ICQ era is over. I remember the days when I used dial-up modem: public chat boards, ICQ messenger, mp3 file download whole night, etc. Internet was different those days. I have met really great people

Master & Dynamic’s MW09 are premium wireless earbuds with a stunning battery lifeAluminium case £319, kevlar case £369, masterdynamic.com
Master & Dynamic, based out of New York, has always prioritised quality over quantity. As such, its relatively small lineup of audio products has won over many audio pros as well as everyday listeners.

READ MORE: JLab Epic Lab Edition earbuds boast crisp highs and deep bass but basic EQ leaves gritty mids

The latest generation of its MW series wireless earbuds builds on earlier successes but also enters a crowded market with many companies having got in on the act. A couple of generations in, can they still stand out?
This reviewer has a long-serving pair of MW07s that are still going strong, and tested the MW08s on their launch which saw a big change to the design of the case. The MW09s have a similar case to their predecessor but a significant weight saving has been achieved and though the case is still very robust it is much lighter than before – 50g to its predecessor’s 81g. This makes an appreciable difference when you factor in the other things you carry around, and is very welcome.
MW09 right earbud
The cases and buds come in a range of colours, all very modern and stylish, and there’s a kevlar case option that adds £50 to the price – our review pair had the aluminium case. The buds themselves are very light, secure and comfortable, with a choice of seven pairs of tips. There’s also splash resistance for the buds and case so taking them on a run shouldn’t be an issue.
Despite the weight-saving, M&D has dramatically increased the battery life and you now get up to 16 hours in the buds (or 12 with ANC on) and an extra 32 in the case, for a total of 48 hours. There’s USB-C charging for the case that gives you 50% in 20 minutes and 100% in 60 minutes via a cable. Or pop it on a wireless charger and you’ll get 50% in 70 minutes and 100% in 160 minutes. A quick five-minute charge will also give you up to two hours of listening in an emergency. These numbers easily beat Apple’s Airpods Pro 2 with their six hours of listening time in the buds and 30 in the case. In practice, battery life like this means you will never really run out of juice if you remember to just drop the case on a wireless mat every few days.
Connecting the buds is simple and they have multipoint support, meaning you can switch for example between your phone and your laptop without re-pairing. A range of 100 feet means we’re able to wander between rooms without ever losing signal from our desktop Mac. Bluetooth 5.4 is supported as are multiple codecs including AptX Lossless up to 16-bit / 44.1 kHz, AptX Adaptive up to 24-bit / 96 kHz and AptX Adaptive for low latency gaming. As ever, Apple users only get the basic AAC and SBC codecs whilst Android users may be able to take advantage of the higher bitrates.
MW09 sound settings on the Connect app
M&D’s Connect app for mobile devices lets you manage settings and while there’s not the galaxy of tweaks you get with some apps, there’s everything you really need. One thing you’ll want to do is run the acoustic seal test to optimise the noise cancelling for your particular ear canals – out of the box we find even the max level of ANC isn’t quite as strong as we’d hoped for, however running the test seemed to tighten it up.
Adaptive ANC did a good job of modifying cancelling levels as we navigated the tube network, and Ambient mode provided useful pass-through for when walking in public. ‘All Day’ ANC is a mode for quieter environments though we personally prefer our cancelling nice and total. All this is powered by a six-microphone array with wind reduction that also enables the AI-enhanced talk mode, providing one of the clearest phone call experiences we’ve ever had on wireless earbuds. The buds use buttons for interaction rather than touch surfaces, which helps prevent accidental triggering in our experience.
M&D has always been about the sound quality and here the MW09s don’t disappoint. One thing that surprised us however was that these are the first M&D model we’ve found necessary to use EQ with. The app provides some presets as well as a manual five-band equaliser; out of the box we find the buds a little on the bassy side, with the mid and upper-mid ranges slightly lacking. This was easily remedied by using the ‘audiophile’ EQ preset or indeed dialling in a little more mid in the manual section which really brought things back into balance and added a lot of life to the sound.
MW09 in use
Your ears will have their own preferences of course – you may prefer a different treatment. When you have tuned them to your liking you’ll find the custom-designed 11 mm beryllium drivers deliver a rich and warm soundstage, tackling the nuances of neoclassical music just as well as the punch and drive of drum’n’bass. While lesser wireless buds can sometimes remind you that you saved a few quid on them by sounding or feeling a bit lacklustre, the MW09s sound natural, sweet and powerful.
To return to our initial question – these buds do indeed stand out in a crowded field. They’re beautifully designed and built, putting the popular Sony WF-1000MX5s, Bose QuietComfort 2 and even AirPods Pro 2 in the shade in terms of looks and build quality. They also comfortably outclass all three (admittedly less expensive) models in terms of battery life, though the Bose has slightly better ANC. There’s also none of the spatial and head tracking stuff you get from Apple but that will only be a dealbreaker for some listeners.
Despite our mild surprise at having to make an EQ tweak which we haven’t had to do before with M&D gear, the MW09s still offer superlative sound, just perhaps with that one extra step. Battery life is excellent, recharging is quick and they’re lighter than the previous generation while significantly extending playback. The cancelling is very good and if not perhaps best in class, certainly adequate for all but the very noisiest environments.
Most of all though it’s the playback that gets you. There are buds around the £230 mark that come close and even offer a wider range of features, but can’t touch the MW09s for sheer fidelity.
Back of MW09 earbud
Key features

11 mm beryllium drivers
48 hours total battery life
USB-C and wireless case charging
Active and adaptive noise cancelling
Six-microphone array
AI-powered voice clarity
Companion app with manual and preset EQs
Bluetooth 5.4 with multipoint connectivity
AptX Adaptive up to 24-bit, 96kHz codec
Splash proof

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Cristiano Ronaldo unveils 4th NFT collection with Binance despite $1B lawsuitThe collection will launch on 29 May with fixed pricing across most items.

ICQ Will Shut Down On June 26 This YearIn many ways, ICQ has always been a bit of a curiosity. It was one of the first major instant messenger clients of the 1990s. It saw broad uptake alongside the likes of AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger. Yet, it outlasted both of them despite not being attached to an industrial juggernaut like AOL or Microsoft. After 27 years, however, it seems that the last petal will drop, with the shutdown of ICQ announced on the ICQ website for June 26, 2024.
Originally launched by an Israeli company, Mirabilis, in June of 1996, it took the Internet by storm, leading to AOL buying Mirabilis in June of 1998. Under the wing of AOL, ICQ kept growing its user base until it was sold to Digital Sky Technologies (now VK, which operates Mail.ru) in 2010. Around this time, the likes of Facebook and Google, with their own messaging solutions, came onto the scene, leaving ICQ to flounder. Ultimately, ICQ found a new home in the Russian market as a mobile messaging system until its imminent shutdown. Users are urged to move to the VK Messenger instead.

The demise of ICQ obviously led to a blast of nostalgia on sites like Hacker News, even though it has lost relevance in the West for many years. We’re sad to see this chapter end and will mourn the demise of our UINs (RIP, 61007952) along with our fellow compatriots in the usual IRC channels.
This is what happens when you depend on the grid. Going off the grid doesn’t have to look homemade, either.

How Do You Fill The 1N34 Void?The germanium point contact diode, and almost every semiconductor device using germanium, is now obsolete. There was a time when almost every television or radio would have contained one or two of them, but the world has moved on from both analogue broadcasting and discrete analogue electronics in its lower-frequency RF circuitry. [TSBrownie] is taking a look at alternatives to the venerable 1N34A point-contact diode in one of the few places a point-contact diode makes sense, the crystal radio.
In the video below the break, he settles on a slightly more plentiful Eastern European D9K as a substitute after trying a silicon rectifier (awful) and a Schottky diode (great in theory, not so good in practice). We’ve trodden this path in the past and settled on a DC bias to reduce the extra forward voltage needed for a 1N4148 silicon diode to conduct because, like him, we found a Schottky disappointing.
The 1N34 is an interesting component, and we profiled its inventor a few years ago. Meanwhile, it’s worth remembering that sometimes, we just have to let old parts go.

Families of Uvalde shooting victims sue Activision and MetaThe families of victims of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas are suing Activision and Meta, as well as gun manufacturer Daniel Defense. The families bringing the lawsuits are represented by attorney Josh Koskoff, who previously won a settlement from Remington for the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims. The suit against […]
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Ocean Plate Is A FREE Plate Reverb Plugin by Lotus Sounds
Developer Lotus Sounds has released Ocean Plate, a free reverb plugin for Windows and Mac. Who doesn’t love a new reverb plugin? I’m prone to downloading and testing quite a few, and this is likely one of my favorite effects to add a track. That aside, my plugin folder always has room for a new [...]
View post: Ocean Plate Is A FREE Plate Reverb Plugin by Lotus Sounds

WOMEX 24 legacy programme announced Manchester Music City, the host partner for WOMEX 24 have announced further details of their legacy programme, WE, THE LEADERS.

Spot ETH ETFs approved, crypto bill passes US House, and more: Hodler’s Digest, May 19-25U.S. SEC approves spot Ether ETFs, FIT21 crypto bill goes to the Senate, and Sam Bankman-Fried held in Oklahoma.

Scarlett Johansson brought receipts to the OpenAI controversyWelcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. OpenAI announced this week that it’s removing Sky, one of the voices used by its new GPT-4o model, after users found it sounded eerily similar to Scarlett Johansson’s AI character […]
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How A DOS Format Blunder Revealed Some Priceless Source CodeAs those of us who worked in the consumer software world back when physical media was king can attest, when a master disc has been sent for duplication and distribution there is no turning back from whatever code is in the hands of thousands of users. Usually such worries were confined to bugs or inadvertently sending out pre-release software versions, but [Lance Ewing] is here with the story of how Sierra On-Line once inadvertently released most of the source code for their game engine.
If you have some 720k floppy disk versions of the 1988 game Space Quest II, the first disk in the set appears to have nothing out of the ordinary, but a closer look reveals that the free space on the disk reported by DOS is greater than its used space. Diving in to the disk block contents with a hex editor reveals that many of the unused blocks in fact contain C code, and some further detective work allows the recovery of a not-quite complete set of source files for the company’s AGI, or adventure game interpreter. They had been left behind when the original master disk had been emptied by deleting them, rather than by formatting it afresh.
In commercial terms this would in 1988 have been something of a disaster for Sierra had it been discovered at the time, because it was the cornerstone of their success. As it was we’re told the code sat peacefully undetected until 2016, since when it has proved invaluable to those interested in computer game archaeology. Or did it? We’ll never know if a sharp-eyed competitor snagged it, and kept quiet.
Of course, these days, there are game engines that are open source. Some of them are very modern. Others… not so much.

Function Loops Releases FREE Tech House Drums Plugin
Function Loops has released a new free drum machine plugin called Tech House Drums for Mac and Windows. Function Loops has previously released many sample packs, of all kinds, for EDM, psytrance, trap, hyperpop, you name it. They also released a free Psytrance Bass ROMpler plugin. If you’re a fan of their previous releases, it’s time [...]
View post: Function Loops Releases FREE Tech House Drums Plugin

A Look At 3D Printed Shoes: Hybrid, Fully Printed and Plain WeirdIn the eternal quest to find more things to do with 3D printers, shoes have been in the spotlight for a while now. But how practical is additive manufacturing in this field really?
Adidas Ultra 4D running shoes with 3D printed midsole.
This is where [Joel Telling] of the 3D Printing Nerd YouTube channel puts in his two cents, with a look at a range of commercial and hobbyist ideas and products. Naturally, the first thing that likely comes to mind at the words ‘3D printed shoes’ is something akin to the plastic version of wooden clogs, or a more plastic-y version of the closed-cell resin of Crocs.
First on the list are the white & spiky Kaiju Gojira shoes from Fused Footwear, printed from TPE filament to order. TPE is softer to the touch and more flexible than TPU, but less durable. In contrast the Adidas Ultra 4D running shoes (from their 4D range) are a hybrid solution, with a standard rubber outsole, 3D printed midsole with complex structures and mostly fabric top part. Effectively a Nike Air in initial impression, perhaps.
Meanwhile ‘3D printed’ shoes ordered off Chinese store Shein turned out to be not 3D printed at all, while [Joel] seems to be really into fully 3D printed shoes from Zellerfeld, who appear to be using TPU. While it’s hard to argue about taste, the Adidas shoes might appeal to most people. Especially since they’d likely let your feet breathe much better, a fact appreciated not only by yourself, but also family members, roommates and significant others. So which of these (partially) 3D printed shoes would you pick, or do you have some other favorite?

Last Week in D.I.Y. & Indie Music: Synching lyrics • TikTok’s Fan Spotlight • Music Marketing • MoreLast week, our tips and advice for the independent, do-it-yourselfers out there covered how to prepare for a music marketing meeting, how to make the most from live gigging, and much. Continue reading
The post Last Week in D.I.Y. & Indie Music: Synching lyrics • TikTok’s Fan Spotlight • Music Marketing • More appeared first on Hypebot.

New music industry’s week in review: Live Nation vs DoJ • Sony vs AI • Songwriters vs Spotify • MoreIt was a busy week by any definition, and the music industry was no exception. The US DoJ announced that they want to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster, Sony. Continue reading
The post New music industry’s week in review: Live Nation vs DoJ • Sony vs AI • Songwriters vs Spotify • More appeared first on Hypebot.