TechCrunch Mobility: Cruise robotaxis return and Ford’s BlueCruise comes under scrutinyWelcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. It was another wild week in the world of transportation, particularly in the EV startup and automated driving industries. […]
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Danish Vintage LRC Meter Reveals InsideModern test equipment is great, but there’s something about a big meter with a swinging needle and a mirror for parallax correction that makes a device look like real gear. [Thomas] shows us a Danish LCR meter (or, as it says on the front, an RLC meter). The device passes AC through the component and uses that to determine the value based on the setting of a range switch. It looks to be in great shape and passed some quick tests. Have a look at it in the video below.
An outward inspection shows few surprises, although there is an odd set of terminals on the back labeled DC bias. This allows you to provide a DC voltage in case you have a capacitor that behaves differently when the capacitor has a DC voltage across it.
Block diagram for the MM2
The circuit can measure — as the name implies — resistance, inductance, and capacitance. The manual shows a nice block diagram if you want to understand what’s going on.
Physically opening it up was a bit of a puzzle. That older gear was often well-constructed. Inside are some nice PCBs, a lot of transistors, and beautiful wiring harnesses. Someone took their time building this unit, and it shows.
Usually, when you see gear like this, it is a bridge, and you have to zero the meter, but not so with the MM2. These days, you are likely to use a microcontroller to measure the charge and discharge rate.

Erica Synths refresh Perkons HD-01 Erica Synths have announced that they are planning on releasing a new version of their latest drum machine, and will be discontinuing the current production model.

Tesla drops prices, Meta confirms Llama 3 release, and Apple allows emulators in the App StoreHeya, folks, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that recaps the past few days in tech. Google’s annual enterprise-focused dev conference, Google Cloud Next, dominated the headlines — and we had plenty of coverage from the event. But it wasn’t the only thing afoot (see: the spectacular eclipse). Lorenzo wrote about how […]
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Who’s Afraid Of A CRT?Older consumer electronic devices follow a desirability curve in which after they fall from favour they can’t be given away. But as they become rarer, they reach a point at which everyone wants them. Then, they can’t be had for love nor money. CRT TVs are now in the first stage, they’re bulky and lower-definition than modern sets, and thus thrift stores and dumpsters still have them in reasonable numbers. To retrogamers and other enthusiasts, this can be a bonanza, and when he saw a high-end late-model JVC on the sidewalk [Chris Person] wasted no time in snapping it up. It worked, but there were a few picture issues, so he set about fixing it.

The write-up is largely a tale of capacitor-swapping, as you might expect from any older electronics, and it results in a fine picture and a working TV. But perhaps there’s another story to consider there, in that not so many of us here in 2024 are used to working with CRTs. We all know that they conceal some scary voltages, and indeed, he goes to significant lengths to discharge his CRT. It’s worth remembering though, that there’s not always a need to discharge the CRT if no attempt will be made to disconnect it, after all the connector and cable to the flyback transformer are secured by hefty insulation for a good reason. It’s a subject we’ve looked at here at Hackaday in the past. You could argue that, in some ways, newer TVs are harder to get into than these old CRTs.

Delays and Timers in LTSpice (no 555)If you need a precise time, you could use a microcontroller. Of course, then all your friends will say “Could have done that with a 555!” But the 555 isn’t magic — it uses a capacitor and a comparator in different configurations to work. Want to understand what’s going on inside? [Mano Arrostita] has a video about simulating delay and timer circuits in LTSpice.
The video isn’t specifically about the 555, but it does show how the basic circuits inside a timer chip work. The idea is simple: a capacitor will charge through a resistor with an exponential curve. If you prefer, you can charge with a constant current source and get a nice linear charge.
You can watch the voltage as the capacitor charges and when it reaches a certain point, you know a certain amount of time has passed. The discharge works the same way, of course.
We like examining circuits for learning with a simulator, either LTSpice or something like Falstad. It is easier than breadboarding and encourages making changes that would be more difficult on a real breadboard. If you want a refresher on LTSpice or current sources, you can kill two birds with one stone.

Getting It Done: The Week in D.I.Y. & Indie MusicThis week, our tips and advice for the independent, do-it-yourselfers out there covered how to use Amazon’s new Hype Deck marketing tool, how to perfect your next pitch, and more…
The post Getting It Done: The Week in D.I.Y. & Indie Music appeared first on Hypebot.

REWIND: The new music industry’s week in reviewIt was a busy week by any definition, and the music industry was no exception with the launch of a new superfan app called “EVEN,” ShowUp announced its yearly activism. Continue reading
The post REWIND: The new music industry’s week in review appeared first on Hypebot.

Audible Planets Is A FREE Semi-Modular Synth Plugin
Audible Planets is an expressive, quasi-Ptolemaic semi-modular synthesizer for Windows, Mac, and Linux. I’ve previously mentioned my love of VCV Rack and other modular software environments. For example, I’m a big fan of miRack and Audulus on the iPad. So naturally, when I hear about a new environment that allows for decidedly eccentric takes on [...]
View post: Audible Planets Is A FREE Semi-Modular Synth Plugin

XO Variable Crossover from Great Eastern FX Co. XO Variable Crossover has been designed to provides users with a way of extracting new sounds from their existing pedals. 

API startup Noname Security nears $500M deal to sell itself to AkamaiAkamai Technologies is in advanced acquisition talks with Noname Security, an API cybersecurity startup, according to a people person familiar with the deal.
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OPPS: CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL MUSIC COMPETITION AND FESTIVALWe are thrilled to announce that the 7th Chicago International Music Competition and Festival will take place from July 17 to 25, 2024 in Chicago, USA. Musicians from all over the world are encouraged to apply and participate at Ganz Hall for a chance at $35,000 in total prize money. Our competition provides young musicians with the most unique and affordable platform to learn from the world's top artists and be immersed in an inspiring environment. Deadline for competition entry is April 15, 2024. Apply at https://www.cimcusa.org/index.mhtml

Analog vs. digital drum sound design: The definitive guide
In this in-depth tutorial, we break down the unique workflows, benefits, and drawbacks of analog and digital drum sound design.

HDMI DDC Keypad Controls Monitor From RackSometime last year, [Jon Petter Skagmo] bought a Dell U3421WE monitor. It’s really quite cool, with a KVM switch and picture-by-picture support for two inputs at the same time. The only downside is that control is limited to a tiny joystick hiding behind the bezel. It’s such a pain to use that [Jon] doesn’t even use all of the features available.
[Jon] tried ddcutil, but ultimately it didn’t work out. Enter the rack-mounted custom controller keyboard, a solution which gives [Jon] single keypress control of adjusting the brightness up and down, toggling picture-by-picture mode, changing source, and more.
How does it work? It uses the display data channel (DDC), which is an I²C bus on the monitor’s HDMI connector. More specifically, it has a PIC18 microcontroller sending those commands via eight Cherry MX-style blues.
Check this out — [Jon] isn’t even wasting one of the four monitor inputs because this build uses an HDMI through port. The finished build looks exquisite and fits right into the rack with its CNC-routed aluminium front panel. Be sure to check it out in action after the break.
Ever wonder how given keyboard registers the key you’re pressing? Here’s a brief history of keyboard encoding.

Taylor Swift has a laudable history of standing up to Big Tech in the name of artist compensation. By embracing TikTok in 2024, she’s broken ranks with that narrative.When Swift grappled with Apple in 2015, she noted that the fight was "not about me" – it was about other artists. The TikTok situation is the exact opposite.
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