NEW RESOURCES

Comicbook: Scrabble Launches Website With Free Online Play. “To celebrate International Scrabble Day (which celebrates the birthday of Scrabble creator Alfred Mosher Butts), Hasbro has announced that the popular word tile game is launching its very own website, Scrabble.com, that includes a free-to-play online version of the game. Scrabble.com will support both PvP and PvE modes along with ranked competitions. Other features include an official Scrabble word finder and dictionary, a Scrabble blog, and a moderated Scrabble forum.”

NiemanLab: A new magazine delves into the ways that people consume wrong information. “There’s a new magazine in town, one dedicated to pieces about misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and other ways that people consume wrong information. OpenMind Magazine (whose tagline is ‘tackling science controversies and deceptions’) was officially launched in mid-March and was really the result of old friends wanting to launch a magazine together.” The article notes that everything published in OpenMind Magazine is made available under a Creative Commons license, but I can’t find that information on the site itself.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Major League Baseball will stream 15 games on YouTube this season. “Like an ambitious butcher trying to cleave a dollar of meat out of a ten cent steak, Major League Baseball announced on Thursday that it is carving out a bit more of its television broadcast rights, renewing its four season-old deal for the ‘MLB Game of the Week Live on YouTube’ with the Alphabet property. But unlike other recently struck deals, these streaming exclusives will be free to watch and without local blackout restrictions.”

The Verge: The Twitter board is reportedly not interested in Elon’s takeover offer. “Twitter’s board is also reportedly considering using a ‘poison pill’ strategy to make it more difficult for Elon to acquire a large stake in the company and avoid a hostile takeover. Poison pills can, as one example, flood the market with shares once an investor acquires stock above a certain limit, making them easier to acquire for others (and costly for a single investor to buy up) when someone attempts a takeover.”

CNET: YouTube Shorts Rolls Out Ability to Sample Other Videos, Like TikTok. “YouTube is updating a feature of Shorts, the video giant’s competitor to TikTok, that lets creators ‘remix’ segments from other Shorts or YouTube video into their own posts. After introducing the ability for Shorts to sample audio from other videos, YouTube is starting to roll out the ability to sample a short video segment of any eligible YouTube video.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 8 Online Tools to Find Your Doppelgänger. “You’ve heard that each one of us has six lookalikes in this world. While this may not be entirely true, there’s no doubt that many people have doppelgängers. To be honest, we’d all like to discover who our twin is. If you, too, are curious, this guide will show you some online tools for finding your doppelgänger.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Museums Association: Sensory Journeys: creating digital storytelling sessions for children. “South Shields Museum, part of Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, launched Sensory Journeys at the end of last year, offering children and their families inclusive digital sensory story-telling sessions that are linked to local history and provide engagement with the museum’s collections. Sensory Journeys are digital audio story-telling sessions where the listener creates the sights, sounds, smells, touches and tastes to bring each story to life. Or they can just sit back, relax and listen.”

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco spent $250,000 on a database to track construction delays. Years later, it has never been used. “Three years after developing a database meant to track the performance of contractors on city construction projects, the system of checks and balances remains unused, according to a report from the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Google Chrome emergency update fixes zero-day used in attacks. “Google has released Chrome 100.0.4896.127 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, to fix a high-severity zero-day vulnerability actively used by threat actors in attacks.”

Mashable: Scammers spoof Amazon Prime Video and trick users into paying fake fees. “We all know those dreaded streaming app screens that pop up on our smart TVs just when we get comfortable on the couch, ready to watch that new latest release. Perhaps it’s an activation screen for that newly downloaded streaming app. Or maybe it’s that dastardly prompt that lets you know the app has internet connection issues. All of us can agree those screens are annoying. However, they’re also turning out to be quite lucrative for scammers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Indiana University: IU team identifies new method of measuring social optimism from Twitter. “There’s no question that 2020 was a whirlwind of a year. Humanity faced a pandemic and social unrest of historic precedence. How did these events influence our optimism toward the future? To address this question, a team of IU researchers, including faculty from the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering and IU’s Cognitive Science Program turned to Twitter.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Man of Many: Spacecraft Captures Highest Ever Resolution Image of the Sun and it’s 83-Megapixels of Insanity . “We’re told not to stare at the sun, but in this case, please feast your eyes! The highest ever resolution image of the sun’s full disc has been snapped in all its life-giving glory and is 100% worthy of The Gram (Instagram, for all you space boomers). Whether you view it as gorgeous or oddly terrifying, this is one space photo that simply can’t be missed. Although we’ve posted a close-up image below, you’ll need to download the bigger version if you want to appreciate all the filaments and flares’ in detail.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!