Elemental Player
Developer Organic Instruments has released Ukulele, a free instrument for Elemental Player. You may remember the introduction of Elemental Player, a free virtual instrument player for macOS and Windows, around November 2023. Since then, Organic Instruments, the creator of Elemental Player, has released a few free libraries, like Felted Piano, Glockenspiel, and Ukulele. Ukulele is [...]
View post: Organic Instruments releases Ukulele, a FREE instrument for Elemental Player