Here’s what happened in crypto todayNeed to know what happened in crypto today? Here is the latest news on daily trends and events impacting Bitcoin price, blockchain, DeFi, NFTs, Web3 and crypto regulation.

Watch Duty was downloaded 2 million times during this week’s LA firesFire-tracking app Watch Duty has become a crucial source of information for Los Angeles residents threatened by the ongoing wildfires.  As TechCrunch’s Maxwell Zeff explained, the app relies on a network of active and retired firefighters, first responders, official government reports, and volunteer reporters who monitor radio scanners to offer real-time updates on active wildfires. […]
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Gaming Table has Lights, ActionWe couldn’t decide if [‘s] Dungeons and Dragons gaming table was a woodworking project with some electronics or an electronics project with some woodworking. Either way, it looks like a lot of fun.
Some of the features are just for atmosphere. For example, the game master can set mood lighting. Presets can have a particular light configuration for, say, the woods or a cave.
But the table can also be a game changer since the game runner can send private messages to one or more players. Imagine a message saying, “You feel strange and suddenly attack your own team without any warning.”

A series of ESP32 chips makes it possible. The main screen has an IR touch frame, and the players have smaller screens. The main screen shows an HTML interface that lets you set initiatives, send messages, and control the lighting. Each player also has an RFID reader that the players use to log in.
The ESP32 chips use ESP-NOW for simplified networking. Of course, you could just have everyone show up with a laptop and have some web-based communications like that, but the table seems undeniably cool.
Usually, when we see a gaming table, the table itself is the game. If we were building a D&D table, we might consider adding a printer.

Usagi’s PDP-11 Supercomputer and Appeal for Floating Point Systems InfoWith an exciting new year of retrocomputing ahead for [David Lovett] over at the Usagi Electric YouTube channel, recently some new hardware arrived at the farm. Specifically hardware from a company called Floating Point Systems (FPS), whose systems provide computing features to assist e.g. a minicomputer like [David]’s PDP-11/44 system with floating point operations. The goal here is to use a stack of 1980s-era FPS hardware to give the PDP-11/44 MIMD (multiple instructions, multiple data) computing features, which is a characteristic associated with supercomputers.
The FPS hardware is unfortunately both somewhat rare and not too much documentation, including schematics, has been found so far. This is where [David] would love some help from the community on finding more FPS hardware, documentation and any related information so that it can all be preserved.
FPS itself was acquired by Cray in 1991, before SGI took over Cray Research in 1996. As is usual with such acquisitions, a lot of older information tends to get lost, along with the hardware as it gets tossed out over the years by companies and others. So far [David] has acquired an FPS-100 array processor, an interface card for the PDP-11 and an FPS-3000, the latter of which appears to be a MIMD unit akin to the FPS-5000.
Without schematics, let alone significant documentation, it’s going to be an uphill battle to make it all work again, but with a bit of help from us retrocomputer enthusiasts, perhaps this might not be as impossible after all.

Audio Sprockets update ToneDexter II With the latest version of its software installed, the ToneDexter II now includes a built-in reverb processor and offers a greater selection of source configurations. 

Here’s what happened in crypto todayNeed to know what happened in crypto today? Here is the latest news on daily trends and events impacting Bitcoin price, blockchain, DeFi, NFTs, Web3 and crypto regulation.

Researchers open source Sky-T1, a ‘reasoning’ AI model that can be trained for less than $450So-called reasoning AI models are becoming easier — and cheaper — to develop. On Friday, NovaSky, a team of researchers based out of UC Berkeley’s Sky Computing Lab, released Sky-T1-32B-Preview, a reasoning model that’s competitive with an earlier version of OpenAI’s o1 on a number of key benchmarks. Sky-T1 appears to be the first truly […]
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Blinkenlights-First Retrocomputer Design[Boz] wants to build a retrocomputer, but where to start? You could start with the computery bits, like say the CPU or the bus architecture, but where’s the fun in that? Instead, [Boz] built a righteous blinkenlights array.
What’s cool about this display is that it’s ready to go out of the box. All of the LEDs are reverse-mount and assembled by the board maker. The 19″ 2U PCBs serve as the front plates, so [Boz] was careful not to use any through-hole parts, which also simplified the PCB assembly, of course. Each slice has its own microcontroller and a few shift registers to get the bits lit up, and that’s all there is to it. They take incoming data at 9600 baud and output blinkiness.
Right now it pulls out its bytes from his NAS. We’re not sure which bytes, and we think we see some counters in there. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because it’s so pretty. And maybe someday the prettiness will lure [Boz] into building a retrocomputer to go under it. But honestly, we’d just relax and watch the blinking lights.

In Praise of Simple ProjectsHackaday was at Chaos Communication Congress last week, and it’s one of those big hacker events that leaves you with so much to think about that I’m still processing it. Just for scope, the 38th CCC is a hacker event with about 15,000 attendees from all around Europe, and many from even further. If I were to characterize the crowd on a hardware-software affinity scale, I would say that it skews heavily toward the software side of the hacker spectrum.
What never ceases to amaze me is that there are a couple of zones that are centered on simple beginner soldering and other PCB art projects that are completely full 20 hours of the day. I always makes me wonder how it is possible to have this many hackers who haven’t picked up a soldering iron. Where do all these first-timers come from? I think I’m in a Hackaday bubble where not only does everyone solder at least three times a day, some of us do it with home-made reflow ovens or expensive microscopes.
But what this also means is that there’s tremendous reach for interesting, inviting, and otherwise cool beginner hardware projects. Hands-on learning is incredibly addictive, and the audience for beginner projects is probably ten times larger than that for intermediate or advanced builds. Having watched my own son putting together one of these kits, I understand the impact they can have personally, but it’s worth noting that the guy next to him was certainly in his mid-30s, and the girl across the way was even a few years younger than my son.
So let’s see some cool beginner projects! We’d love to feature more projects that could lure future hackers to the solder-smoky side.

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CES 2025: SanDisk’s new Creator storage drives could be ideal for producers and DJsCES 2025: SanDisk has launched a range of new storage solutions for its Creator Series, with “speed, capacity, durability and portability top of mind” for the home, studio, and beyond.
According to the brand, the series features a professional-grade collection of products with vibrant colours to celebrate creativity and individuality. There are eight solutions in the range that may be of use for music makers, with two further additions aimed towards gamers inspired by the Fortnite Peely character.

READ MORE: Best DJ gear: 7 of the best USB sticks for DJs in 2024

At a glance, the Creator Series includes the following which might be useful for producers and DJs:

Phone SSD (starting at £91.99)
MicroSDTM Card (starting at £14.99)
SD UHS-II Card (starting at £49.99)
Phone Drive (starting at £39.99)
USB-C Flash Drive (starting at £24.99)
Pro Portable SSD (starting at £121.99)
Desk Drive (starting at £303.99)
PRO Dual Drive with both USB-A and USB-C (starting at £40.99)

The Creator Phone SSD, Creator microSDTM Card, and the Creator SD UHS-II Card are all apt for those who work on projects while on the move, and offer a varying range of capacities and prices to suit space and budget needs.
For those with multi-device workflows, the SanDisk Creator Phone Drive features both Lightning and USB Type-C connectors, and offers up to 256GB of storage for ease when moving important documents between devices. The SanDisk Memory Zone app on Android mobile devices can also be used to automatically back up your files. A simplified version of this is SanDisk Creator USB-C Flash Drive, which is what it says on the tin – a drive equipped with a USB Type-C connector only – and is “designed for content creators who demand performance and durability wherever they are”, with up to 1TB of storage capacity.
Taking another step up is the SanDisk Creator Pro Portable SSD, available in capacities up to 4TB, ready for ultra-demanding creative workflows. It hosts NVMe (non-volatile memory express) performance for efficiently transferring, editing, and backing up uncompressed, large files, and even AI-generated assets.
If portability isn’t an issue, then the SanDisk Creator Desk Drive might be more suited to your set up. A compact hub for creative content, this desktop SSD delivers read speeds up to 4x faster than a regular desktop hard drive. As for the speediest offering in the Creator Series lineup, the SanDisk Extreme PRO Dual Drive takes the title. With both USB-A and USB-C connectivity, this solid state flash drive is SanDisk’s fastest dual drive so far, with read speeds up to 1,000MB/s and write speeds up to 900MB/s.
While many products in the Creator Series are available now, some do not launch until spring. To find out more and view the range, head over to SanDisk. 
The post CES 2025: SanDisk’s new Creator storage drives could be ideal for producers and DJs appeared first on MusicTech.

DIY and Independent Musician News Last WeekLast week in DIY and independent musician news, readers tuned into topics including music marketing strategies for 2025, new public YouTube Audience stat, top music schools and more.
The post DIY and Independent Musician News Last Week appeared first on Hypebot.

Last week’s Top Music Business News: Spotify exposé, NIVA survey, MoreIt was a busy week by any definition and the music industry was no exception. To make sure, you didn't miss anything important we off a roundup of last week’s top music business news.
The post Last week’s Top Music Business News: Spotify exposé, NIVA survey, More appeared first on Hypebot.

Instead of Spending Big on a Pultec EQ, Try Analog Obsession’s FREE Poortec!
Who doesn’t love a Pultec EQ? However, not everyone has the budget for that particular hardware classic. If you’re light on cash after Christmas, Analog Obsession’s free Poortec is the EQ for you! On Friday, the indie dev launched the new Poortec EQ for macOS (VST3, AU, AAX) and Windows (VST3, AAX). The Poortec is [...]
View post: Instead of Spending Big on a Pultec EQ, Try Analog Obsession’s FREE Poortec!

MIRANDA LAMBERT’S MUTTNATION FOUNDATION KICKS OFF 'RELIEF FOR RESCUES' FUNDRAISERThree-time GRAMMY winner Miranda Lambert’s MuttNation Foundation, in partnership with Tractor Supply Company, announced the return of the annual Relief for Rescues fundraising event. The Relief for Rescues Fund provides financial support for shelter animals impacted by disasters such as floods, fires, hurricanes and tornadoes. From January 12 through 22, customers can donate to the Relief for Rescues Fund during checkout at any Tractor Supply store location, online at TractorSupply.com or via the Tractor Supply mobile app. Launched in 2023, the Fund has raised over $1 million and has already allocated over $600,000 to support shelter animals impacted by natural disasters. “At Tractor Supply, we’re passionate about animals and dedicated to supporting them however we can,” said Kimberley Gardiner, Tractor Supply’s chief marketing officer. “Natural disasters often leave more pets without homes and put extra pressure on shelters. That’s where the Relief for Rescues Fund comes in—it allows us to quickly provide financial support and help ease that strain. We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished so far with Miranda, MuttNation, our amazing Team Members and our customers. This year, we’re excited to keep that momentum going and make an even bigger impact together.” The fund is actively supporting the Southern California region currently impacted by ongoing wildfires and recently deployed $250,000 to provide critical assistance to 31 animal shelters and organizations across multiple states in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. The money distributed helped animal rescues access more efficient emergency response and provided food, supplies, veterinary care, transport services for displaced pets and assistance with shelter repair.  “Our Relief For Rescues Fund allows MuttNation to help shelters when they need us the most,” said Lambert. “It’s been heartbreaking to see the devastation in California unfold, and we’re grateful that our Fund and the generosity of our donors has allowed us to respond quickly. 100% of your support goes directly to those impacted by disasters.” Tractor Supply and MuttNation Foundation have collaborated since 2019 and together also support MuttNation’s Mutts Across America program, providing annual grants to animal shelters nationwide. Additionally, Tractor Supply is the exclusive home for MuttNation pet products, with a percentage of all MuttNation sales going to MuttNation Foundation to further support its mission to promote and facilitate adoption of shelter pets. To learn more, visit TractorSupply.com/MuttNation. The post MIRANDA LAMBERT’S MUTTNATION FOUNDATION KICKS OFF 'RELIEF FOR RESCUES' FUNDRAISER first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

These startups are making smarter canes for people with visual impairmentsThe white cane for the 21st century. While many tech companies have increasingly worked to make technology more accessible for the blind and visually impaired, canes haven’t benefitted much from these advances. London-born WeWalk takes a more traditional approach to the white cane. Beyond the bulkier handle, not much sets the company’s product apart visually […]
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