How the Bell System Was BuiltWe’ve often thought that while going to the moon in the 1960s was audacious, it was just the flashiest of many audacious feats attempted and accomplished in the 20th century. Imagine, for a minute, that the phone system didn’t exist today, and you stood up in front of a corporate board and said, “Let’s run copper wire to every home and business in the world.” They’d probably send you for a psychiatric evaluation. Yet we did just that, and, in the United States, that copper wire was because of the Bell system, which [Brian Potter] describes in a recent post.
The Bell company, regardless of many name changes and divisions, was clearly a very important company. [Brian] points out that in 1917, it was the second-largest company in the United States and continued to grow, eventually employing a whopping 1% of the entire U.S. workforce. That’s what happens when you have a monopoly on a product that is subject to wild demand. In 1900, Bell handled 5 million calls a day. By 1925, that number was over 50 million. In 1975, it was just shy of 500 million. If Wester Electric — just one part of Bell — was its own company, it would have been the 12th largest company in the U.S. during the 1970s.

From a technology point of view, the system was impressive in scale and rate of growth. In 1877, AT&T — the name after a restructuring — had 600 customers. A year later, it had 10,000. By 1881, that number was 100,000, and only 9 U.S. cities with more than 10,000 people lacked a phone exchange. By 1900, the 800,000 telephones in use required 2 million miles of wire!
That 2 million miles of wire had to go somewhere. New York City had hundreds of 90-foot poles, each carrying 300 wires, and people were complaining about the wires being in view. That caused AT&T to go underground. In 1888, a phone cable had 50 pairs of #18 wire. By 1939, #26 wire allowed 2,121 pairs of wires in a single cable.
Remember that the early phone system had no amplifiers. When tubes arrived, this allowed longer distances on smaller wires and radio links to reach the world. Bell’s monopoly allowed them to innovate but also hurt others who wanted to innovate.

Waves Giving Away FREE Electric 200 Piano Plugin in Limited Time Offer
Waves partnered with YouTuber and producer Sanjay C to give away the Electric 200 Piano virtual instrument for free. The plugin is a macOS and Windows release that is available for a limited time only. Sanjay C provided the link to the freebie on his Instagram bio and on YouTube, and you can access the link [...]
View post: Waves Giving Away FREE Electric 200 Piano Plugin in Limited Time Offer

Congratulations to the 2024 Business Card Challenge Winners!When you ask a Hackaday crowd to design a business card, you should expect to be surprised by what you get. But still, we were surprised by the breadth of entries! Our judges wracked their brains to pick their top ten, and then we compared notes, and three projects rose to the top, but honestly the top ten could have all won. It was a tight field. But only three of the entries get to take home the $150 DigiKey gift certificates, so without further ado…

 
Blinkencard – Pocket Altair 8800
[ajlitt] built a full retrocomputer, and a slick looking one to boot, in the size of a business card. Of course, you could run an Altair 8800 emulator on your cell phone, but without the entry buttons and real-live blinkenlights, it just wouldn’t be the same. What our judges loved most about this build was the use of an FPGA and and ESP32, for IO and storage, the reverse-mounted front PCB that doubles as a faceplate, and of course the nice 3DP bezel that hides the bodge wires from view.
BetaBoard – Tiny Particle Physics Lab
So you might have thought someone would put a retrocomputer on a business card, but a working radiation detector was not on our radar. [Tim – DJ8TK]’s entry makes use of not one, but six BPW34 PIN photodiodes, which have the benefit of being well studied in the hacker radiation detection scene. This project took a ton of design work, and our judges thought that the documentation along the way were as good as any physics lecture.
Brushless Motor and Driver Business Card Kit
And speaking of educational business card demos, [Andy Geppert]’s motor driver card not only teaches you how to wind your own coils and make a simple stepper motor, but also how to drive it. While [Andy] admits that the stepper motor design could use a few more poles for smooth operation, he also broke out the coil driver so that you can experiment by driving more professional brushless DC motors if you have them on hand. It’s a great demo, and being in a business card form factor, you can always have one on hand.
Honorable Mentions
As always, we have more awesome projects than we have prizes, so we thought we’d call out some standouts.

Wafer Thin: [Chinchilla Optional] wowed us with this amazing dead-bug style QR code made out of LEDs. You know the card is thin when the LEDs are the thickest part. [erich.styger] contributed these RFID tag cards, beautifully laser-etched and made of 1 mm thick veneer. And bridging the Utility and Wafer Thin categories, [Maave]’s credit-card sized door entry tool needs to be thin if it’s going to work. Get this cut out of thin steel, and you’ll never get locked out again.
Aesthetics: [BLANCHARD Jordan]’s Weather Card is cool on many fronts, but the resulting circuit sculpture combining the solar panel and the e-paper really won over our judges eyes with its understated form-follows-function beauty. On the opposite end of the spectrum, [Will Fox]’s Foxie CardClock 2.0 goes overboard with the color LEDs, and it looks awesome.

Madman Muntz: Earl “Madman” Muntz was famous for cutting corners by removing parts until the thing broke, and we had a couple standout ultra-minimalist entries. [Adam Billingsley]’s CH32V003 Business Card targeted a $1 price tag, and this USB-capable, capacitive-touch card pulls out all the stops to get at least in the ballpark. Amazing. [Lincoln Uehara] cut corners by getting rid of the PCB entirely, and this makes his Back-to-basics paper business card friendly for younger builders too.
Fun and Games: A business card with a working 4×4 tic-tac-toe game? [Esc]’s entry does double duty as a game and PCB design tutorial. Whether or not you should base your choice of a partner on skin resistance alone, [Un Kyu Lee]’s Doctor Love is a hilarious device, and background story. And finally, [Eontronics]’s RetroMedleyCard is an ambitious project to bring game emulation to your wallet. This project is insane, and it’s one to watch!
Utilitarian: Our last category showcases useful cards of all sorts. From [Peter]’s Pi Pico MSP430 Debug Probe and programmable 4th Calculator to [Gangwa Labs]’s reflow hotplate (!), there’s no shortage of function that you can pack into your pockets.

Thanks to Everyone!
As always, we had more awesome entries than we have space to feature. You should go check out all the entries over on Hackaday.io. And thanks again to DigiKey for sponsoring these with prizes.

Disney Music Group strikes deal with AI music startup AudioShake to ‘unlock new listening and fan engagement experiences’ for its catalogDMG to use AudioShake’s stem separation and lyric transcription tech
Source

Bandsintown’s Fabrice Sergent on The Live Music Industry PodcastFabrice Sergent, co-founder and managing partner of Bandsintown, joins Prism CEO Matt Ford on The Live Music Industry Podcast to explore how the world's largest and most comprehensive concert discovery platform helps artists, venues, and promoters build an audience while retaining control of their data and direct communications with fans.
The post Bandsintown’s Fabrice Sergent on The Live Music Industry Podcast appeared first on Hypebot.

Key Songs In The Life Of… Ole ObermannOle Obermann, Global Head of Music Development and IP at TikTok, talks us through the tracks that have shaped his life and career so far
Source

Spotify passes UMG as the world’s most valuable music companySpotify overtook Universal Music Group (UMG) to become the biggest company in the music industry based on its market capitalization in Q2 2024.
The post Spotify passes UMG as the world’s most valuable music company appeared first on Hypebot.

Link Rot: Why your Digital Links won’t last foreverUnfortunately, link deterioration, often called link rot, is inevitable. Here are some effective strategies for managing its impact on online content. by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0 Just about everyone. Continue reading
The post Link Rot: Why your Digital Links won’t last forever appeared first on Hypebot.

Akai Professional brings stem separation to its standalone MPC hardwareAkai Professional has announced that its MPC Stems feature is now available for its MPC standalone hardware.
The launch follows the arrival of stems for its desktop software, which launched back in March, and now enables stem separation directly on MPC hardware for separating bass, drums, vocals and more without need for a computer.

READ MORE: “I must say, I’m impressed with it”: Original MPC creator Roger Linn tests out Akai’s MPC Live II

This new launch marks the latest milestone for Akai Professional, opening “new avenues for creativity and production efficiency”, and making it easier for musicians to craft unique sounds and remixes on the fly.
MPC Stems utilises the advanced stem separation engine from zPlane, and Akai has optimised the interface to provide a smooth and intuitive user experience on hardware. While the desktop version still offers the fastest processing and highest fidelity, this new standalone hardware version provides the flexibility and convenience of stem separation directly on your MPC device.

MPC Stems for Standalone is compatible with the following Akai products: MPC Live series, MPC One, MPC One +, MPC X, MPC XSE, MPC Key 61, and MPC Key 37. Supported by the new 2.15 Software/Firmware update, this feature “ensures seamless integration” and enhances the user experience on all compatible MPC devices.
Here at MusicTech, we tested a range of stem separation tech to find out which works the best on vocals. We used the track Restless Mind by Steven Beddall for the test, and in all cases, the highest-quality configurations were chosen on the software. From our results, we compiled 12 of the best stem tools in a new guide, including Akai’s.
MPC Stems is available for purchase exclusively via the MPC store for $9.99 USD. ​All previous licences purchased for MPC Stem Desktop will include Stems Standalone.
Find out more over at Akai Professional.
The post Akai Professional brings stem separation to its standalone MPC hardware appeared first on MusicTech.

Layoffs expected after Universal Music UK announces plans to merge Island Records and EMIEMI Records and Island Records – two sub-labels under Universal Music UK – are set to merge as part of a new restructuring.
According to Billboard, the move will be finalised on 1 October 2024, and will result in the creation of the Island EMI Label Group.

READ MORE: Group claims Ticketmaster breach is “far bigger than previously anticipated”, with 440,000 Taylor Swift tickets reportedly stolen

Per Billboard, Universal Music UK CEO David Joseph shared news of the merger in an internal company memo on Tuesday, 9 July. In it, he revealed it would bring a number of redundancies, though the exact number was not stated.
The union of EMI and Island follows a similar recent move by Universal Music UK, when it announced the Polydor Label Group, which houses Capitol UK.
Joseph’s memo said that both the Polydor Label Group and the Island EMI Label Group will be home to multiple smaller labels, “all with creative autonomy”.
“As a company, we must continue to be forward-looking, innovative, and bold,” the memo read [via Billboard]. “Developing artists now requires more creativity and patience than ever before.”
It added that the restructure hopes to “strengthen our labels’ capabilities” while “deepening artist and fan connections”.
“We are committed to being the number one place for artists, fans and talent,” Joseph wrote. “I have an incredible appreciation for our team given what we have achieved in the past and what I know we will achieve in the future.”
The post Layoffs expected after Universal Music UK announces plans to merge Island Records and EMI appeared first on MusicTech.

MIDI Innovation Awards 2024: Finalists Announced The MIDI Association have announced the three finalists in each of the MIDI Innovation Awards' five categories.

Five Ways to Repair Broken PCB TracesWhen everything used wires, it was easy to splice them or replace them. Not so much with PC boards, but everyone has their favorite method for repairing a broken trace. [Mr. SolderFix] has his five favorite ways, as you can see in the video below.
Of course, before you can repair a trace, you probably have to expose it since most boards have solder mask now. Unless you plan to shut the trace at both ends, exposing the actual trace is probably the first step.

The first method is to just blob with solder, but we aren’t fans of that. Solder is not a great interconnect, so we nearly always put a small bit of wire over the gap, even if we might cover it with solder. That way, if the solder cracks over time, you still have a conductor as long as the solder bonds to the trace and wire. We did like that he used a blob of solder mask to cover the repair, which was a nice touch.
Of course, that isn’t going to work if you have a long delaminated trace. In particular, about two inches of a track was totally off the substrate. Here, using a wire is essential. We usually don’t bother to fit it exactly to the trace, but he is a bit more particular than we are. He used solder to model the bends in the wire and then straightened it out. That serves as a guide for how long to cut the jumper wire. He then bends the jumper to fit the trace and tacks it down with Kapton tape. It doesn’t work any better than one of our spaghetti-like repairs, but it does look better.
You’ve probably seen — or could deduce — how to do these repairs, but tips like using solder to model a trace are priceless. Some repairs have been done with copper sheets instead of wires. We didn’t see him using any conductive paint, which we’ve also had good luck with and we’ll admit we’ve covered repairs with clear nail polish rather than solder mask, but there are many possibilities, of course.
What’s your favorite method? It is harder — but not impossible — to repair boards that are completely broken. If you are a masochist, put your wires inside the board instead.

How to tell if your online accounts have been hackedThis is a guide on how to check whether someone compromised your online accounts.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Trump reportedly 'in good spirits,’ will still attend Nashville BTC conferenceBTC Inc. CEO David Bailey says he spoke with the former president’s team in the wake of the July 13 assassination attempt.

Undo Arduino Encryption with an OscilloscopeCryptography ain’t easy. Seemingly small details like how many times a computationally intensive loop runs can give the game away. [Lord Feistel] gives us a demo of how this could work with nothing more than poorly designed code, a resistor, and an oscilloscope.
The hardware side is, as mentioned, really simple. Put a resistor inline with the Arduino and monitor the voltage drop across the resistor with the scope. When the chip is working hard, it consumes more current, and code sections that take longer will show up as longer dips.
On the software end, it’s only a little more complicated.  The RSA encryption scheme involves a lot of exponentiation and modulo-taking. Here, [Lord Feistel] is targeting a naive way of computing the exponents quickly, and demonstrates how you can read the exponent straight out the chip’s power demand.
Implementing this attack against a real-world RSA algorithm, in the context of the Arduino doing other stuff, will be harder. And we don’t know if the algorithm implemented in “standard” Arduino libraries is smarter than this one. (If you know, let us know in the comments.) But still, this is a cool example of just how simple and straightforward it can be to eavesdrop on bad code.
If you only need to bypass encryption instead of breaking it, check out [Lord Feistel]’s other tutorial on power glitching that we featured previously. If you haven’t played around with the hardware side of security, it gets deep pretty quickly, but you can at least dip your toes in the shallow end with what you’ve got in your closet.