NEW RESOURCES

Music Ally: Metallica Black Box is the band’s online memorabilia museum. “Metal veterans Metallica are diving back into their history with the launch of the Metallica Black Box. It’s an online museum of memorabilia curated by the band, including all manner of photos from their personal collections.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Spotify launches lyrics feature globally for free and paying users. “Today, Spotify is finally rolling out its real-time lyrics feature globally, after previously only offering it in a limited selection of countries. The lyrics themselves are provided by Musixmatch, which claims to offer lyrics for ‘over 8 million’ titles. and will be accessible on basically every platform where Spotify has an app.”

Ars Technica: Google Play website gets its first redesign in years, looks like a big app. “While the Play Store app on Android devices is continually updated, the website has mostly been forgotten. The current Google Play website design dates back to 2013. The site has had some small tweaks since then, but the bones of the site are still eight years old, and it presents content in a card motif that Google has moved on from. The new website looks just like the Android app. That means lots of whitespace and a layout focused on app icons and video thumbnails.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: 5 best free photo layout apps . “Photo layout apps, which can help you quickly and easily create attractive photo collages and montages, are an absolute godsend for those of us who aren’t conveniently blessed with mad Photoshop skills. After testing dozens of them, we can now bring you, in alphabetical order, the five best free photo layout apps out there.”

MakeUseOf: The Best Two-Way Walkie Talkie Apps for Android and iPhone . “Unless you’re a security guard or the foreman on a construction site, you probably haven’t used a walkie talkie since you were a kid. Yet the idea of instant voice chat with individuals or groups is still pretty compelling. There are heaps of free Android and iPhone walkie talkie apps that give you a fun chatting experience. Let’s take a look at them.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Irish News: Teachers demand action against abusive TikTok videos. “TEACHERS are demanding that social media companies take firm action to remove all videos which abuse school staff. The call came as the PSNI warned pupils that setting up false TikTok profiles for schools could ‘quickly escalate’ and lead to criminal offences.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Iran-backed hackers accused of targeting critical US sectors. “Hackers linked to the Iranian government have been targeting a ‘broad range of victims’ inside the United States, including by deploying ransomware, according to an advisory issued Wednesday by American, British and Australian officials.”

BuzzFeed News: Trolls Targeted BTS Fan Accounts With Phony Copyright Claims To Get Them Booted Off Twitter. “BTS fans were inundated with copyright infringement notices that got their accounts booted off Twitter — but the complaints didn’t come from the chart-topping K-pop group. Instead, a Facebook group of trolls, who are based in Bangladesh and called themselves ‘Team Copyright,’ weaponized these nuisance claims as a tactic for censorship and harassment.”

Bloomberg: Sonos Case Against Google Gets Closer Scrutiny by ITC. “A U.S. trade agency is taking a closer look at Sonos Inc.’s claims that Alphabet Inc.’s Google infringes patents for home audio systems and is considering whether to shut some Google smart home devices, phones and laptops out of the U.S. market.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Straits Times: Singapore: Government to invest additional $180 mil. to accelerate AI research . “Two new public artificial intelligence (AI) programs have been launched as part of the republic’s strategy to use the technology to effect social and economic good. These come as Singapore allocates an additional $180 million to accelerate AI research, on top of the $500 million it has committed to it so far.”

WebMD: Teen Social Media Posts About Cutting, Self-Harm Are Soaring. “American teens are increasingly turning to the social media giant Instagram to share graphic images of their own attempts to harm themselves, a new study reveals.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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