Malstrom reveal Wyvern saturation module Wyvern offers a wide range of stereo saturation effects, and comes equipped with a set of controls that allow users to refine the processing to avoid harsh-sounding side-effects.

Canoo reveals it paid for CEO’s jet, AT&T leaks records and X announces NSFW plansHeya, folks, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the noteworthy happenings in tech over the past several days (and change). Famed startup accelerator Y Combinator had its Demo Days, and the venture desk took it all in with an appropriately skeptical eye. You can read their day one and day two coverage, […]
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Kid’s Ride Gets Boosted Battery, ESP32 ControlThat irresistible urge to rescue an interesting piece of hardware from the trash is something that pretty much every Hackaday reader will have felt at one time or another. Sometimes it’s something that you could put to work immediately, like an old computer or some scrap piece of material that’s just the right size. But other times, you find something on the side of the road that ends up being the impetus for a whole new project.
For [David Bertet], finding a beat up kid’s Jeep Wrangler on the curb was the first step towards a journey that ends with PowerJeep: an open source project that we wager could end up saving similar vehicles from the landfill. The basic idea is simple enough — strip out the vehicle’s original 12 volt power supply and replace it with 18 V provided by easily swappable tool batteries. But as is often the case, it’s the details and the documentation that sets this project apart.

Just hacking an 18 V battery into the existing wiring and controls would probably have provided a few minutes worth of destructive fun, but not much else. So [David] approached things a bit more methodically; by adding a proper motor controller and dumping the original momentary switch “throttle” pedal for an analog version, the upgraded power from the new batteries could be properly harnessed. The addition of 12 and 3 volt regulators means the vehicle’s remaining stock electronics and accessories can be powered without letting the Magic Smoke out.
But perhaps the most exciting part of the PowerJeep project is the ESP32 that’s been added into the mix. While this project could certainly have been completed with “dumb” electronics, putting the WiFi-enabled microcontroller between the driver and the motor controller allows [David] to do things like adjust the vehicle’s maximum speed depending on whether his younger or older child is behind the wheel. He’s also able to monitor the system’s vital statistics on his phone through a slick web interface, and should the need ever arise, he can tap the big red “Emergency Stop” button to cut power in an instant.
For those looking to upgrade their kid’s ride, [David] has provided source code for the ESP32, a parts list, a wiring diagram, and even the 3D models for the few parts that needed to be printed. Naturally there’s going to be a lot of variations on this basic premise depending on which particular kiddie car you’ve got, but this project should still get you most of the way there.
If you’re looking to put even more high-tech goodies into your build, you might want to take a look at the clever traction control system we saw added to a lil’ Lambo back in 2019. You could even upgrade the frame and slip into the driver’s seat yourself, if you dare.

IRC Client on Bare MetalIn the beginning, there was the BIOS, and it was good. A PC’s BIOS knows how to set up the different hardware devices, grab a fixed part of a hard drive, load it, and run it. That’s all you need. While it might be all you need, it isn’t everything people want, so a consortium developed UEFI, which can do all the things a normal BIOS can’t. Among other things, UEFI can load code for the operating system over the network instead of from the hard drive.
In true hacker fashion, [Phillip Tennen] thought, “Does it have to be an operating system?” The answer, of course, is no. It could be an IRC client. He chose Rust to implement everything. While UEFI does provide a network stack, it isn’t very easy to use, apparently. It also provides support for a mouse. [Phillip] ported his GUI toolkit library over, and then the rest is just building an IRC client.
The client isn’t the easiest to use because, after all, this is a lark. Why would you want to do this? On the other hand, we can think of reasons we might want to take control of a UEFI motherboard and use it for something. If you want to do that, this project is a great template to jump-start your endeavors.
We’ve looked at the UEFI system a few times. Or, you can use it to play DOOM.

Warner Music will not bid to acquire Believe [Full Statement]Warner Music Group announced on Saturday that it would not bid for independent music conglomerate Believe. No specific reason was given for the shift, but WMG was granted access to Believe financial data to guide their bid two weeks ago.....
The post Warner Music will not bid to acquire Believe [Full Statement] appeared first on Hypebot.

Confirmed: Warner Music Group won’t be making a bid for BelieveThe way now appears clear for Denis Ladegaillerie consortium's takeover
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Getting It Done: The Week in D.I.Y. & Indie MusicLast week, our tips and advice for the independent, do-it-yourselfers covered how to get to know your fans better, podcasts to help with musician mental health 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 reviewLast week was a busy week by any definition; the music industry was no exception, with CD Baby and Downtown Music merging operations, Spotify changing how they allocate royalties the Records , and more.....
The post REWIND: The new music industry’s week in review appeared first on Hypebot.

KMR Audio launch hire service KMR Audio have launched a new service that makes a wide range of high-end studio gear available for short-term rental.

Harmonics DNA: Guitar instructional book Ashkan Mashhour's new book provides “a daring statement on harmonics at the junction of music, physics and cognition”.

Elon Musk says he’ll unveil a Tesla robotaxi on August 8Just hours after Elon Musk claimed Reuters was “lying” about plans to ditch its $25,000 low cost EV and instead focus all its efforts on a robotaxi, the Tesla CEO announced on X that he would reveal said robotaxi in an event on August 8. The announcement comes as Tesla EV sales have lagged and […]
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Orange County Music & Dance awarded landmark gift to expand its music education offeringsThe City of Irvine and Orange County Music & Dance (OCMD) came to a landmark agreement providing 35 acres of land for the school to develop a new 70,000 square foot campus, allowing OCMD to double its student body.  

The approval came during today’s Irvine City Council meeting. Irvine will provide OCMD with a $1 per year ground lease for its site for 50 years, with optional extensions totaling 75 years. The lease along with $91 million the City has invested in preparing the land and bringing in utilities signifies one of the largest gifts from a municipality in the U.S. 

OCMD offers the highest quality education, training and performance opportunities for K-12 students and veterans, with an endowed scholarship program that ensures that children who want to attend can do so, regardless of their financial circumstances. 

Construction is expected to begin in January 2025 and is slated to be completed by Fall 2026.  

Sharing the full announcement below and I’d be happy to connect you with OCMD’s Executive Chair and CEO Douglas Freeman, who is the founder of National Philanthropy Day, for more information on what this expansion means for students wanting to learn more about music in the region.  

Renderings of the building can be downloaded HERE! 

ESP32 Provides Distraction-Free Writing ExperienceWriting out a few thousand words is easy. Getting them in the proper order, now that’s another story entirely. Sometimes you’ll find yourself staring at a blank page, struggling to sieve coherent thoughts from the screaming maelstrom swirling around in your head, for far longer than you’d care to admit. Or so we’ve heard, anyway.
Unfortunately, there’s no cure for writer’s block. But many people find that limiting outside distractions helps to keep the mental gears turning, which is why [Un Kyu Lee] has been working on a series of specialized writing devices. The latest version of the Micro Journal, powered by the ESP32, goes a long way towards achieving his goals of an instant-on electronic notebook.
The writing experience on the Micro Journal is unencumbered by the normal distractions you’d have on a computer or mobile device, as the device literally can’t do anything but take user input and save it as a text file. We suppose you could achieve similar results with a pen and a piece of paper…but where’s the fun in that? These devices are more widely known as writerdecks, which is an extension of the popular cyberdeck concept of hyper-personalized computers.
This newest Micro Journal, which is the fourth iteration of the concept for anyone keeping score, packs a handwired 30% ortholinear keyboard, a 2.8″ ILI9341 240×320 LCD (with SD card slot), ESP32 dev board, and an 18650 battery with associated charging board into a minimalist 3D printed enclosure.
Unable to find any suitable firmware to run on the device, [Un Kyu Lee] has developed his own open source text editor to run on the WiFi-enabled microcontroller. While the distraction-free nature of the Micro Journal naturally means the text editor itself is pretty spartan in terms of features, it does  allow syncing files with Google Drive — making it exceptionally easy to access your distilled brilliance from the comfort of your primary computing device.
While the earlier versions of the Micro Journal were impressive in their own way, we really love the stripped down nature of this ESP32 version. It reminds us a bit of the keezyboost40 and the EdgeProMX, both of which were entered into the 2022 Cyberdeck Contest.

A Drone Motor Does e-BikesOn paper, the motors from both an electric bicycle and a drone can both take about 500 watts or so of power. Of course, their different applications make them anything but equivalent, as the bike motor is designed for high torque at low speed while the drone motor has very little torque but plenty of speed. Can the drone motor do the bike motor’s job? [Pro Know] makes it happen, with a set of speed reducing and torque increasing belts.
The build takes a pretty ordinary bicycle, and replaces the rear brake disk with a large pulley for a toothed belt, which drives a smaller pulley, and through a shaft another set of pulleys to the drone motor. The bracket to hold all this and the very large pulley on the wheel are all 3D printed in PLA-carbon fiber mix.
When it’s assembled, it runs the bike from a small lithium ion pack. That’s not unexpected, but if we’re honest we’d have our doubts as to whether this would survive the open road. It’s evidently a novelty for a YouTube video, and we’d be interested to see how hot the little motor became. However what’s perhaps more interesting is the choice of filament.
Could carbon fibre PLA be strong enough to print a toothed belt pulley? We’d be interested to know more. We saw the same filament combo being tested recently, after all.

From KISS’s $300m deal to Warner’s deadline for a bid on Believe… it’s MBW’s Weekly Round-UpThe five biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days…
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